What are you talking about? Theatres and ghosts go hand in hand with each other.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Marius Landvik
Race: Human
Age: 45
Current residence: Lakehurst, New Jersey
Final Word Count: 751 words
 

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At times, when I speak with certain clients, I am left to shake my head as to their behaviour. Not that it is out there, not that it is completely incomprehensible, but there are days when I feel as though I am learning something new about someone and it makes me wonder.

Most of these discoveries are harmless and actually lead to a smile and a quiet little story to share with others, other stories, however, make me wonder. Not that I worry much about my safety; there’s no reason to worry about my safety, I know very well that I am absolutely safe when it comes to this, but I wonder as to the kind of life that some of these clients have had.

I don’t know whether or not I believe in the presence of the other side. A whole world filled with ghosts and other entities that we might never truly be able to even see due to their natures. What I do know, mostly from hearing others talk and from reading things as I grew up, is that if such a thing were to be true, there would be depth to that world, layers, much like our own.

As is, belief in things like these just isn’t something I spend much time thinking about. From a young age, I was raised with other things to worry about. I had a focused goal in life and while I have not solely kept my focus on this—that would have led me to be a very lonely man—I still have put a good bit of my focus on work and making certain, once it was a possibility, that myself and those who meant the world to me were well taken care of.

So, to believe in ghosts and after-death entities—to not believe in other things relating to a world of fantasy—isn’t very high on my list of things that I would give a lot of thought to. What good would it do me?

I was talking with a client recently, however. We were looking through a photo catalogue that a partner had sent me from overseas. I’m not sure how the subject itself came to the surface as nothing we were looking for even hinted at the subject in question, but he mentioned that ghosts and theatres went hand in hand. There was not a single old theatre anywhere that did not have its ghost, if not its fair share of them. I might have only indulged him a little in whatever it was that he wanted to believe in as he was a client, but it left me confused.

The only thing I got out of that particular discussion was a reminder that it had been quite some time since we’d last gone to see a play or even an opera. Strange as it might sound—though it might not sound that strange, I might be out of touch a bit with what others consider strange anymore—I do like going to plays, operas, or ballet. I feel as though they are a fairly well-refined part of life and should be enjoyed.

Ghosts in theatres. It still makes me shake my head to think about it. I know that it does no harm for people to think these things; it is only part of life. If they want to believe particular places haunted, more power to them, so long as it doesn’t consume them utterly and make them unable to function or anything else of the sort.

I’ve met others who were so focused on these little beliefs of theirs that it had taken over their entire lives. They had lost touch with reality altogether, wanting little more than to prove that they were right and just, it’s such a strange thing to think about. I don’t know how anyone could manage that kind of life.

I do not have a few tickets for outings scattered over until the end of the year for us to go to. That might truly be the only upside to that particular client meeting as it was otherwise a complete waste of time. He had no interest in all I had to offer him, and he walked out without so much as a glance backward. I cannot imagine that I will hear from him again. Not that this is much of an issue; there are plenty of other interested parties in the sea and he was but one of them.

None of this makes sense and it’s a waste of time to try.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Marius Landvik
Race: Human
Age: 43
Final Word Count: 676 words
 

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As someone who claims to spend very little time thinking about the past, I have found myself plagued with dreams—nightmares, at times, though mostly dreams—of the time before; of when she was in my life; of the times when I might have been happy with her at my side though not all dreams are good ones.

The nightmares are rare and usually never centre on her, but they centre on her inability to act as a proper mother. They tend to centre on my son being buried alive. Something I did not directly witness but still had to handle with the utmost care because that was the only way to work our way through that particular situation.

Most of the dreams, however, seem to go back to a time when we were both young, so young. Not that I am old now, I don’t feel old and I know I am not yet. It just feels like a lifetime ago. When we’d just met, we still were too young to know better, too young to understand life though with the way I’d been raised, I felt as though I had a certain grasp of what life was expecting from me. That’s not to say I knew everything and was wise beyond my years but I feel as though I still might have known more about the world than she did.

One particular dream brings me back to one of our first dates, neither one of us had picked the spot as we even had a chaperone. I remember that we went to a sort of museum, one that boasted puzzles and mind-bending illusions. It seems odd that, at this point, I can no longer remember where that museum might have been, though I remember that particular date.

I was fond of puzzles and I remember looking forward to the outing, as I think I saw it more as an outing than a date, but Sonja was going at it backwards, she was huffy about the whole situation and had wanted to get some shopping done. In the dream, much as in my memory, I remember that I had managed to convince her to try at least a few things and she seemed to be having fun, at least for a while. When we made it to one particular room and a new sort of puzzle, she started muttering about how none of it was making sense and it was going to be a waste of time to try and puzzle through it. Not wanting to argue with her, we skipped that one and moved to others, further in the same room and in other rooms.

I remember going home; I remember telling my grandfather how proud I was of all the puzzles I’d solved but that Sonja had not appreciated them at all. The little scoffing sound he made still remains with me after all of this time and I couldn’t really understand it just then. I do now, of course, but it’s too late for me to do much of anything about it, really.

The sad part is that I don’t remember ever going back to that museum; in a way, I wish I would have, mostly so I could have tried my hand at the puzzle we’d had to skip through because she no longer had been in the mood. It had seemed so just interesting to me, back then. I was young, of course, it’s possible that going back now, I would realize just how silly it might have been but it still is one of those memories that I feel might be bittersweet. I had a good time, out there, but I think I would have had a better time if she hadn’t been with me, on that day.

I don’t know why I have this dream of that particular memory, but it hardly matters. I don’t even remember where that museum might have ever been, in the end. Only that would have made this memory worth it.

You know I hate these guessing games. You’re wasting my time.

 
Timeline/World: Alternate Earth – Family Stays Together
Characters: Marius Landvik
Race: Human
Age: 42
Final Word Count: 650 words
 

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Life with Sonja was… something.

It wasn’t bad at first, though. I thought I was doing the right thing in marrying her and she had shown no signs of being unable to take care of Sven after we divorced but I should have known better. I should have seen the signs, the red flags, the everything. I didn’t.

I don’t spend much time looking into my past; I don’t think it would really serve any purpose. What’s done is done; she’s out of mine and Sven’s life. I just wish I had moved a little faster and I would have kept him from the horrors of being buried alive. I’m just grateful Dane got to him in time.

That’s when everything happened, as is. That was the last time the boy was ever with his mother and it’s for the best because I think I would have ripped her head right off myself at that point for how poorly she’d treated him. I wish he’d opened up to me about that. I wish he’d have told me though I knew he probably didn’t want to add more stress and worries on my plate.

Again, it’s too late to go back and change things so I have to just accept that bad things happened and that I can’t do a thing about it.

I was always honest with her. I was direct, I spoke the truth, I hid nothing. I learned from my paternal grandfather that guessing games weren’t something we played in the family, no matter what. No matter that said guessing game was really just a game for a child looking to leave boredom behind, it wasn’t done. I don’t know how far back into the family line that particular mindset comes from because even my grandmother and my mother both didn’t play guessing games with me either while I was growing up.

In a way, it did shape me into the man I am now.

Smart enough to be forthcoming about things but perhaps not quite enough to not expect the same from everyone else around me. I learned that the hard way when I still was in primary school. While particular kids were lying about doing their homework and hiding things from their parents and teachers, I was the honest hardworking one and that got me bullied more than I might have ever wanted.

It didn’t change me, though. It actually made me more stubborn. Eventually, I stood up to the bullies and while it did not always work out in my favour, I guess I eventually earned their respect because, by the time I was partway through secondary school, the bullies all left me alone. I never turned to violence, though, I want to believe I was smarter than that and I used just that, my smarts.

As is, I suppose it hardly matters. Most of the people I went to school with are people I likely will never again see and I’m perfectly fine with that. Some are just gone from my life forever, like Sonja. Others have fallen off of the face of the earth, probably fallen victim to their drug addictions and others, well others just never finished school and probably will never leave the home country.

I know that a lot of people say perfection doesn’t exist but after I left behind everything that had ever tried to drag me down, I started a new life. A second chance at everything and with the beautiful, wonderful and just oh so lovely people in my life, I believe that it is as perfect as it will ever be. I’m still honest; I still speak my mind and offer what I believe to be nothing but the honest truth. I might hold back now and again or keep certain things to myself but it’s rare. I believe that one grows from learning the truth.

My headache always gets so much worse when you’re around.

Timeline/World: Alternate Earth – Family Stays Together
Characters: Marius Landvik
Race: Human
Age: 41
Final Word Count: 533 words

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Rare are the days when he thinks back to his life before but it happens once in a blue moon.

Before.

The term feels so foreign.

Before everything, before she became an absolute horror, before Sven was born, before they were married, before she entered his life. The one ‘before’ he thinks about as little as possible is the one when his husband wasn’t in his life. When Michel wasn’t his husband; when they were strangers.

There is no arguing with the fact that he loves his son. Marius would have given everything up to keep his son safe and he knows he nearly failed. The thought of that one, dark, so dark situation that was completely out of his hands still hurts to this day but the idea of Michel not being in his life makes everything seem pointless.

The thought of her, his son’s mother, makes him inwardly cringe and leaves him to wonder just how they might have ever managed to rope him into the situation. Though he knew, in a way, that he loved her. She was different before. She was something else entirely. When they separated, he should have taken custody of Sven, this he knows, but she hadn’t shown signs of wanting to mistreat the boy yet and he believed that perhaps she could have been a good mother to the boy.

He really should have followed his instinct as it told him that she was not fit. Every time he was in her presence, there was a drumming in his head, the start of a headache that almost always ended up as a migraine. A migraine, however, was not a good enough reason to request custody of the child he should have raised as his own full-time and it likely is why he didn’t. Until it was nearly too late, of course.

The thought of that dark night still makes him shudder.

It just is so much easier, and it makes so much more sense, to think about the present and potential future. To think of the beautiful years he has ahead of him with his husband, to think of the vacations during which he’ll sweep Michel away—or let himself be swept away—to a place just for the two of them to enjoy peaceful and loving time together. Though they, just the same, could remain nestled in bed for a full weekend and he still would consider it a vacation. Spending time with Michel is the most soothing thing ever as far as he’s concerned and it is likely no one will ever be able to change his mind on the matter.

Looking back into the past, to what his life was before, to what and how things were, he knows that there are particular things he should have done differently, things he should have avoided or focused better on but there is no means and no way to change the past. Focusing on that will only make him lose track of the present and future and his life is about what is happening around him now and what plans he makes for the future for his loved ones. Nothing else truly matters.