Folkhavet
The Sea of People
Folkhav - swedish, meaning “crowd”, or literally “sea of people”
In the beginning of the 3rd millennium there was giving and taking in marriage and the people multiplied ever more. In one of their massings, a city on the coast, lived a boy.
He spent his time hidden away in his room. His parents, in their ebb and tide, showed him affection and love despite his peculiarities. They would, as they receded, attempt to gently pull him out of his room. His siblings would sometimes pour into the room, and could be tricky to scoop out. Besides this he was mostly left alone and had little contact with the Sea of People.
As the boy grew bigger his ideas did too. Looking out of his window at the sea, an idea grew in conviction. Because of this idea, the room started to feel crowded even when he was alone. Finally he decided, he was going to travel out to sea, he was going to travel to the coast.
But to travel he needed a vessel. The ebb and tide would bring in wood that he used to build a boat. He carved one piece of wood into an oar, and made it smooth so that no splinters would come off it when touched.
To navigate the sea he needed a map, so when the boat and oar was finished, he set out to the library, to find an atlas.
In the streets, the streams of people moved to and fro. He embarked, using his oar as a pole, traversing the sea of people in his gondola-like boat. The hands of the people waved rhythmically with the movement of the air. Soon he had the library in sight. Here the sea of people was calmer and he disembarked, tying his boat to a light post, and waded through the pool of people crawling at the entrance of the great hall.
Inside the great hall he soon found the library and the section with maps. He looked through them all, but none would give directions on the ends and bounds of the sea of people. Disheartened, he found stories to read instead, distracting himself. Most stories were stupid, or somehow unkind to him. But eventually he found a story which was kind and intelligent. It was kind enough that it offered a way out of the sea of people.
He headed home. It was getting dark and the waves of people grew larger, but after a few hours upstream he arrived. His family was stormier than usual. In the flurry of his siblings, and the pull of his parents, he could sense worry. As he gathered what he needed for his journey, stocking his boat, he felt remorse at leaving his family in such a worried state. But he felt he had to go immediately. It was as if his longing to leave had built up and now came bubbling up uncontrolled.
When he set out that same evening, it had become nighttime in the city. The edifices of the buildings lit up with bright neon and digital displays, and the people were swept by a ferocious wind in large billows, splashing against the coves of bars and clubs.
He soon gave up in steering with his oar, as the grasping hands of the sea gripped it and threatened to throw him overboard. Holding on for dear life, he attempted to tie himself to the boat, but in that same moment, the luminescent moon-like glow of the billboards was darkened as a huge wave towered over him, and before he knew it he was swept into the sea.
Flowing and tossing in the currents, he grasped at anything solid to take moments to gasp for air. Eventually he lost his strength to fight against the forces of the sea, and damning that he never had learned to swim, he sank to the bottom like a stone.
Without knowing how much time had passed, he washed ashore as a young man. He found himself in the countryside, the people that had brought him there gone.
There he was alone again, but also in peace. And in this peace he found another, a woman, who also did not move her limbs with the movements of the spirit of the air. And they were alone together.
Ifred - swedish, meaning “alone”, or literally “in peace”.