The New Year brought new dreams and new adventures to us. During the previous year, we had travelled to many places and I even saw islands, to which I had never before imagined I was going to have the possibility to go. That was only the beginning. Even though my death anxiety was not that great anymore, in my mind there was still the thought that I have to do what I have never done, before I die. We didn't want to travel anywhere else -- at least not this year.
After the beginning of 2029, I felt I wanted to spend more time at home. I knew that the countdown to our returning to Norway had already started and only my studies were keeping me back. So, I was keeping myself busy with gardening a lot and the house itself. I liked house decorations and I had lately started watching videos of how to make ceramic pottery. My brother knew how to make glasses of clay and I had always found it to be really interesting. I had always wanted to learn how to make these by hand, but I'd never set a goal for that before, nor did I ever get the chance to do it. I, therefore, gave a promise to myself that once I go back home, first thing, I'll join a ceramic pottery arthouse and learn how to work with clay.
While I was at home, I'd started to watch a series on Netflix. Its name was Dark
and I was watching it along with my daughter, Anna. Even though I was
33 years old, I was so hooked on it -- my daughter was too, though she
was only 13. I had started watching it, as I was told that the place, in
which the setting of the series was, is very reminiscent of the village
Bryan used to live in Yorkshire and there was also a cave, similar to
that one in the woods close his place. I love Yorkshire and, as I was
going there constantly, I considered it to be something like my second
home. Therefore, I was so interested in watching a series like that,
mainly because of the landscape.
To cut a long story short, the plot goes as follows. A scientist
creates a time machine, through which you can travel to the past -- or
to the future. The gate is through Winden Woods, through a door in a
cave. And the series shows how four different families, while they seem
to be connected via mere friendship, in the beginning, they actually
are...nothing but relatives. All these members of the families are the
so-called voyagers and are part of a team, called Sic Mundus Creatus Est.
The series gets so complex, that you can't completely understand it, without getting confused, if you watch it only once. I watched all three seasons about three or four times so that I could understand how one is connected to the other. To make this clearer I have to bring an example. A character's daughter is her mother at the same time. So to say, the daughter went to the past, gave birth to her and then the baby was abducted (I won't say by whom, because my readers will get confused even more), it was transferred to another era and, adopted since, gave birth to two girls, one of which was, in fact, her own mother. And all this falls into a loop -- this is what the whole series is all about. Everything is repeated time and again and time itself has stopped.
People who know me are aware of the fact that time scares me. I'm frightened by the fact that times flies and I might not have the time to do all I ever wanted in my life. And this series stepped on this fear of mine and that's the reason why I loved it so much. I was so fond of this series that, when my sister, Johanna, came to visit, we watched it again together. When we watched the last episode, she said to me:
"Hey, this series was so good that we could somehow use it in the future".
"Fanfic", I said jokingly and my sister frowned and then we burst out into hysteric laughter. Johanna knows that, if there's something I detest in 'art', that's fanfiction. It's the most useless and most stupid thing ever.
"Album", she corrected me.
"Hmm", I said. "Do you think we could make a small duet and compose an album inspired by Dark?"
"No need for that. We already have our band."
"With Uaithnia? Are you sure?"
"Why not?", she said. "We usually have this band to write albums inspired by other forms of Art. Books, films, paintings. Why not even a series if we love it so much?"
She was right. Whatsoever Vivian and Nancy wouldn't have any problem at all. Even though I'm sure they hadn't watched the series or in case they just didn't like it, I was totally sure that the topic of time travel would fascinate them.
As I assumed, the rest of the guys agreed. Nancy was constantly watching sci-fi movies about time travel. Vivian, apart from movies, was reading many science books of this sort. Two of her favourite books were Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time as well as Einstein's book about the theory of relativity. The theory of relativity was also her favourite theory.
Thus we started to compose. In Australia, I had my synthesizer and my organ, so I had all my equipment there. When Ingmar saw me working, he was widely smiling at me. I'm afraid he had believed I was never going to compose anything again. That making my desires and dreams come true means I was going to leave everything else behind. But I didn't have this plan. It's only that my illness made me realise that my music and my work are not my whole life in total. How many dreams and ambitions I had had since I was little and I never made them come true, just because I never had the time?
An album we were inspired by, as far as the music was concerned, was Steven Wilson's The Raven that Refused to Sing.
I used to listen to it a lot during that time (indeed, it was the last
album I've been fanatically listening to) and I was usually playing it
in the morning while doing house chores. I can recall that every time I
was playing The Pin Drop, Anna was singing louder than the
record. It was so sweet and touching. I like that record so much that I
had stamped its cover on my shirt. Every time I was wearing that shirt,
my friends were always like: "Ingrid wears The Raven again". I had liked Porcupine Tree since I was young and after they disbanded I was following Steven Wilson's solo career.
It seemed to me that the music we were writing was more down to earth. It was a bit reminiscent of Uaithnia's previous album, The Voyage because this also had some psychedelic or soundtrack-like pieces, but we had written some songs which this time had jazz and blues-rock influences. Some pieces were even influenced by Kansas and Gentle Giant. We had never done this before with Uaithnia. As I've already said Uaithnia is a band, which, to my mind, exists in order to enhance a book or a painting. It's not a band you can listen to while doing something which requires focus and attention. However, our new album also contained songs, which were complex and powerful. Yes, the new album was going to be an absolutely rock album.
We couldn't come up with a name for the record. We had a few choices, though. I thought we could name it The Crow's Lament, making a little bit of a wordplay and Steven Wilson's album. However, this name suits better a metal or a more epic album. Uaithnia didn't have this style. Another choice could be The Woods, inspired by Winden Woods in the series. In the end, Johanna had a brilliant idea. She suggested this album be a continuation of the previous one. Whatsoever in Dark, there was this team of the "voyagers", the Sic Mundus. The previous album was already called The Voyage. Johanna thought we could just call it The Voyage II. It was a marvellous idea and I thought we could give a subtitle to it as if it were a movie sequel. Therefore we could call it The Voyage II: Sic Mundus Creatus Est.
The album was recorded in Australia. This time we weren't alone, but with a company. Just like we did in many Alexandria albums, we now also got the help of friends, outside the band, to do some narrations. Therefore, we had written many small Poems, which would be narrated by my good friend, Jesikka Koskela. However, I had, myself, composed a song, Octoberon, inspired by the album of the same name by Barclay James Harvest and this one also contained narrations, which would be recorded with Jesikka's voice. When Ingmar heard the song, he said to me it was the most beautiful song I'd ever composed. I was so touched --as far as I can tell, you are touched to hear your husband that your song is the most beautiful tune you've ever written-- and that's why I suggested he did the narrations instead. Because of his Yorkshire accent, it sounded like a snippet of an old black and white British film.
We used the same studio, like the one we did, back when we had recorded the Welsh album. Photoshooting took place in the forest so that it would feel like Winden Woods and we retouched them so that it could create a psychedelic atmosphere. This suited a band like Uaithnia, indeed.
During all this time, that we were recording, my sister was staying with us in Australia. It was also a chance for her to hang a little bit with mum. For the first time ever, my sister and I were composing music literally together and we weren't just throwing ideas at each other and then each one of us sending her songs to the other. While composing on my own synthesizer, Johanna learnt my little secret. I told her why, instead of synth strings, I have always used an equinox sound. It was a little mistake of mine because back in the day my synth didn't have such good sounds, so instead of synth strings, I accidentally found equinox. My sister found this story so funny and at the same time brilliant, that she wrote a song, that was called Into the Equinox World -- and of course, was based on that sound.
At some point, the two of us were sitting inside the house.
"Monica filled for divorce", she said to me.
"What?", I exclaimed, as if it were something I hadn't an idea about. "What are you talking about?"
"Yes. She took the children and moved back".
"Back...where?"
"To Kirkenes", she replied. "Where else?"
"She hadn't told me anything about that. And...what's her mental state?"
Johanna laughed nervously. "Terrible. She blames herself for everything. She believes it's her own fault that...you know...dad passed and all that".
"But...", I was like "we knew that dad had cancer. It was inevitable to happen. No one's to blame about that, just like no one's to blame about my own health either".
"Monica thinks that had she been close to us all these years, dad would have fallen ill. Just like he missed her and she was always away".
"Look, it's true that Monica has always been away. I was upset about that too, exactly because we are twins, and we literally grew up together, so I missed her a lot. But you can't blame yourself for someone else's death. It's stupid and useless".
"I just think that she has always missed dad and now she lost him forever".
Then I said completely unconsciously: "Me too".
"What you too?"
"I miss dad".
We remained silent for a while. Noticing she wouldn't say anything, I added: "I couldn't say anything all this time".
"Why?"
"Because...I didn't get the chance to mourn dad as I should. I fell ill too and I had to look after myself. Mainly for my daughter".
"And what do you think you should be doing, Ingrid?", Johanna said abruptly. "Fall into pieces and be bursting out in tears all the time?"
"This is not what I told you, but I don't think my attitude was completely right. I don't blame myself for that, because I know I didn't have any other choice. But I can recognise the fact that I didn't mourn the way I should. And I'm telling you, Johanna, in fact, do you know what I dreamt about soon after we moved here?"
"What?"
"I was somewhere with mum, I think. Suddenly my phone started to ring and I saw it was writing Dad. I hid it quickly so that mum wouldn't see it and I pick up..."
"Wait a second", she interrupts me. "In your dream is dad alive?"
"No", I replied. "That's why I hid the screen. I pick up the phone and, as I didn't want mum to understand anything, I spoke as if it were some random friend Hi there. And he replied to me Hello Ingrid, how are you doing? I replied Fine, thanks. And you? -I'm fine. How's your mum? -Mum's fine, I replied. -Good. Take care of your mum, he said and picked down".
"Well, this is what your mind is telling you. That we don't look after mum properly after all this which has happened".
"I probably dreamt of this, because I miss him".
"Everybody misses him, Ingrid."
I wiped my face and felt I wanted to burst into tears. No, not this now. Then I tried to calm down and lit a cigarette instead. "Now, why this?", Johanna said.
"I can't...", I stuttered.
"Jeez, Ingrid, not after cancer".
I ignored her. She was right, but I'd rather keep on smoking than burst into tears before my sister. At least I would forget about dad for a while.
Johanna stayed in Australia for a few months until the album was recorded. The album was recorded in May 2029 and as we had said, it would bear the title The Voyage II: Sic Mundus Creatus Est. Its cover depicted a coil with numbers like clock hands, which symbolised the eternal loop and the non-existence of time.
After the release of the album, I sat for my last exams for my studies. And in June 2029, I graduated from the Geology faculty. It was a dream --my first dream ever--, which I eventually accomplished, even though it was late. I can recall the same day that I went for a last checkup to my cousin's, Vigge's, office. I can clearly remember his words now: "Ingrid, you're clean, go home".
Go home. This is what I
really wanted to do now. So, two days after my graduation and Vigge's
words, I told Ingmar: "Ingmar, I'm healthy and happy now. I think it's
time we left and we have to go back home to our hometown".
