These pages aren’t finished, but since most of the story is readable I’ll give you a preview here on the blog. I’m considering colouring it (maybe with watercolours…), but I might just go with grayscale. We’ll see.

I think I’ll make it a few pages longer too, it feels like I haven’t really ended it properly… But since these stories I write nowadays are about understanding myself,  and since I’m not 100% clear on what I’ve learned from this, I’m not yet certain about the ending.

It’s got to do with my relationships with men of course… Yeah. Just noticing that the guys I fall for both act and look like my daddy is letting me know that I’ve got some issues to deal with. So, the title of this post is quite on point, I am, as my comic, a work in progress. 

 

Translation:

Daddy had something important to tell us.

He had been kind of quiet all day. Distant and with his mind somewhere else.

I’m glad he hasn’t lost his temper at least.

He hasn’t gone off about how viscious and cruel mommy is

like he usually does.

We find a spot in the grass where we sit down.

I think we’re sitting on a blanket

me Ullis and dad.

I’m shy and kind of scared of daddy.

Keep my eyes to the ground mostly.

He clears his throat with that snorkling sound,

like Ullis does nowadays.

Me and Ullis sit quietly.

Daddy begins his monologue.

He says he can’t stay here

That they’re never going to let him live here.

He says he’s going away

That he’s going to meditate and transcend

I don’t allways understand all the words.

He says he’s going to leave us now.

That if he ever comes back, he won’t be our daddy anymore.

I don’t want to cry. It feels embarrasing.

I’m fighting hard to keep the tears back.

When daddy’s talking me and Ullis are quiet.

We’re both there

but not together.

Everything feels so horrible.

It feels like dad’s going to die.

I’m fighting so hard to hold back But I can’t I can’t I can’t. Everything just falls apart . I start to cry and shake. Uncontrollably. Hulking. Snot and tears pouring down my face. I feels such shame for not being able to hide it.

Ullis and dad start to laugh.

- Little Fridaskrutt (skrutt = impossible to translate)

- Sweetie!

Ullis wraps her arm around me.

My sister.

- huh… to think you’d get so upset?

Does he really not understand that?

That you get upset when your daddy is going to leave you.

My crying has made the air high-spirited. Dad is smiling och laughing with Ullis.

They think I’m cute.

Dad pulls out his handkerchief.

He has it to blow his nose

It feels a little disgusting… but I’ll have to forget about that.

I can remember how the cloth felt against my nose.

How it smelled…

cigarette smoke

a little aftershave

a little dust

But he was crazy, my dad.

I still feel shame when admitting this, but he was..

He is…

Mentally ill.

Paranoia. Messiah complex. Paranoid schizophrenia. Delusions.

That whole painful heartbreaking goodbye turned out to be totally unnecessary

He never went away…

Well yeah…

It did happen that he went away for long periods of time

without staying in touch with us.

One time he went away for 2 years without sending us a single sign of him being alive. No e-mails. No sms’s. Nothing. For two years.

Then Ullis got a strange box in the mail. She called me. I was at work.

Back then I was  paycheck slave at Elgiganten.

I could hear on her voice that it was something important

so I took a break.

She was crying and saying she couldn’t open it.

“what if it’s his teeth, Frida”

I felt nothing.

- Yeah… well then we’ll know he’s dead at least.

Or no, I felt with Ullis. I didn’t want her to be sad. Of course.

But I felt no sadness or anxiety over dad.

It was like… shut off. As if I was a psychopath. Cold inside.

Sometimes I wonder

How much of his disturbances…

that’s passed down to me.

I have delusions too

A messiah complex.

But no paranoia at least…

In the box?

Yes… No… It was all very odd.

She opened it with me on the phone for support.

- It’s a bunch of… shawls. And incense . and soap.

Two years without a single word and then… A box. With incense. And shawls.

- I don’t get it

- for my fourteenth birthday he tossed me a cheap necklace made of candy, you know… what is this?

No, none of us understood any of it, but we both knew that this was the most beautiful gift he had ever given to anyone.

Two years… Without a word… And then… The most beautiful present…

That is so fucked up.

To be continued… ;)

I’m going back to my drawing table now so I can produce an awesome ending that I can feel happy with.