Femton

"Anyways, Happy Fifteenth Bday and belated All Hearts Day Gunilla! I hope you like my gift! I wrapped it all by myself."

"Imagine that! Well, thank you Truls. Your gift wrapping skills are how can I say for lack of a better word...total crap. But, it's the thought that counts I suppose. Let's see what you got me..."

It was February fifteenth and one of the coldest days of the year on record. Yet Truls was a stickler when it came to making promises and wanted to take Gunilla back to Vänern Pond where they'd met for the first time seven months ago in late August. She was swimming in the nearby Vänern Lake with her friend Imogen and her older brother when she was noticed by Truls who was chaparoning his fellow musician friends from the Northern Lights Music Festival. She had on a striped black and white one-piece bathing suit. And it was his teasing comments of "Oh, I didn't know prisoners had bathing suit clothing made too!" that got her attention, albeit begrudgingly. While he knew throwing insulting remarks at Gunilla was not the most appropriate introduction, Truls had only the best intentions in wanting to get to know her better. Through her dark amber curtain-banged hair, the glint of her slightly angry tawny eyes met with his and the rest was history.

In between shuffling her feet on the ground to keep her body temperature up and constant teeth chattering, Gunilla skeptically looked down at the present that Truls so 'lovingly' wrapped for her. They were sidled up next to each other sitting on the same old log by the pond where both her and Truls had shared their first kiss. The log was now overgrown with moss in varying shades of green that was topped off with freshly fallen snow from earlier that day. A lonely tulip somehow managed to sprout in one of the divets in the log with its growth obviously being slowed down by the prevailing cold winter weather.

Gunilla carefully unwrapped her gift, noticing that the wrapping he used was recycled from the same brown package paper that the dry cleaners used to package clothes after it had been cleaned. When she eventually opened the gift she saw that the paper was flipped inside out with the words 230 Kr written in thick permanent marker on the inside of the paper.

“Nice touch Truls, nice touch.”

“Well, you know, I try my best. Anyways, open the tissue paper to see what I got you.”

“Ok, settle down, I’m getting to it!”

Gunilla lifted open the tissue paper to find a shiny black wooden Dala horse figurine staring back at her. In Swedish culture, the Dala horse was a symbol of good luck whose history dated back to the Vikings. The most prominent color painted for the horse was of course deep orange or red because it was a symbol of happiness and good fortune. To receive a black Dala horse on the other hand was not as common. The black horse was a symbol of power and strength. It's significance, while not as convivial as the red Dala horse, was equally as meaningful and perhaps given more so for occasions of wanting to show an offering of support. So, for Gunilla to receive a black Dala horse, she began to wonder the underlying meaning behind it even though she accepted Truls gift to her in her usual cheerful manner.

"Wow, a Dala horse! I love it Truls! I'll add it to my collection. Black is cool because most of mine are either red and orange."

"Glad you like it. I wanted to get one a little different because, well you're just as unique and special to me Gunna. Also, you can think of me when I'm away at Uni when you see the horse."

"Thanks I guess? So this horse is meant to be YOUR substitute then?"

"Haha, yeah that's right Gunna!"

Truls Gustafsson was two years older than Gunilla Thomas which meant in her eyes, that he was smarter and much more sophisticated than her by default of age. They'd met just seven months prior right before the start of the school year by Lake Vänern which was just north of Trollhättan a quaint suburban town forty minutes outside of Gothenburg by train. It was common knowledge among the town folk that the Gustafsson family came from a long line of musicians dating back to their great grandma Ula who was the town's organist and protégé to one of Sweden's greatest composers of the Romantic Period. And while he was accustomed to feeling somewhat like the town's mayoral figure having people come practically stumbling out of their shops to greet him and ask him about his family and his studies at the Royal Academy, he knew that he was on the fast track to reaching musical stardom. What this entailed, and actually what he'd wished for, was to live and breathe the nomadic existence of fellow music luminaries before him that he admired. This was a lifestyle that Gunilla at fifteen years of age was not even remotely familiar with.

"It'll be just fine. I'll come back to see you at the end of the school semester in mid June close to the Midsummer Festival. You have Imogen to keep you company. And also helping out at your uncle Magnus's shop will keep you super busy."

"I guess you're right in theory but..."

"But, nothing Gunilla! We'll still message one another, face time et cetera. I'm just a phone call away, really my Gunna girl."

"Ha, that's what you say, but I know you a little more than that. You and your tunnel vision...especially when you have music exams coming up. You'll barricade yourself in the practice room for hours at a time before seeing the light of day. And when and if you do decide to come out, you normally need a full twenty-four hours to behave like a normal human being again. Honestly Truls, I'm starting to think you're enjoying being a slave to your precious vi-o-lin."

It was 15:15 PM on the clock and the sun was already starting to show signs of retiring for the afternoon being cloaked behind a thick swirl of pearl-gray clouds. Across the horizon, the familiar V shape of the kungsörn or golden eagle could be seen circling the gloomy winter sky in the distance over Vänern Lake. It was doing its rounds searching for it's midday meal. Both Truls and Gunilla stared over the pond that was now covered completely in ice. Truls removed the dark wool beanie from his head and gave his tousled blonde hair a strong tug before taking a moment to ponder Gunilla's words.

"A slave to my violin? No way Gunna! I may be deeply involved in my studies and have a rigorous practice schedule but it's what's required of me now being in the university. Haven't you heard of the saying suffer in the present moment so that you can reap the rewards later on? That's what I'm dealing with now. I don't expect you to understand now. I mean you're barely fifteen. Wow, fifteen! I'm just realizing our age difference now. Haha!"

Something snapped inside Gunilla's head after Truls mocked her for being 'just fifteen' and suddenly all the anger she was feeling for so long came rushing forth.

"So that's what this was all about Truls?!? The Dala horse was meant as my parting gift? And meeting here by the pond with the provisions you brought of a half-eaten cardamom bun and a cinnamon vanilla latte that is basically just flavored hot water was for what exactly? A sympathy break-up birthday date? OMG I detest you and everything you are!!"

Exactly five years had passed since the last time Gunilla saw Truls. Time had a way of closing the chapters of her previous life that were once unremitting in causing nothing but heartbreak and pain. Sure, she wasn't exactly proud with the way things had ended with Truls. But she knew she was quite young and that she wasn't upset with him per se but more so with the fact that his number one priority was playing the violin and not her. Whether or not things would have worked out between them was past the point. Now the Gunilla at twenty years old was usually not the type to harbor ill will towards someone for too long and nor did she wait on the fence for fate to intervene for her either. Blame it on her Scandinavian strong sense of individualism and rational determination that she inherited on her mother's side. But, in the rare event she did suddenly find herself wavering in her emotions at all, she was quick to compartmentalize and readily attribute them to her father being half Italian. To her, there was seemingly no answer to a problem that she couldn't handle or fix on her own.

Gunilla had had three other relationships with different boyfriends since Truls. The latest one ended due to the fact that she was now a teacher's assistant in her Scandinavian literature class and had a larger workload. She was in her third year at Gothenburg University and was a Literature major. When she'd discovered at a young age that Vänern Lake was actually the setting for the epic 'Battle on the Ice' mentioned in the 6th century epic poem of Beowulf, she quickly developed a voracious appetite to read any and all sorts of books of even the slightest literary value. Her zest for books and literature continued all through her years at Uni.

The fruitfulness that being part of a loving and compatible relationship afforded was something Gunilla felt just wasn't in the cards for her given her busy schedule and life. It was only when she went back home to her parents home in Trollhättan over the weekends that she was able to step back to take a long review of her life so far and about the future. On one particular long weekend in early November during the All Saints holiday, Gunilla decided to invite her best friend Imogen over for her own 'Death Cleaning Party' made largely popular by the best selling book The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter. Cleaning was really never Gunilla's forte. But she'd rationalized that the reason all her relationships ended up going stale was partially due to the fact she hadn't thoroughly rid herself of all the clutter that had been accumulating in her room.

"Emotional clutter translates to physical clutter and vice versa! I must rid myself of both!" Gunilla enthusiastically spouted.

"You can dooooo it!"

She decided to go with the most direct method of decluttering her space by starting from the top and then going to the bottom. Surveying the top of her bookshelf she saw a thick layer of dust had formed from being untouched for over a half a decade. She brought in the old stepstool from the kitchen and broadly started cleaning the top of the shelf with a damp dish towel. On the third pass through, Gunilla had to extend her arm a bit farther to reach the far right corner of the shelf. When she hit something that felt like a rock she reached up to grab the mysterious object. Her eyes transfixed on the object that was before her. It was the black Dala horse. After pausing a moment to decide whether to keep it or not, Gunilla noticed something written in blue paint on the back hind leg of the horse. It read: My Beowulf Warrior Princess! Love you at 15, love you at 51 xo, T.

Gunilla rushed out of the room to get her cell phone. She had an important call to make.