The Ugliest City Can Be the Happiest City in the World

What matters is not what you can see around you but what you feel inside. Therefore, for the right people, the ugliest city in the world can be the happiest city in the world.

Humans search for happiness and sometimes, on a rare occasion, they take the risk. Sometimes they break the rules, and they find something that resembles what they are looking for out there.

I look for my happiness as best I can. She says something from the kitchen, I hear sunshine in her voice but I do not get what she says.

"What did you say?" I ask.

She says:

"No, I was thinking this: happiness exists, it's just that we need to give it a chance."

"Yes, you mean love, then."

"Yes, exactly."

We talk a good deal like this. A kind of beautification of what we have together, I think. But I do not say it out loud. I do not want to spoil the good mood we have between us for no reason.

For quite some time we were in this somewhat boring track. I bring flowers and gifts for her, and I see that it works. I have her in my hollow hand.

---

The next time when we meet in my apartment, she comes over to me and gives me a hug. Later we are together. We get close to each other. We're naked. It's so good to be naked. Together.

Afterwards we talk. About being human, about being friends.

"But it would be a little boring, then," I say. "If we were just friends, you and I, and no sex? Do you want to try?"

"You're kidding!" she says. "You do not mean that!"

We're laughing a little, both of us. We talk about what is real, what is true in a relationship between two people who begin to know each other.

"Yes, it's happiness," I say. "And it's trust. You have to trust me. Don't you also believe that happiness exists when you believe it exists? And when you trust the person you love. I mean - you have to believe that love is there! "

"Yes," she replies, a little dreamily. "It exists. And you know, I will trust you, yes, I will."

"Yes, not everyone has the ability," I say. "And often you're a little too anxious to try - to try something new, right?"

I could see that she agreed. At least that's how I interpreted her face. The last weeks I had gradually started to get a little bored, so I arranged for little by little to bring something new into our relationship.

The first time I saw that she was a little surprised. She lay naked on her stomach on the bed and I massaged her. I kissed and caressed her and whispered in her ear that I loved her so much. Then I took her hands and gathered them behind her back and quickly put on the handcuffs.

She tried to get loose, but of course it was impossible. She fought hard, but I sat on top of her while I calmed her. After a while I saw that she began to give in, and I kissed her on the neck and on the ears and everywhere, and I noticed that she began to calm down.

Afterwards, of course, it was a bit difficult. When I unlocked and took the handcuffs off her, she became almost hysterical and shouted and screamed, and I had to spend a lot of time getting her to calm down again.

She wanted to get dressed and go, but I managed to get her to lie down next to me and I told her that it meant a lot to me that we could do this. And I said that I loved her very much, and much more when she gave me this I longed for so much.

After that night I waited quite a long time before I took the handcuffs out again. I was careful and did it gently, and after a few times it seemed as if she almost liked it. She tried to say no several times to begin with, but little by little she began to accept it. At least that was the impression I got.

---

I'm thinking of her when I go to work. I pull the door behind me again, go down the stairs and out into the new day. I feel a cool breeze against my face, looking up at the mountain top, the huge, dark mountain massif that always hangs there, above us.

I look at the clock, walk quickly, have enough time before the shift begins and make my way past the cemetery. I take a detour, just to look up towards her window as I walk calmly down past the house.

I go down, her face is in my eyes, I have her voice inside me. I feel a relaxed calm. Going to the afternoon shift neither rejoices nor dreads me. I have no expectations for that shift. I think of her and our last meeting.

I walk the streets of the city seeing women talking, children laughing, men who are serious.

A woman comes towards me, I nod, a quick hello, would rather not stop. She puts her hand on my shoulder, smiles at me, and says:

"Go home to Gunvor".

I can hardly believe what I hear, I need to ask her.

"What did you say?

She laughs briefly.

"I said you must say hello from me to Gunvor," she says and smiles again.