“How was the shower?” you asked as I came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around my waist and walked over to the bed which was situated in one corner of the studio apartment we had checked into a few hours earlier—a spacious holiday rental, above the workshop of a Danish painter, inland from the northern part of the Gothenburg archipelago. I looked over to you where you sat in an armchair by the window in an opposite corner of the space, looking comfortable with a blanket wrapped around your shoulders, an open book in your lap, and staring out the window into the Scandinavian autumn dusk.
“Good,” I replied, hesitating for a while, reflecting on the fact that there had been something odd about my showering experience, something I had not consciously registered until you asked me about it.
“The pressure was fine, I guess,” I continued, thinking out loud. “In fact, the shower was really powerful, when I think about it. But there was something about the smell of the water. It was strange—somehow. A bit metallic. Like blood. Probably due to the mineral composition of the bedrock around here.”
“Powerful bloodbath?” you asked, turning your head from the window and into my direction. “That sounds bit scary. A Nordic Noir kind of vibe.”
