Curious feeling of falling (Thomas Newman)
I did nothing but think about the statistics. I reviewed them again and again. Almost as to make sure it was not an hallucination of mine, people had really said that. I checked different sources. And yes. I had been chosen the happiest country in the world.
So why was that happening to me?
I couldn't leave my house. An intense pain had settled in my chest, worse than a pneumonia, than everything I had experienced to the date. It was a sign that there was something inside killing me.
I, the happiest nation in the world, was dying.
Margrethe wanted me to have complete rest, to stay calm, but how could I be calm having inside...? I watched the news, desperate to know. I even got mad at my queen, because I didn't understand why she was hiding something so important from me.
I found out soon. All Northern nations were threatened. We, who leaded world lists about education, citizen satisfaction, equality and all that, also had a target in our backs.
I remember a piece of a survey they did in the streets for a national TV channel. 'Denmark is considered a good nation, why should he disappear?'. The response from a young man with a Los Ramones T-shirt, I will remember it as long as I live:
"It's true life is good here, but the rest of the world isn't this lucky and it's time we end with privileges."
We would die for being privileged. If just breathing didn't hurt me enough, I would have laughed my ass out.
They were going to sacrifice us for the common good. I had seen that enough times before to panic.
And I had thought in the beginning what they wanted was so stupid and naive nobody would believe it...
I can't say anything bad about the people who was by my side. They were all really nice to me. Margrethe left aside many duties to stay with me. I know Frederik and Joachim did everything in their hands to solve this situation.
But what could they do? We are talking about the minds of people. One can't make laws about it. The Triumvirate tried to get those ideas out of their heads by force and only made it worse.
It seemed there was nothing that could be done but wait.
Wait is what I did and believe me when I say, friend, it's not pleasant. Waiting to die. To be killed off, actually. And the worst of all is that the ones who have the power to decide if you live or die are the same people who created you. Those days I felt as if they had molded you and one day, after given everything to them, they simply got tired, said you were evil and eliminated you like trash. Nowadays there are people who have a kind of love-hate relationship with their people after the way they were treated. And I have to emphasize the love part because I haven't met a nation abused by its own people who doesn't love them deeply. Lithuania can say a lot about that.
The worst of those days was December 20, when a group of people damaged the Little Mermaid sculpture in Copenhague with a hammer. I felt it before seeing it in the news. It was a group formed by three boys who acted with ski masks on. They were arrested hours later. I was supposed to feel relieved that the great majority of the people was outraged by the destruction of our icon, but the relief was so small...
It was then when they knocked at the door. My bodyguard Helle opened. Those days she was really paranoid.
But she recognized the one who came to see me and let him in.
"Dan..."
There was only one person in the world who called me like that.
...
Sorry. I think about the little guy, the way he came in, what happened to him and...
It was Greenland. He was...something was wrong with him. It was obvious. Right when I saw him I got up from the bed as if I had a spring in my ass. He would have fallen to the floor if it wasn't for the people around him. I ran to hold him. He was cold, like always. He was always cold, specially his nose, red...
Sniff...I'm sorry...
I had no idea of why he came to my house. Did he get the news I was sick? Did he come to ask for help?
I believe he knew his end was near and that's why he came to me. Not for me to try to do something about it, but to say goodbye. That's what I think.
He gazed at me. Even though it was difficult for him to speak, he had panic in his eyes. I didn't stop looking at him as his flesh consumed.
I heard my friend scream. I felt my heart stop.
Greenland started to weight less and less and less in my arms, until what was left of him, nothing but ashes, fell on the carpet and I found myself with his clothes in my hands.
Joachim had to sit on the bed. Someone hurrily opened the windows of the bedroom. I just know I was left there, still, bawling and babbling, with the clothes in my hands, until Finland, Sweden, Norway and Iceland came in. They tried to get it away from me and I slapped whoever tried. Then I found myself in somebody's arms, I don't know who, and cried. That night I did nothing but cry. My pals from the North cried with me.
Greenland was small and young. For what I found out later, he was so isolated from everything and everyone he didn't even hear about the One World Nation Movement matter. That is, he died without knowing why.
He never did anything wrong in his life, I can swear.
I had had some quarrel with America because of him, because he wanted to take him home. But at that moment I wished with all my soul he got his tanks, his planes, his drones, his destroyers and men and annihilated those people completely. I regret a lot having thought of that, but if you had known Greenland, you would have been furious about what happened to him too.
