Ellen's Ark

Ellen came home from school on a quite ordinary Monday. She opened the door to the entrance, and then she came no further. On the floor lay her little brother David with his head turned strangely and blood out of his ear. David's blood flowed in straight lines between the tiles, but the grief did not flow in straight lines for Ellen. The grieving process is neither linear nor logical.

‍

The story follows Ellen in the time just after the death. Everyday life that in a way continues unchanged and which at the same time is completely changed. And in the middle of it all, Ellen stands and falls in and out of her thoughts. Nothing is as before, and nothing will be the same again. Now she is, the only child, but not an only child. For the funeral, she wonders if she herself could fit the little coffin. The mother and father are out of order. Ellen takes six spoonsful of sugar on her cornflakes. Mom just responds with a distant "It's good, honey". In English, they have the past tense, and suddenly everything in the past tense is reminiscent of David, who from now on only appears in the past tense. That's why Ellen is tired of the past. In Christianity, they are to draw for the story of Noah's ark, but Ellen draws only the all-encompassing and deadly water, not the people to be saved. In geography, they learn about the scale that can measure how big an earthquake is, and Ellen likes that. But one cannot measure grief. Eventually, she takes her very own farewell to her little brother.

‍