The free will ( eng)

2. Rafael

When she finally breaks free, all her dreams comes true 

A very special bird captures her heart and off together they flew

way up to the clouds above when her spirit is lifted by the breeze of love

I met Rafael at the most popular salsa club in town.  We danced two dances as the custom is and then we parted. He was a really gifted dancer but wasn't really the kind of guy you turned your head for on the street with a Banderas or Brosnan look or body like a bodyguard. Although he had that very intense eyes and look. They could shift from intelligent and loving brown to black with furious rage in no time.  It was getting a bit late and I was on my way " home"  but had stopped on the way to check out another salsa dancing restaurant.

- Hi ! Weren't you at La Isla just now and on your way home? I hear someone say with surprise behind me. I turn around and see Rafael whom I had just said goodbye to. His face turned into a big smile. 
- I was just checking if there was any action here before I went to bed, I said and laughed. Just as surprised as him. It had hardly gone fifteen minutes since we said good bye. He must have left by car just like me.
- Me too! He said with a smile.
- One of my accounting clients have their office here  and are letting me stay there while they work abroad this summer. Its just around the corner I said and took his arm and led him out on the street pointing to a window across the street.
- So you are into accounting?
- Among other things. I m just starting up a company I have been dreaming of for some time now.
- Really? I had a business before but it was hard with all the paperwork. Perhaps you could help me?
- I don't know really.  I hardly I have time for my own? I work for three right now.
- How do you manage that?
- I don't know. You work around the clock doing many things at the same time and eliminate " time thiefs". I will let you know if I succeed, I said and smiled.
- Doesn't sound really healthy?
- No, it can end up pretty badly. When I hired help for cleaning it costed me a lit more time  than I saved. It turned out to be the only time my brain ever relaxed.
- Its important to rest and relax.
- Mmm, you can do that when you're dead my mother taught me after my grandmother . What do you do for a living?
- I work with IT. We make pacemakers so I work a lot with doctors.
Interesting.. not much room for bugs there isn't it? I said with irony and hoped someone would come and ask me for a dance so I didn't have to keep talking to this boring man. I was very tired. I didn't have the energy to listen carefully and act interested and impressed as I thought most men wanted. My image was that what they really wanted was a hybrid between a sexy hooker,  the holy mother,  preferably a virgin and a princess, also preferably a little helpless and stupid so they could come riding in shining armour on a white horse saving the girl from the big bad world.

My mind went to Rafael. He had actually saved me from the big bad world and collapse  even though he drew me to new ones. Lately I  had begun to dream about a prince that would save me from everything.  I thought I could do everything on my own but the Universe wasn't on my side, to use Paulo Coelho's expression and then it was pretty though.

- What days are you planning to dance this week?
- I was thinking Wednesday, Thursday,  Saturday and Sunday .
- Me too, he said and laughed. I don't have my kids this week. Fridays are no good any longer when the salsa drop in moved to Clandestino.
- Exactly. More merengue and meet market  than salsa, i answered. It was mostly "regular" latinos who went there and their salsa was like our "foxtrot " on the amusement ferry to Finland. And they always had their target in sight which actually was pretty uncommon among those who lived for dancing.

- I really have to go now. Its getting late, I said.
- But it's barely midnight?
- I m like Cinderella, need to be home before midnight, otherwise i can't sleep.
- Then I hope I find your shoe. Im also leaving soon. I live a bit north of Stockholm and have a long way home.
Do you have a car?
- In the summer I ride my motorcycle. It's a lot  faster.
- I have to go now. It was nice meeting you!

I went around the corner and entered the code for the door and went in.  It felt almost like home. Of course I had asked my client if it was alright to stay there and he had offered me to stay at his family's pool house. It was practical and eliminated travel, my worst time and energy thief of all. I still needed to be there almost every day to get their X in time . Unfortunately my brain didn't work properly yet. My doctor had warned me and told med it needed to rest. I was in chock. I had already been crying for a week at Marianne's home and was unresponsive without strength in my muscles.

Marianne and I had met on a holiday to Greece. We had both travelled alone. She was terminal with cancer and I was on the verge of a collapse because of too much work and infections my immune system couldn't handle. I had been at Marianne for several days after D- day and she was the last person on earth, except my son that I wanted to utsätta detta för. I knew what stress, worries and anxiety did to your body. There wasn't the least room for that in her already tormented body. 

I didn't feel really welcomed at my dad's house when he said I wasn't allowed to stay with Calle. I didn't understand first,  because we had been staying there for ten years before without a problem. I thought it was a really bad moment to let us know we were not welcome.  He said he got allergy. The house was three stories high and gigantic with lots of space forme and Calle to stay in , I thought. My ,mothers place wasn't really an option either. I hadn't even told her. So I took Calle and my bag with clothes I had packed the day I left Richard, Robins dad, the day I left him and moved in at my client's office. Home wasn't even an option.  There was an iron curtain in my head head where my memories was and to go home and be reminded was unthinkable.

It was hard to sleep on the sofa at the office even with sleeping pills and earplugs . The ice machines  went off from time to time and sounded like  nuclear plants. Tom maximize the effects of the pills I took them with wine. I hoped they were attacking different parts of the body. Wine made me sleepy and affected the liver. The pills made my kidneys hot and aching. Lately I understood that pills were mostly metabolised by the liver but of course hit the kidneys too. I had been using them on and off the past decade  when the insomnia had been so bad that the immune system had stopped working so I got sick from a simple sneeze that could give me pneumonia.  More times than I could count I just wished it would all end. I couldn't take it any more. It was a vicious circle. I felt terrible in the situation I was in and worked as much as could to escape from it. The more I worked the less my brain could relax and the more  exhausted I got the more depressed and receptive to sickness I became and the less I could sleep.