INGRID (ENGLISH VERSION)

ILLEGAL MEANS

As I have already said, Lydia was acting as she wanted in the band. We were booking gigs, wherever she only wanted, whenever she wanted, and if she wanted. However, this situation didn't last that long. At some point Lydia called upon us and said this:

"We will cancel those shows and perform in these ones". Alright, this was nothing new for us. We knew that this was definitely going to happen. When I dared to ask her, though, why cancelling shows, she replied to me: "We'll get more money this way. We'll get away with this by paying fewer taxes".

Then I lost it and told her: "So what you suggest is steal the government".

"Oh, steal", she said in an allegedly innocent tone. "Why does the government steal citizens?"

"Which government steals from you? Norway? Excuse me, but a government like this one in Norway is absolutely honest".

"So do you prefer paying more taxes rather than following the easy path?"

Then I said: "I'd rather eat shit than cheat the government".

Lydia didn't put it off. We got into a fight and she told me she wouldn't do the show at all.

"Fine", I told her. "We're performing without you".

And this is what happened. Lydia would sing to our shows whenever she had a lust to. And the worst thing was that we had just become popular, so we couldn't afford to mess up with the fans. I remember at some point that we had an interview and the journalist asked us about Lydia. I lied to him about her having a health problem. I was feeling so embarrassed about even telling the Press about our mess. The whole situation went on like that until April when our last show in London would take place.

As I said before, Lydia would sing whenever it pleased her. However, during all this time that she was without us, I'd noticed something. She was indeed useless in the band. She wouldn't offer anything to us. She was doing solely backing vocals and, alright, these weren't so necessary. We could perfectly go on without her.

At some point, we were left alone and had an argument, so she started swearing at me. Then I told her everything I had been thinking all this time. I told her that we could really go on without her and that we don't actually need her. Everybody thinks I was too cruel to have spoken to her like that, but I was right. She was indeed a useless member. She wasn't even contributing to any composition nor would she ever sing lead vocals in songs. Were we in need of backing vocalists, we could have hired some.

Whilst I could see the disaster coming, I wouldn't do anything about that. And I think I'm solely the one to blame; starting from the fact that I lied on the press about Lydia having a health problem, so that we wouldn't get exposed to people who would learn that she does what she wants with us, to the fact that I let her ramble instead of telling her My sweet girl, do you refuse singing in the gig? Bye-bye, my darling. I turned a blind eye to the whole situation and kept waiting for the tour to end so that I could handle the whole situation.

When the tour would be over, I would manage with her. Furthermore, I'd lock myself up at home, so I would work on my next book, which might have been the darkest novel I've ever written. It told the story of a female Poet/author, who felt she needed to harm so badly people she hated, but as long as she couldn't do this in real life, she would instead kill them in her books. This means that, if she really hated someone in her life, she would write a novel in her black notebook, in which this particular person was the heroine of the story, who would kill herself in the most torturing way. If I ever published that book, it would be completely inappropriate for children! It described ways to kill yourself with pills, poison, blades of knives, ropes etc. in a fully detailed way. I would always make my heroines kill themselves in my books, however, this time I felt I was beyond any limit. And I didn't really care if someone read the book at all or if I got negative comments that I glorify suicide. I would never kill anyone in real life, for I was no murderer, however, I had whatever right to kill anyone I liked in my books. That is to do the same as my heroine, my Poet, did, whose name was written in the beginning, only when I presented her. Her name was Thaleia, but I suppose that nobody could remember it after reading the book. That was indeed my aim. That nobody would remember that her name was Thaleia, but only as of the Poet. I didn't say Dina a word about my book. She would scold me about writing once again books about authors who kill themselves, and she would be right to tell me off. However, I was supposed not to harm anybody in my book. The Poet was the one who made her heroes kill themselves. She wouldn't harm her own self. The Poet was something like my alter ego or my own self in the book. It felt like I had jumped inside the book and I was impersonated by the Poet, even though I'm aware that this is forbidden in Literature.