Frida's Fabled Quest

From the age of seven, Frida had always felt alone. She didn’t know why, but she knew that it had to do with her unusual heritage. Her mother was a young girl from Norway, who fell in love with a foreigner when she was vacationing in Greece, the father of Frida. He was from the ancient world and he had left his home for Norway after all his family died.

His name was Jorgen and he married the Norwegian girl and they lived as husband and wife until she bore him a daughter. Six months after Frida was born, Jorgen left, leaving behind his wife and daughter and promising to return. He never did. The young Norwegian woman who became a widow at the age of twenty-two, took up her husband’s legacy as a keeper of secrets within the family.

Frida never understood what her mother meant by “keepers of secrets” or why her father never came back to her. She kept those questions locked in her heart because when she asked them out loud to her mother, they made her sad and angry at times, so she stopped asking after a while.

The only thing that made her happy was that she could read books from the library in town about ancient Greece and Rome; this knowledge allowed her to understand why her father left for Norway. It had also helped her understand why people looked at her strangely whenever she visited town.

They thought that she was different than them, like a stranger could be something different than them but still be one among them. She did not belong there anymore than she belonged anywhere else in this new place called Norway where people were nice to her but just not quite like they were with any other local children in town. The townspeople seemed to believe that they were better than everyone else including Frida’s own family who were also different because they would never leave their small mountain town unless someone else forced them too.

For as far back as Frida could remember, her family had lived on a mountain outside a small village that anyone could see once you reached the top of their mountain. There were many things about being on top of a mountain that were annoying; one thing was how every time it rained hard or snowed heavily on the ground below, water would trickle down from above and make everything on the ground wet.

But even though they lived high up off the ground and their house was no bigger than anybody else’s in the village; it felt warm and cozy inside thanks to their kind neighbors who brought them food whenever they needed it or if they wanted it or if they forgot something somewhere else or if they just needed some company for a while because loneliness wasn’t anyone’s friend no matter who you are or where you live.

There were worse things though like when winter came around and everything got frozen too cold outside and no one could leave their houses because ice covered every surface on top of the ground where people walked around day after day without even realizing that it was there most of the time until someone broke through it causing cracks all over everywhere; making everything look broken when really it wasn’t even broken at all, just frozen too hard for anyone to move anywhere unless someone broke through all that ice first before anyone else could even think about moving an inch out of place without breaking through first themselves, which is how life is sometimes too: frozen; hard to move; hard to get out of bed sometimes; hard to wake up sometimes; hard for some people always; especially for women whose lives seem harder than theirs even though men say otherwise; but women know better than most men can imagine what it feels like sometimes when you have nowhere else to go except down everywhere into darkness; into nothingness; into death where your life ends forever after you take your last breath no matter what you have done in life or who you are or where you live or if your men think they are better then women because men are stronger then women because women cannot carry babies inside their stomachs anymore like men can.

That is why Frida’s mother hid them all away in their house on top of the mountain so that nobody would ever know about them anymore than any other secret is known about other families living on other mountains across Norway where no one ever goes unless someone makes you go there first by force which is how wars start but then end and don’t start again after everyone gets tired from fighting each other because nobody ever wins wars except for politicians who tell everyone else what to do after everyone gets tired from fighting each other then everyone decides fighting isn’t worth all the death anymore so they stop fighting instead just like all wars end eventually after everyone gets tired from fighting each other except this time with women: right now: right here: right now as we speak: women get tired too: women feel hurt too: women want freedom too: freedom from pain: freedom from oppression: freedom from loneliness: freedom from poverty: freedom from fear: freedom from war: freedom from death itself which has already killed us all many times before we were born inside our mothers stomachs where we died together with our mothers giving birth to us letting us live this new world outside our mother’s womb letting us die again sometime later when we die inside our own mother’s womb letting us live again later as children letting us die again someday soon letting us live again as adults letting us die aging someday too someday very soon letting us live making babies with our partners someday until we die having babies inside our bodies letting those babies die someday soon letting them live again making more babies until we die and those babies will grow up one day growing old eventually dying someday soon letting those baby go free another time around letting them grow up raising children raising grandchildren raising great grandchildren raising great great grandchildren until we die again aging someday actually today right now right here right now right now right now right now right now right now right now right now right now right now right now right now right now right now right now