He ran his hand over his head and felt himself losing his footing. Lost and scared, he walked down the hall to the rotunda that housed the department’s library. It contained a display case with a collection of craniums that were reflected in the glass. The skulls were of different sizes, but they all looked alike. As though they had been created by someone who wanted to practise doing different scale models. Hollow-eyed capsules in various shades of yellowy white. The smaller animal craniums were so tiny they looked like something you’d collect at a beach.

The sensation that had just eluded him slithered by once more in the ever-shrinking nook of awareness he had access to, and this time it left something in its wake. A feeling that he had committed some sort of crime. But what had he done?

Powerlessness swelled within him. He sank into a squat and grunted and pressed his hands to his head. Then he jumped up and gave the display case a shove. The craniums responded by executing a hastily coordinated relocation. He grabbed the edge, rocked the case up against his chest and hurled it away. It tipped over, so slowly he had time to see the skulls gather in a grinning heap that tumbled around and around before the display case smashed against the floor. The glass shattered with a loud, symphonic crash and before he knew it, he was running down the hallway like a hunted madman.

*

Johanna was in the kitchen when he came home. He waited in the hallway for a while, watching her, before he could work up the courage to enter. He tried to touch her, but she pulled her arm away and looked at him like he had groped her.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I don’t work there any more.’

‘Do you know what time it is?’

‘No, what could it be? Seven? Half seven?’

‘It’s four, Anders. Quarter past four. That’s when you get back.’

His eyes veered to the digital numbers on the microwave.

‘Yes, well, I did think work seemed a bit deserted.’

He met her eyes and leaned forward with his head in his hands, supporting his elbows on the table.

‘I think there’s something in my head,’ he mumbled.

‘There’s no tapeworm in your head,’ she said. ‘We already checked.’

‘I mean something else. Something worse. It’s like there’s someone in here.’ He screwed his index finger against his temple. ‘Another person. I don’t know how to explain. It’s kind of cramped. It’s really scary.’

‘I’m going to bed,’ she said and stood up.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I think I’m going to sit here for a while.’

Just before she shut the bedroom door, he called out:

‘Are you hungry? I could make something to eat.’

*