Abraham pulled the curtain aside and climbed into the driving seat and tried to push the cup into the cup holder, but it wouldn’t fit. Then he slurped down what was left in the cup and discarded it on the floor. The engine rumbled to life. Lennart glanced at Grete and was met by a smile. Her teeth were long and her gums were turning black around the edges; the enamel was a shade of grey like old china.

‘It’s probably for the best,’ she said.

Anders was standing in front of the …

Anders was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, inspecting the underside of his tongue. The frenulum was completely severed. His tongue moved about his mouth freely and he could extend it surprisingly far. Almost down to the tip of his chin. Like that rock singer. It was yellow with coffee stains and tremblingly striving toward its most extended state. Stava had chuckled when he crawled up to her in bed and demonstrated his new ability. She claimed a person could determine the level of a lover’s dedication by looking in his mouth and that she felt heart-rendingly sad for his wife, who had shared a bed with a man with an unliberated tongue for twenty years. Then she had gone on to dismiss their entire marriage and he had lain next to her, humming agreement and licking her shoulder without paying attention.

His face had been covered in stubble for days. Now he had a full beard. It was actually longer than he’d ever had it before. The hairs hung down, covering his top lip, and his chin was pure white; it looked like he had dipped it in flour. And he had lost weight. His cheeks were hollow and his eyes too; they had retreated into his skull, as if to get away from something.

It felt like the change had happened overnight, but the reason for that was obviously that he hadn’t looked in a mirror in a long time, at least not properly.

He leaned closer to the glass, with his hands on the edge of the sink. He saw his own reflection in his pupils. Two miniature versions of himself. They were standing behind the windows of his pupils like some kind of microscopic dark elves, watching him, disliking him being so close. So they leaned out, and they leaned further out than he was leaning toward them.

He jerked his head away and when he saw his terrified face, he felt it belonged to an insane person. A paranoid junkie who jumped at the slightest sound.