Norwegian Concepts

Lonely people become selfish, making them more lonely, which is in line with God’s particular sense of austere humor. 

Though it is possible for this to happen the other way around, no one cares much when it does. Selfish people desire a world with only themselves in it anyway, so it makes pragmatic sense they get what they want. 

It is, however, very sad when lonely people get selfish, as it isn’t their fault. When the only perspective they hear is theirs, they only know how to relate to other people’s stories through their own. We agree that none of us can stand to be around someone like that, though, so they become lonely. Later, when we are at a social function—for old times sake, let’s say in a bar—they walk by the window with their collar up, and perhaps we wonder for a moment where they are going before we turn back to our friends. 

This feeling is called Yalmståd by the Norwegian people. There is no English equivalent. Even calling it a “feeling” does it a disservice; it is both a way of seeing and of being. All we can say is thank God; as the American dialect seems increasingly interpretive, movements like Yalmståd give us the means of understanding our world. It also offers a solid explanation for why you and I have been shedding so many friends recently—what with their selfishness or loneliness—in tandem with the Norwegian concept of Jarllmanskalldoth, which also has no translation, but was our inspiration for boarding up the windows and putting sinister traps by the front door. 

You handed me the fishing line while we discussed how exceptionally jarllmanskalldoth the thin slit of light hitting the foyer through the barricade was. I gave you some broken glass to lay as shrapnel, which wasn’t yalmståd or jarllmanskalldoth really, but was pretty herbgubløt, which describes the submissive masculine peace of knowing exactly what to hand someone next in a project. 

We’re finding so many Norwegian concepts helpful these days. 

When the government announced new revisions to the War Charter after a four year deadlock in the Grammatical Application Division of the CIA, we turned to rylkykaborg, which is the one that lets you break all your plates then quickly admit they weren’t precious, and that you’d just been saving that catharsis for the right night. 

When three of our friends were radicalized by the Coalition of Linguistic Objectivity, we became heavily influenced by grøstenjällfjord, which is all about presence, and gratitude, and ways of voluntarily inducing a violent shivering in your torso. 

Last year, when my Aunt Kelly was put before a firing squad for Hypothetical Future Tense fraud, for her last words she tried to tell the story about the Tower of Babel, but couldn’t get it all out. 

In this story, humans try to build a tower up to God. They’re plotting out how to cut and move big stones. They’re stacking them, blasphemously. 

God sees this and says, look, they’re attempting sacrilege, which is a big no for him. So he makes it that they can’t understand each other. 

For instance, one guy says, Lay that stone here, then goes back and sees it laid five feet to the left of where he said. So he finds the guy he told and says, Hey, why didn’t you put it where I said to, and the other guy says, I did. 

No, I said five feet to the right. 

No, I specifically noted that it was weird where you said to put it, but I trusted you. (It was here in the story that the execution occurred, but I’ve heard the ending, so I’ll finish it for her.) 

They argue, and become increasingly confused and irritated. After three or four more misunderstandings like this, they decide to call the whole project off. 

After months of these misunderstandings in the everyday tedium of life, they spread out across the whole world to avoid the trouble, and everyone became very selfish. The announcement concerning the details of her execution came from the laptop we keep in an aluminum lined box in the center of the westward facing wall. 

Your placement of that particular piece, what it did for the combination living-dining room, embodies a flow so efficient that the Norwegians never got around to making a word for it before our government zapped them. 

There’s a new Norwegian concept people are talking about. 

I don’t know how to pronounce it or how to write its name, but it means that when we hear the death clap of a low flying fighter jet, we don’t look out the window. It means when PSAs are broadcast in Morse code, we don’t plug our ears, and we don’t hear. 

It means when red enemy evacuation order leaflets rain softly, like bricks, on our street, we do not read them. 

There’s a new Norwegian concept for where when we hear gunfire in the distance, we don’t flinch; we hold each other sexy by the jaw, and put promises in each other’s mouths. There’s a new Norwegian concept where I take you in my arms. 

There’s a new Norwegian concept where you breathe warmly into the bowl at the center of my collar bone. 

There’s a new Norwegian concept where you make sure I don’t become too selfish, and we kiss.