Contents
Chapter 1 - Friday. Egg.
Overview
An unexplained leak through a century-old building intersects with a domestic scene, culminating in dark droplets falling into Vibeke’s cooking. The unsettling discovery prompts Vibeke to call the police and sends Anders to fetch the caretaker and check on their upstairs neighbor, hinting at a possible tragedy above.
Summary
Water from an upper flat seeps through an old Oslo building, threading along floors, beams, and century-old plaster. A digression recounts bricklayer Jacob Andersen’s pig’s-blood-and-hair mortar and a grim local myth, rooting the house in a history of improvised materials and morbid stories.
In the present, Vibeke Knutsen smokes at her kitchen window on a sweltering, quiet afternoon, reflecting on her stagnant relationship with Anders and her recent return to cigarettes. She cooks potatoes, noticing odd black lumps bobbing in the boiling water.
Anders arrives, sweaty from a bike ride, tastes one of the lumps, and says it tastes like egg. As they talk, Vibeke spots dark droplets hanging from the ceiling fabric above the stove; they do not glisten like water.
Realizing the leak likely isn’t just water and may be something disturbing from the flat above, Vibeke tells Anders to fetch the caretaker and check on their upstairs neighbor, Camilla, while she calls the police.
Who Appears
- Vibeke KnutsenGallery worker; smokes by the window, cooks dinner, notices dark ceiling droplets and calls the police.
- AndersVibeke’s partner; returns sweaty from a bike ride, tastes a lump from the pot, goes to get the caretaker.
- CamillaUpstairs neighbor; potential source of the mysterious leak and subject of concern.
- Jacob AndersenHistoric bricklayer; used blood and hair in mortar, anchoring the building’s eerie backstory.