The Tale Of The Sea Muse series can be found as it unfolds under the ‘Series’ tab on the EWN navigation bar.

Tale Of The Sea Muse

“Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit,” the lanky Swede said aloud. Then he thought, did I say ‘dammit’ four, or five times? Anxiety rose like an urgent bullet because he didn’t know how many times he said the word.

Forgetting the reason why he was cussing in the first place, he started anew with his once proud and blond hair recording each word with a wild bounce, “Dammit— dammit— dammit— dammit— dammit.”

Untangling his fingers from around the large white ceramic mug, Sven Jensen stood from his cluttered oak top kitchen table, stabbed inside the pockets of his wrinkled and stained lab coat, and began remembering why he was swearing. It was the contents in the that trunk. Drawings and writings he thought would prove his theory and application. Proof he hastily gathered and tossed in that locker because he didn’t want to be on that boat very long; especially with at least one lifeless body on the top deck. Then he panicked and gave that trunk to his nephew to get rid of.

He was sure if that boat was ever discovered, no matter on what side, those documents could link him to at least one death.

Standing at the kitchen sink, unconsciously washing his hands for the fifth time in thirty minutes, he stared through the window and out to the boathouse that was the shelter for The Frigga, his craft. The forty-five foot long boat was the fastest in her class, probably in any class, and not only employed stealth technology that any government would pay handsomely to have, but also was the floating home to an experimental device that every world power would kill to get its hands on— if they even knew it existed, which was unlikely.

Unlikely because Sven was the one man in the world who could design such a boat, and the device it shrouded, but he was forgotten about years ago, not long after the the last Where Are The Nobel Winners Now article was published about him. Even the Zabatinos forgot about him soon after they were paid for building The Frigga.

“Why did I board that ship?” Sven mumbled as he ran his hand through his shoulder length hair, “Where in the world did the nerve come from to even enter the zone after the storm? Twice before that I didn’t enter, but why did I enter on the third activation?”

Of course he knew the one answer to all those questions. The end game, the Jesus pudding— the proof.

Every experiment would be a failure if there was no authentication of the results, and Sven Larsen never failed to grab substantiation of the end process. And that proof would only satisfy him and never be made public.

No- being in the spotlight was too much for Sven to bear. All the attention he was given after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize created so much anxiety that he fled Sweden to land on some piece of secluded Maine coastline. He chose Maine because of a conversation he had with his nephew Lars who told great tales of pristine and rugged shores. There was also the fact that America was loaded with eccentric hermits, people who were the center of rumors, sure, but those rumors always faded into myths- and then nearly disappeared altogether.

His expansive cedar cabin, his boathouse, his dock, his boat, him- all just far enough away from anywhere to be an inconvenience to anyone who wanted to check up on him. So nestled away in the nooks and crannies of Maine’s jagged coast, that when he brought The Frigga over from Italy he spent three days looking for his boathouse, which was incredible considering his hobby since a child was navigating the seas— his father was a great sailor and a splendid teacher.

Sven built generators using solar power, wind, and trace amounts of fossil fuels, allowing him to be tucked away and giving even fewer people reason to know he was out on Ellis Point.

“I should never have panicked and taken that locker to Lars,” he said rubbing his stubble covered chin. “I must get it back and destroy it before the world comes crashing down on me….” …I need to call Lars and tell him I want to buy that trunk back. I’ll leave for Castine and call him on the way, which means a daytime mooring at the docks, which means people, which means I’ll run the risk of an anxiety attack.

But I’ll die from panic sure as I am standing here if I don’t act now.

After quickly washing his hands one more time, Sven slipped out of the lab coat, put on the cardigan hanging on one of the hooks attached to the kitchen door, and headed out towards The Frigga.

Sven could create scientific magic, he could build planets, he could solve unsolvable equations, and he could bend elements to his will, but give him a simple household chore— such as eliminating an annoying thumping against the backdoor every time he opened or closed it —and he would grunt, “I really need to take care of that”, and then promptly forget about it.

Just like those menial tasks, he rarely thought about the gold medal awarded to him decades ago, for his work in physics, and when he did think about it, he rued over misplacing it. All the while, that medal was hanging from a hook, covered by a never worn sweater, on the back door.