3 - Ex Officio

Kopernikus, Ignacio. (1066 ACE), ‘An Introduction to Nathan Stromberg’, The Histories of Orbean Cosmology (pp. 132-34), Nova Britannia: Oxbridge University Press.

2030 CE was a turbulent time on Earth. The memory of the Islamist attacks in the city of New York on September 11^th, 2001 CE, which began the so-called ‘War on Terror’, was a scab that took little picking for the United States to bleed from. Religious intolerance and hatred had fueled war and genocide. The old power that was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had risen again as The Russian Federation, and was re-exerting its influence on the world. Global warming had many second-world countries burying their heads in the oil-rich sands of the middle-east. Weather problems effected everyone to varying degrees (pun intended), but undoubtedly to the detriment of the world’s poorest people. The world was turning into what, privately at least, some long-haul politicians described generously as a ‘s**t-hole’. For ninety-nine percent of Earth’s population everything seemed to be going wrong. Halcyon had been purchased by global corporations, entities with a single aim: maximize the profit of non-responsibility. People were more connected than ever, yet felt more alone than at any time in humanity’s past. ‘Linked In’ was a contradiction, with skills and two-dimensional personalities being electronically painted on a thousand corporate recruiting boards. Success in the West was defined by a) your credit rating, multiplied by b) the number of social media friends you boasted, minus c) the number of pre-existing medical conditions you and/or your immediate family had. In the East, success was defined by a) having stayed alive to see the next sunrise, multiplied by b)…see a). 

Nathan Stromberg was seventeen years-old. He lived with his father in the Danish capital, Copenhagen. Nathan’s father had an excellent job as Senior Vice President, Marine Engineering at the rigidly operated Maersk shipping company. This ensured that Nathan’s standard of living was high, even in a country where leveling people’s lifestyle was a state obsession. Nathan attended the Copenhagen International School (CIS). His mother had insisted on this for reasons that were not clear to him at that time, although records show that he suspected that this had been a smart move on her side. His father apparently bore Nathan’s liberal education with stoic disdain. 

Nathan’s mother, Sarah (Fletcher, the world-renowned artist), divorced his father, Johan in 2021 CE when Nathan was nine. This happened for reasons that Nathan did not fully understand at the time. It was explained to him, but he recalled only that his parents were constantly fighting and that this was bad. Later - because his father detailed it to him in the manner of Danish parents going ‘all in’ with emotional engagement - he learned that the Covid-19 pandemic had effectively locked his parents in a house-sized cell. Art and science survived the novelty of this new arrangement for three months. After that, it was a descent into what his father called “the dark ages”. The unity of attraction which space had afforded them was removed, and they discovered that underneath that veneer lay an incompatibility of world views. His mother ditched her husband’s name, and re-moved to California. Nathan’s elder sister, Fiona was given the choice that Nathan was denied, and opted for the New World. By 2030 CE Fiona had graduated from the University of California, San Francisco with a degree in business, and lived in what Nathan described as “a postage-stamp sized” apartment in San Francisco’s bohemian Castro district. His mother lived in California’s Napa Valley, surrounded by vineyards and year-round beauty. 

Nathan felt trapped in Copenhagen, a city that lived under the suppression of winter for part of the year. The transcripts of Nathan’s therapy sessions show that he could not decide who he blamed more: his father, for failing to realize how trapped his wife felt; his mother, for being the instigator of the divorce; or his sister, for abandoning him. His original therapist, in classic Danish fashion, inquired whether Nathan himself might feel he shouldered some of the blame? Nathan likely complained to his father about that line of questioning, because a new therapist was engaged. Life in Denmark, and their inability to co-exist, both had their sticky fingerprints all over the failure of his parent’s relationship. In a way, the dual vectors of Denmark, and irreconcilable perspectives exempted his mother and father from his rage. This left his sister as the primary focus for his anger. Fiona did not have their mother’s excuse, that the relaxing sun and downbeat way of life was imbued in her before coming to the rule-driven, Danish utopia. Fiona was a half-child of vikings, and supposedly immune to tortures like SAD. But she departed, and the ‘shiny, happy people’ social media barrage that Nathan endured afterwards only made him more bitter at his own relative lack of freedom. 

What Nathan wanted was to reunite his family. He clung to the chimera that something could be done to repair the damage. He suggested compromises: they all live in London, this being neutral territory and boasting something of both worlds; a time share agreement where he and Fiona swapped places on an annual basis, so that each could spend time with the other parent; Maersk had an office in the city of Los Angeles, so his father should apply for a transfer and they move there. All creativity was squashed by parental (or sibling) disgust. The family was rendered apart. 

Nathan’s friends called him ‘wise’. They came to him for advice in the many troubles of their teenage years. That this happened was perhaps unusual, but not exceptional. Yet Nathan Stromberg was unique. Nathan’s uniqueness was something he was unaware of at that time, as were his friends, his family, or anyone who stood next to him in a checkout queue, bowled next to him, or ate at a table near him. The only person who came close to understanding Nathan’s uniqueness was his mother. Sarah Fletcher used her talent to capture on canvas not only something’s physical appearance, but also the quality of its essence. Even now, people see reproductions of her paintings and say how ‘real’ they look. Not because they are fine representations of people, animals, or landscapes. But because, subconsciously people who appreciate art (and a large number who care very little for its delicate trappings) see a two dimensional reality they can almost smell, touch, or even talk to. Nathan inherited this ability, although his artistic talents were, to his mother’s disappointment, mediocre at best. The ability to transcend the physical, and imbue it with the metaphysical was a part of Nathan’s uniqueness, but not all of it. 

Nathan wanted his world reassembled, for it to be ‘better’. To the very core of his being, and with every muscle, nerve, and sinew of his body he knew that his existence could be better than its state of separation. The frustrating part was that Nathan couldn’t figure out how to change things. He shook his head every time his father refused to talk to his mother (which was often), or his sister told him how great her life in San Francisco was (which was very often). 

Nathan tried to be the best person he could be, which was why people liked him. He understood them and, by this nature, they understood him. He had an innate ability to focus on what made people good. Nathan realized that it was circumstance that turned good people bad. Nathan knew badness, because he was deeply acquainted with its cousin, depression. Nathan wasn’t everything he wanted to be, but who is? What Nathan didn’t know was that a process had begun that would lead to him being given the power to really make a difference; not notionally, figuratively, or minutely. And this power would lead to what he ultimately wanted, the reunification of his family. We know now of course, that the circumstances of this were far from what he expected. 

Nathan was a grain of sand in a funnel. The neck of this was wide enough to let billions of grains through, yet it contained an invisible mesh, designed to sift until only one grain remained. Nathan was the fleck gold that was left after all the sand had been washed away.