When this tale begins, Barack Obama was president of the United States, Ban Ki-moon headed up the United Nations, and Angela Merkel had ten years left of what was already a six-year stint as chancellor of Germany.
Russia had a president whose name hardly anyone remembered. Yet everyone knew it was Acting Prime Minister Putin who ruled there.
The Arab Spring swept across northern Africa, led by hundreds of thousands of people who were sick of corruption and sham democracy—and who had convinced themselves change was possible.
An earthquake in the Pacific Ocean caused a wave as tall as a five-story building to crash upon the coast of Japan, destroying everything in its path, including the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
Azerbaijan won the Eurovision Song Contest in front of a few hundred million viewers. But those numbers were nothing compared to the two billion who had, only a short time earlier, tuned in for the wedding of England’s Prince William to Kate Middleton. All while the United States found and shot Osama bin Laden without any viewers at all.
The age-old border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia flared up that year, and faded again temporarily. Running the show in Sweden was Prime Minister Reinfeldt, the leader of the conservative Moderate Party. He was the man who made the left’s most prized issues his own and, in doing so, won two elections in a row.
In that same country, a half-stupid little brother named Johan suddenly found himself on his own when his older brother Fredrik jetted off to Rome to make a diplomat of himself. Their mother had been dead for years, while their father walked along the shores of Montevideo, hand in hand with his boyfriend.
We’ll begin our tale with the half-stupid man. But it won’t be long before the whole world is along for the ride. Including Obama, Ban Ki-moon, and Putin’s Russia.
Bon appétit!
Jonas Jonasson
Johan was kind. Helpful. And unevenly gifted.
There was so much he didn’t understand. For instance: he did not, in fact, have the best big brother in the world.
They were only two years apart in age, but Johan looked up to Fredrik the way a son looks up to his father. Like the father neither of them had.
Although, actually, they did. A man who had deserted the family before Johan was even born. And who showed up now and then over the years. Most recently at their mother’s funeral.
During the post-service coffee, he gifted his sons the twelve-and-a-half-room apartment on the swankiest street in Stockholm. He told Fredrik he was proud of him and Johan that maybe it would all work out one day.
And then he was gone.
The brothers were similar in appearance and total opposites in personality. Big brother had followed in his absent father’s footsteps, already on his way to a career in diplomacy with the goal of one day becoming an ambassador. Little brother, meanwhile, was failing at delivering the post.