Sunday 8 February 2004

Pic of the day: Overturned bus shed. Supply imagination as needed.

The darkness before dawn

With a title like that, you'd expect something extraordinary. Well, expect again. Here's what happened:

I had played computer games all night till seven in the morning. As my brain gradually shut down, it bumped into the great idea of physical exercise. "Hi" said Great Idea of Physical Exercise to my brain, "How about we go over to my place and have some fun?" "Dude?" said my brain. "Like, jogging, or at least a brisk walk. It's very nice outside" continued P.E. "Right on" said the brain. And so I slowly changed into some jogging gear I had lying around. I think it is called "sweaters", we call it jogging suit (or the Norwegian equivalent) over here. In the same way, we refer to sneakers as "jogging shoes". Well, they certainly don't guarantee sneakiness. I'll come back to that soon.

Around half past seven on a Sunday morning, when typical Norwegians sleep off the alcohol from Binge Drinking Night, I sneaked out of the house. The cold had returned for sure, but the roads were still dry after the snow and ice had melted and evaporated during the mild days this past week. What had not evaporated was the sand and fine gravel which had been sprinkled on the road, repeatedly, while it was iced over a couple times. This all lay on the road. And somehow the frost had almost but not quite bonded the sand to the road. The bond did break when I stepped on it, but it did so loudly, as if every grain of sand made an audible snap when forced to move.

The night was clear and still, it was the dark shortly before the first trace of dawn. The time which, according to spiritual songs everywhere, is the darkest. It surely is pretty near the coldest. The stillness was complete. Not even a hint of wind. Nothing moved, not even an insect is alive and chirping at this time of the years. The few birds who stay up north during the winter had the wits to stay silent as well, while in spring they are awake well before dawn and working hard to perfect their imitation of an electronic alarm clock. But the only thing that moved was I. The only sound was my sneakers making a very non-sneaky sound, in the total stillness sounding eerily like dancing on small firecrackers. Surely it must be loud enough to wake everyone in the neighborhood and make them curse the terrorist that woke them from their well deserved slumber to the pain and nausea of a too early Sunday hangover.

I tried to walk beside the road when possible. I tried to tiptoe when I had to step on the sand. The crunching was still all too reminiscent of an army of rebels marching toward the capitol armed with pitchforks and rickshaws. OK, perhaps not exactly that combination. But anyway. Marching.

I came to the bus stop, which is already quite a bit from the house, 12 minutes or so of brisk walk. There was this scene of random destruction. Someone, I suppose some kind of transport authorities, have set up these small buildings where people can stand protected from the weather and wait for the bus. Some healthy young people have evidently not been satisfied with the layout, and decided the bus hut should lay down for a while. So they arranged for this to happen, which must have taken considerable effort (somewhat depending on how many were involved). So there it is now. Entering in particular is now much more difficult than it used to be, and staying in there is less comfortable as well, at least if you are used to standing or sitting. Of course, on a Saturday night, the arch-typical Norwegian is holding on to the floor with both arms and not letting go despite the wild spinning motion. So I guess it may have been ideal then. Now, however, it was utterly deserted.

I waited a while until my heart stopped kickboxing in my chest. I photographed. Then I left, marching home on tiptoe with the sound of giant boulders thundering down the steep Norwegian mountainsides to crack into pieces at the foot of the cliffs. OK, not quite, but the sound was still disturbingly loud and I was sure the neighbors were peering sleepily out from behind their curtains and blinders. I came home in time to see the light of dawn spread before I went to bed. When I woke up at noon, a thin layer of snow covered everything.

And, well, that was that. ^_^*