It is the first clear night in days, maybe even weeks. The sky is a deep blue, as close to black as possible with a few bright stars here and there. Above me is a plume of white smoke, clear against the sky, rising with a soft woosh from a nearby smokestack. The smoke flows in front of the full moon which shines through, creating a yellowish halo with orange edges. The picture is framed by the roofline of a house at a strange angle on one side, and the barren branches of a tree on the other. As for … Read the rest
The fog lies thick over the city, dampening sounds and blurring shapes. In front of me stands a tree, spreading its dark green branches across a background of boring buildings. A street light is shielded by the foliage, leaves turning a vivid gold within the sphere of its glare; the rays forming cones of light through the fog, like search lights. Taking a few steps makes the cones shift as if following me then disappear altogether as I continue home.… Read the rest
There is a soft hum in the background and every once in a while a low squeaking can be heard. The train glides slowly, seemingly without effort, through the green landscape shifting from forest to field and back to forest again under a sky full of light clouds; mist creeps across the fields and to my right the sun is setting. The coach is short with only a few groups of seats in grey and white with wooden tables in between. The roof is domed like that of an airplane but with big windows stretching upwards. Except for me there … Read the rest
The fog envelopes the city like a heavy blanket and blurs all edges. A short distance away the surrounding buildings disappear in the murk. There is a halo around the moon and around the streetlights and in the closest light droplets can be seen swirling like smoke. The faint swosh of a car comes towards me and I can see the beams of light sweeping the ground in front of it. Thursday night, no one is out and about except me, everything is dampenedd by the mist. Were it not for my infected eye this would actually be very enjoyable … Read the rest
A thousand scooters neatly lined up in rows, a thousand handle bars locked to the left, a thousand pairs of rear view mirrors reflecting the sky. Although similar, the scooters are different: different make, different size, different color. The mirrors are all the same, a vaguely rectangular shape on the end of a crocked stick, the silvery surface colored a bright sky blue. To a foreigner like me, this mass of two-wheeled vehicles is both amazing and bewildering all at once. Newcomers inevitably ask themselves how can there be so many of them while we have so few? How do … Read the rest
I am standing in the clinically efficient bathroom of a German sleeper train. The floor is gray, the walls have bland white nuance and here and there clean gray aluminium panels with painfully clear symbols on them let you operate the bathroom fittings such as toilet flushing and the tap. The only splash of color is a turquoise toilet seat cover and even that is washed out. Everything is so much better, so much more efficient, so much more comfortable than the Czech sleeper train that brought us to Budapest but that one made up for it by having so … Read the rest
I am walking home, tired from the exercise, the mild air is no longer cool enough and the street lights have been turned off. In just one hour the sky has turned from a deep blue to a bland light grey, but at the edge to the east, the band of yellow and orange has shifted to a dodgy shade of pink that gradually thickens to a powerful red. I can draw two conclusions at this moment. One is that there are few better ways to spend the early hours of the morning than skateboarding down traffic free roads and … Read the rest
The world in front of me is bathed in orange, where I stand, the shadow of a summer night prevails. The boundary: the sharp edge of the hills crest. Not ten meters above street level the sounds of passing trams and buses are somewhat muffled and from this rather small, secluded park one of Gothenburg’s most notorious crossroads seems almost peaceful. A series of streetlights and illuminated signs scattered about seemingly at random and the slowly turning wings of the amusement park windmill even hint that this place has beauty. But the thought that strikes me is that I can … Read the rest
The grass is just a shady green and the trees are almost black, forming silhouettes against the night sky. A sky that, despite that it is almost midnight, is light blue. There is something fairy-taleish about that sky because that blue color is one that only appears on endless summer nights like this one. All around are darkened houses with a few yellow rectangles cutting holes in the dark facade. In the middle of the park, just visible through some low branches is the bright globe of a street light that illuminates a small playground. A sandbox with a red … Read the rest
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