The new year is not without its own surprises. Just like the old one wasn’t. It is a bit like starting to bike when the pedals are pointing straight up and down. You can’t. There is that tiny little forward motion you need to be able to step down. And to be able to move the pedal forward, you have to be moving forward. Which was how the whole drill started in the first place - the wish of going forward….
The new year is not without its own surprises. Just like the old one wasn’t. It is a bit like starting to bike when the pedals are pointing straight up and down. You can’t. There is that tiny little forward motion you need to be able to step down. And to be able to move the pedal forward, you have to be moving forward. Which was how the whole drill started in the first place - the wish of going forward.
I find myself sitting at a train station. A surprisingly clean one - a harbour from the icy roads and marrow-stiffening frost. A harbour for big bulks of tin which get filled with sardines who wish to go places. Which was how it all started in the first place.
Feeling my chest fill slowly - first from a tiny dot somewhere just behind solar plexus, then slowly in all directions. Just when it begins, I always mistake the feeling for hope. But - as always - I am mistaken. The bitter sting of battery acid leaking from that tiny invisible point behind solar plexus which should be filling the air with the smell of acrid mangled flesh, but doesn’t. For no reason whatsoever, on the last day in the year, an icy (yet finely manicured) hand grabs hold of my insides announcing the arrival of Sadness.
Myself and Sadness have been on first name basis all of 2002. I am not certain if she decided to show up on this last day to threaten or to warn. But she was there. Elbows on my lap, head in my hands, I discover tears slowly wiggling their way through between my fingers.
“Tog til Stockholm står klar i spor tolv”
Looking up, I see my backpack with all my shopping bags standing around it like a protective shield. Just as Pearl Jam’s Wishlist starts on my cd player, I grab for my mobile. In less than 160 characters, I pour out a concise version Sadness. Short words distortingly describing the Sadness that has decided to hug itself to me like the last leaf on a silver birch.
The words fill the display. 150 characters. 159 characters. And a period. 160. Pressing send. Phonebook shows. And then I double over in pain, at the realisation that, despite my strongest wish of broadcasting my pain to the world, I have nobody to send the message to.
Nobody that wishes to go forward. Which was how it all started in the first place.