Allan´s Weblog

Where I live, it's all lowlands. Rolling hills, but low, rolling hills.

Therefore it's always a treat for a lowlander like myself to start the car's enginge and head for the nearest mountains. Driving or walking in the mountains gives a totally different feeling to it all. Don't get me wrong, I love the lowlands. The lowlands have huge skies and you can look very far ahead. Skies with clouds are majestic in much the same way mountains are.

But moving around in mountainous terrain is different, and also majestic. Nothing goes in a straight line there. Up and down. Curving left and right. Hair pin bends. Looking up to the giants leaning over you - the next moment looking down in the valley with it's toy-houses and matchbox-cars.

The real treat, however, reveals itself after having walked for some time and you suddenly realize that there is no noise. Nothing. No distant humming of a highway. Nobody shouting around the next corner. No trains with squeaking brakes anywhere near.

And all of this only 50 km north of Oslo!

Moving through the crowd downtown on a Saturday is like swimming through heavy water. But errands must be done, things must be bought, air must be breathed and insults must be taken.
Then, on Central Station, allowing myself a break, I see the children running around the small play train that one can start by inserting a coin in a slot. Pastime for kids and donation for worthy causes for adults that is.
I see the sparkle in their eyes, I hear laughter in their voices and see the busy parents giving themselves a break just as I am. Then, flashback, my own time as a small child. I suddenly remember. The train was in Central Station then also - and suddenly I understand that my perception has changed. Back then it was magic. Coin-in-slot and everything would change like a magic spell - from normal light to night light and lit windows in surrounding toy-buildings and lamppost. And the trains running on different tracks, steam engines and diesel-electric alike, moving round and about. The child absorbing the whole scene in magical light and sounds, creating a new reality unknown to any adult - including those who made this play-train exhibition.
For the child I was then, these trains seemed like the real world. The world was for an all-too-short period equal with this dark purple light and the night trains running in this magic toy-world that only we kids knew.

And here I stand - so far, far away from all that. Stuff I haven't been thinking of for decades suddenly fills my mind. Voices, scents, sounds, magic. Oh, magic.
Then, clonk! The magic disappears. No more magic for that sorry, little coin. I remember the loss of magic from back then in this situation. I see the slight disappointment in the childrens' faces. Their reluctant acceptance, as you must have as a child confronted with the adult-made world.

I reach for my purse, smiling at the children enjoying their expressions as they watch me and understand what is coming. I insert the coin in the appropriate slot, hear the machinery start and immensely enjoy seeing magic returning in the midst of these children.

"Thank you, mister!" I get my reward. And a photo on top of it.

They were my friends
when I was a kid

My plastic toy soldiers

I used to make them fight fierce battles
good vs evil

The axis of good
that was all I knew
the axis of evil
was all I didn't know

I had forgotten about these plastic people
and their bend bayonets
until I met one of them on a park bench
the other day

Where have you been all that time? I said
Looking for you, he said -
What we'd like to know is
when you will discharge us?

This war has been going on
for forty years now
and frankly, we're getting tired
our colours are fading
our flag is torn

I bowed my head in shame
The first time I saw
- really saw -
how pretty the girls were
when they were running
I left the war
and forgot all about it

I set you free, I said
War Is Over