20 Jul 1985, Posted by Scott An Chora in Travelogue, No Comments.

07/20 Burgen, Norway

I wandered through the station lingering on familiarities.  It’s amazing how routines destroyed time and sped things up.  There were so many unexpected avenues, detours, new faces and outright pleasures that it seemed as if it had been months since I left here, not days.  I got talking up with a couple on the train that had been reading the same travel guide and discovered out we were going in the same directions.  Apparently the weather had been less than perfect for some time, but when we arrived things changed for the better.  The skies had just cleared and the sun began peeking through the clouds, painting the edges of everything in view with a halo of gold.  I’m still upset with myself that I had no working camera.  I kept repeating over and over to myself, stupid retard as a punishment to myself.  I did manage to find the right type of glue and had some nylon string in my bag, but it was still in recovery and would take at least another day.  The pictures that got away were just breath taking.  It was like I was walking among the clouds.  “I am the king of the world, as far as I could see is my kingdom”.  It’s kind of funny how true beauty makes me feel that way, as if I was the only one that had that that experience, somehow making me special.

Eventually the clouds in the distance quickly overtook the sun, it was apparent that the rain was on its way back.  I sat above, looking across the bay, watching the rain clouds file in.  I felt much like the sky.  I had left a lot behind and was seeking protection from the loneliness of the crowd.  I was running out of time.  My connection with Jim was just a day away.  I sat in a local nightclub behind a solitary beer, watching the young ladies dance.  In the background I could hear the rain disrupt the beat of the drum.  I waited and waited and just got tired of sitting in one spot.  There was something I couldn’t put my finger on that made me feel uncomfortable.  I headed out into the rain to catch the next train to somewhere else.  Since the local trains from here traveled on the same line as the main train into Oslo, I could stop anywhere along this path as long as the Oslo train stop there.  I ended up pretty much in the middle of nowhere, cracked open a paperback and attempted to read myself somewhere else.  After about an hour or so, a young man wandered up and assumed I was also waiting on a train.  From a distance he gestured if I wanted a cigarette.  About halfway through the cigarette he pulled out from is jacket pocket a bottle of what he referred to as moonshine but it tasted more like kerosene.  We talked until his train arrived and when it departed, only me on a graveyard of a platform.  My eyes got tired from reading and I grew impatient and began to wander toward the end of the platform.  There was a slight drizzle and I enjoyed looking up into the clouds and watching the rain drops fall through the platform lights to earth.  The platform lights illuminated each drop.  As I wandered down to the end of the platform, I surprised a young lady who had her pants down around her ankles and was in the middle of taking a piss.  Her smile was unforgettable….I’m almost done can you just ignore me?  To erase her embarrassment the quickest way, she approached rather than turning tail and scampering off.  She explained that she was on her way to meet up with some friends who were following a good local band.  She convinced me that following her back into town was a better option than burning time in this forsaken place and she would buy me a drink.  I admit I had some fun but the whole time I had to keep one eye on the clock.  I could not afford to miss my train and leave Jim in lurch.

Once I boarded the train bound for Oslo is was evident that it would be a shit ride.  Every seat was upright and as hard as a park bench, practically making it impossible to get any sleep.  Once I did get myself to sleep an Asian bitch woke me up by hitting me on the head with her newspaper.  Apparently she had a reservation for the seat I was sleeping in.  The car contained about forty seats, of which thirty seven were empty.  I gave the bitch my seat, moved up four rows and attempted to recapture my dream.