The Cold Land through the Eyes of a Passerby

Sunlight resting on airplane wings, the gentle chill of morning, and a vast ring of clouds above. Blue, gray, yellow. The red of brick walls. Large clocks placed at the center. Their hands move on, but the emptiness makes everything slow down. Eager yet weary footsteps, a suitcase clattering behind. A checkered scarf glowing as beams of light pierce the glass window and settle on those shoulders.

Huge ships. Crows, so many crows perched everywhere. Dusty benches and signboards. The train dashes forward, crows scatter. Footsteps pounding above. A strange new world waiting at the stairway leading up.

Through the train window, a group of students discuss multiple-choice questions. The train driver, where are they?

The station appears, worn and old, and Aarhus emerges. The harbor, murals stretching from house walls to power poles. A giant crane like an outstretched arm, overlapping shadows etched against the deep blue sky. Brutalism, Art Deco… traffic lights that seem to speak.

The hill spreads out ahead, crossing through the city’s garden with its statues, its great figures. Fallen autumn leaves, a breeze carrying that same new chill once again. Truly, there is no turning back anymore. Across the beltway, then another hill, children returning from school running together, scattering like little birds. Laughter, music. A building appears, an apple tree, a white table set, a girl sitting there, her face drawn, silent.

Green. Why so much green? Trees, grass, sky, posters, train compartments, farms, endless fields flickering past the window, a stroller, eyes, a glass of water, floorboards, chess pieces, playing cards, melodies, longing, footsteps…

Sounds tell stories too. The 2/2 rhythm of footsteps, the 2/4 of schoolyard chatter, the 6/8 of train wheels rolling over the tracks. Some people strive to sow sound onto the sidewalks—noisy, harsh, chaotic, stabbing straight into the brain. Yet I do not wish it to stop. Perhaps this clamor belongs here, yet plays out in another space altogether?

Car horns, the rare curses of pedestrians so scarce that they become memorable. Only footsteps remain, sometimes hurried, sometimes dragging, sometimes breaking rhythm to pause before something strange, beckoning. A black man singing aloud in the street, a live band playing in a campus yard. The shutter of a camera clicking now and then. But sound cannot be captured, it drifts away, only halting when it pleases.

The crows sometimes fly off, leaving behind cries that sink into the air like apples falling in a garden, aimless yet heavy. Who dragged those sounds down? Who wanted to hear them? Who could understand? The crows fly off, yet I know they will return to the rooftops. Winter is near, where else could they go?

The TV blares from the living room, a boy younger than me yet taller by two heads. “Hej” - that first sound pulls me into a warmth so tender. I am like a newborn creature, who takes the first being it sees as its mother. I trail after him through endless hallways. In the basement, machines hum, and now and then the switch of an automatic light clicks on. A labyrinth beneath a house, like tales of youthful people.

The final-year doctor, the music student returning home saying she has heard too much, the cyclist who crossed from Europe to Asia in his twenties, the German vegetarian girl… Each one tuned to a different frequency, like genres of music: funk, electric, baroque pop, soul… But if you listen carefully, peace is the true harmony - simple, easy to remember. The chorus goes: If no one else were left in this world, I have been trained to be a lone wolf.

A man enters the room - collision, a kiss, a cold shoulder. Only a few days, yet long enough for me to feel solitary without being lonely, alone yet never lonesome.