PROFILE

Name: Sven Johansson
Age: 92
Occupation: Retired shipyard worker.
Family: None

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"Diiing, doong, next stop Mora station!" I was awakened by the crackling sound from the internal speakers. Where was I? I felt very confused. This was not my small apartment back in Göteborg, and why did I get the feeling that I was moving, just as I was sitting in a car? Ohh yes, how silly of me! Now I remember! I was sitting in a train compartment on a train going to Gällivare, my hometown.

I looked around, there was about 10 more people sitting in the compartment. There were six groups of seats in the compartment, all consisting by two pairs of seats facing each other. The seat next to me was not taken, so I had put my some of my things there, my wallet and my briefcase, just to keep an eye on them. I didn’t trust my fellow earthlings nowadays, all sense of moral was gone.

On the other side of the small table infront of me sat a young man, he couldn’t be more than 25 years old. The man was sleeping, tired after the long trip. He had got on the train at the same station as me, Göteborg Central Station. Next to the man sat a woman in her mid 40th. She was staring out through the window… No, now she turned her head in my direction. I quickly moved my attention to my wrinkled and scared hands, I felt embarrassed for looking at her so intensively. When I looked up a moment later, she had hidden her face behind a newspaper… The typical Swedish shyness I thought and looked out the window at the quickly escaping scenery.

I was almost hypnotized by the rapid motion of the train; I was not used to traveling. I felt that someone was studying me so I looked up. The man on the other side of the compartment had waken and looked straight at me.

- "This is isn’t the first I’m making this journey, and hopefully it won’t be my last either. But the nature here just never seems to stop surprising me, I said, surprised to hear my own voice after have been silent for almost 7 hours. There was a minute of silence, the young man smiled at me."

As we continued our journey trough the dark forests of Sweden's inland, I told the young man about my life and how different all once were. The man, who by the way introduced himself as Kristian Madsen, continued to be very quiet, but somehow I felt that he was interested to listen to my stories.I pointed out some historical buildings as we saw them through our window and told him how important they once had been, long before he was born. I showed him some very old and beautiful train stations such as the ones in Jörn and Älvsbyn.

In all of my 92 years long life, I had only gone by train once before and that was when I left Gällivare to work in Göteborg at the big shipyard. I had to leave my hometown since there was no jobs available. My family moved a couple of years later to Stockholm and because of that, I never returned to Gällivare. But now, 70 years later, I felt I had to go back to see the fabulous surroundings and be able to once again experience the midnight sun. One of the reasons for this was that my wife passed away two years ago, and that I felt that it’s time to fulfill my dreams before it’s to late.

I woke from my hypnotized state with the feeling that someone was looking at me… I turned my head to the other side of the compartment and saw a tall man in black clothing that had his eyes fixed on me. He didn’t look Swedish, but in the same time he did. I got a very strange feeling about this mysterious man. I turned away and tried to ignore my ridiculous thoughts, I had become a suspicious, frightened old man.

As I continued talking to Kristian about my childhood, I saw another young man with red hair pass my seat and continue out through the door to the next compartment, followed by the tall dark man. Maybe the dinner compartment finally opened, I thought to myself. Kristian had fallen asleep and since I no one else to talk to, I followed his example.