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In a last attempt to avoid disaster, Bobby Kennedy and Kevin Costner’s White House character go to speak with the Soviet ambassador and as they pass the embassy building they see thick smoke rise from the embassy chimney , and perhaps only then did Bobby Kennedy understand the seriousness. Realize how close they are to doom “They are burning documents”he mutters. “They think we’re going to war.”
I quickly thought of that scene when I passed Systembolaget yesterday and the queue outside was 100 meters long, a long line of human destinies waiting their turn. It was the day after the new restrictions went into effect, urging all Swedes to immediately eliminate all forms of social life outside the family, and I thought when I saw them standing in line waiting for their turn to buy alcohol: what make ready for war. They’ll go home later, lock themselves up, do what Tegnell says, and since no one knows when we’ll get out, it’s just as good to shop.
Then I went and met a friend who was going to open a restaurant in Norrmalm, and he showed me the room at the top of one of the tallest houses in the city, and I stepped out onto a terrace that had one of the most extraordinary views there is. I’ve seen. Where he was, he could see the homes of a million people. Like glistening rain, bright spots everywhere, all the kitchen windows flashing there. People preparing for winter.
I think we are more concerned now than last time. The darkness we are seeing now is something different than what we faced in March. I remember that Löfven asked us then to fight and endure, and we did, because we had good hopes, it was March and we lived bright days, with summer ahead, we knew that on the other side of spring, June and then we can hug again. What is in front of us now is probably just darkness, there is no light on the other side. Löfven speaks to the nation again, he speaks of the dead and the living, a kind of Halloween theme as far as I understand, but he says nothing about how we are supposed to handle this time that is now approaching, and it is not possible. blame him for it, for how he should be able to respond.
And I thought about it later, when I came home at night, I saw the closed iron shutters over the closed shops, the black and yellow striped tape shining matte from inside the dimly lit restaurants. October night, but cold November outside, and I played the animated message of the municipality that shone from the advertising surfaces, with smiling men keeping their distance, the glare of the LED screens turning the wet asphalt blue. Some bars open, with people having a beer and will soon be embarrassed by the photographic evidence on social media. Otherwise empty, few come out. No one visits anyone’s home, we even refrain from visiting the graves of those who died alone.
We meet in our houses while Stockholm closes, everything closes, the baths and the museums and the theaters that just a few weeks ago were happy to reopen. We whisper with the system bags, we open a bottle. It is colder now, and they are warning on television about the remnants of a storm coming from the mainland. I say we should turn off the news, I want to see something that makes us laugh. We watch “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and the fat, bearded old man dies and the grieving best friend gives his church speech: “Stop all the bells, turn off the phone, silence the dog with a paw where it barks in the corner.”
Suddenly I think that the man in the movie is not talking to his friend, but to us, who is talking about our isolation. “The stars are not necessary now; blow each and every one. Remove the clouds and then put the sun away. “
It is as if you are talking about something that is happening outside the window.
