Asmo's compilation, part one, On the road

[Asmodean]

This is the first of three parts in my compilation of the events of the 22 of July 2011. This part is about the day as seen by me there and then. This is probably the least interesting and certainly the least relevant part of the compilation, but I thought that maybe some of you would still like to read it.

Tyres roar on moist tarmac, the stereo is playing FF by Kent, the last track on my driving CD. The rain has stopped for now and the sun shines for brief moments through the clouds. My aged Volkswagen feels rock-solid, like an old friend, forgiving and generous, the kind that would stick by you through fire and water and ask for nothing in return. The speedometer needle climbs towards the big fine zone and I slow down a bit. After vacation, I'm eager to get home, have a long shower and maybe some dinner.

The two backpacking teenagers I've picked up earlier are asleep and I am content to drive in silence, except for the music and the tyre roar. This day, which started with heavy enough rain to strain the window wipers and slippery roads, is turning out to be quite perfect indeed...

I stop at a gas station to get some coffee and let my passengers use the restrooms and stretch their legs, then we drive on. A phone starts ringing in the back seat, and from the tone of the conversation, I quickly get the sense that something must be wrong. Upon hanging up, one of the passengers imforms me that there has been a big explosion in Oslo. I switch over to Radio Norge, where the speechless afternoon crew are already long-since scrambling to cover what's happened. At this point, I guess that a gas tank must have exploded somewhere, a hypothesis quickly shot down by what I hear on the radio. I update my passengers in real time, and the mood in the car is calm if slightly dampened.

A song plays while the radio crew prepare some semblance of a proper sending. I remember wanting that song for my driving CD... We drive on towards Oslo. Little do we know that at this time, a white Fiat Doblo starts its journey our way and ultimately, towards the small island of Utøya in my home district for the past few years, carrying its deadly cargo.

Police cars, blue lights blazing, scream past us at break-neck speed, heading for Oslo. My passengers wonder if it would be wiser for them to continue on to Drammen with me and try to get to Sweden that way, but decide against it. Some time later, we arrive in Oslo. After getting lost twice and turned around by the police once, I manage to drop my passengers off by Oslo Rådhus, on the far side fo the building.



I give them instrutions on how to get to the hostel while avoiding the blast zone and set course for home. The host on the radio now says that they have recieved reports of shooting at Utøya and that there are injuries. I wonder how the same kind of shit can hit the same part of the country in the same day and arrive at the conclusion that the events are probably related. On my way from Oslo, I recieve several phone calls from people, some family and friends, who know that I was going to take the route past Utøya and who are now wondering if I am alive and intend to remain that way. Beause of my passengers, however, I took the fastest route in stead, so I could tell them that I was fine and approaching home.

Upon arrival, I hastily unpacked the car and turned on the web-TV. By then, the scope of the attack was becoming more and more clear. Reports of dozens of youths shot and killed and many others injured were ticking in from Utøya and in Oslo, the emergency servies were doing their best to assist those who needed help.

I watched the news through the night, until eventually, I went to bed, thoughts running every which way. The following morning, I got out of the house in search for food. On the surface at least, everything was business as usual. The stores were open, the mail man was delivering letters, buried in a ton of ads, there were people in the streets, going about their day.

There was also a large procession walking up the hill towards the western part of town center. Upon inquiry, I found out that they were gathering to lay down flowers for those who died. I managed to get my hands on a couple of those, pitiful things as they were, probably being the bottom of the florist's barrel after half the town has been through his establishment, and joined them.

Later, I found out about similar gatherings all around the country - regular people showing their disgust with what happened, and more importantly, their support for those worst affected. There were no cries for vengeance and the atmosphere was charged with calm sadness, but also the willingness to move on, to survive and return to normal. Tears and love... I have no better words to describe it. I do know though, that I've never felt so proud of people around me as I did that day and in the days that followed.

End of part one. Part two will be published in a few days and will be a media compilation of the events in Oslo.

[Ali]

Thank you for writing this all down Asmo.  It's so interesting to hear the story through a more personal vein than just the online news reports.  You and DJ should team up, by the way.  You're both excellent writers. 

[Crow]

Look forward to reading the second part.

[Asmodean]

Thank you for writing this all down Asmo.  It's so interesting to hear the story through a more personal vein than just the online news reports.

That's kind of why I posted it: this is the story as it has played out from the perspective of just some guy going home from vacation - in this case, me. I've rendered some things in high detail, those I for some reason remember very clearly - and others, I have not mentioned at all because I no longer remember enough to do so.

I think in general, the experience of the 22. of July was for many people very similar to my own - just another nice summer day, which started like many days before, and ended turned upside down, with people glued to TV and computer screens through the night.

It's kind of weird, thinking back to the fact that had I not picked up some hitchhikers going to Oslo, I'd probably take the longer road home by RV35 and E16, to avoid several toll posts, thus driving past Utøya at about the time the events played out the way they did there. Oh, it wouldn't have been dangerous for me, but still... Close enough to touch.

[Amicale]

Asmo, thank you for sharing this. It really touched me. It's amazing how connected we feel, and how our hearts go out, to people we don't and never will know. I felt the same way during the Columbine shootings, which happened when I was in highschool, and far less students were injured or killed there. The number of people taken out never determines how we feel, does it. It's that they're humans just like us, and we never know what to make of the tragedy.

[Asmodean]

Trouble is, as I see it, that many people do look at the numbers when those become high enough, almost forgetting that behind each number, there is a unique story, an ended life, shattered dreams and an even greater number of those left with the loss.

Those kids and I, we would probably disagree on most things political, still, I do consider each of their deaths to be a great loss - not only for those close to them, but for our whole society, and maybe beyond.

Most of us have moved on and got back to as normal a life as possible quickly, but that is not saying that we should not remember and support those whos wounds - be they physical or otherwise - have not yet healed, and may never heal fully.

[Recusant]

I just want to add my thanks to you, Asmodean, for taking the time and putting in the effort to write about your experience of that day. It was poignant yet not sentimental, and very well written. I really appreciate having your perspective on this incident.

[Asmodean]

Thanks! Apparently, poignant yey unsentimental is sort of what I do, if people are to be believed 

On a more serious note though, as I see it, that is the only way to share one's experience of something like that - and especially, to re-tell another's story. If you make it sentimental and therein probably too personal, the piture painted for the readers will undoubtedly get skewed.

In this case, as in most larger-than-one cases, it is the story that's important, not how I happened to feel at any given moment.

[The Magic Pudding]

Thanks! Apparently, poignant yey unsentimental is sort of what I do, if people are to be believed 

On a more serious note though, as I see it, that is the only way to share one's experience of something like that - and especially, to re-tell another's story. If you make it sentimental and therein probably too personal, the piture painted for the readers will undoubtedly get skewed.

In this case, as in most larger-than-one cases, it is the story that's important, not how I happened to feel at any given moment.

I liked it, here have a koala stamp.

I think there is probably a place for different approaches, passionate or dispassionate.  Perhaps the understatement allows the reader to do their own skewing.  There is a poignancy to taking joy in the summer day and the company of young people but then the twist of how a twisted other is happening to kids nearby. 

[Asmodean]

I suppose... But a reader can not be expected not to skew the facts by applying own emotions, views etc to them. So, as a documentary writer, I think one sort of has to insure that that skewing will not be done through double lenses of passion - the author's and the reader's. In this case, I think, two wrongs will only rarely make a right.