104

Thomas got up from his chair to leave for his room, and Bjorn joined him out to the hallway. But instead of going up to his own room, Bjorn entered the living room. There was nobody there, and the silent emptiness of it seemed just right after all the emotional bickering he had been subjected to by Thomas. Not that he minded it much, but Thomas was bitter, and some of his acid remarks simply felt uncomfortable, no matter how true they might be.

It was time to put things in perspective, and focus more on the here and now. Things weren't bad, all things considered, and there was really no reason to feel upset about things completely outside his control. And again he was drawn to the view to the north as an excellent way to sooth his mind.

Bjorn decided to pull the large easy chair from in front of the TV over to the coffee table by the window. It was surprisingly light, considering how bulky it was, and it took no effort at all to place the chair squarely in front of the large window. Sitting down in it, Bjorn immediately felt a sensation of well being, and watching the snowflakes drift by, obscuring, but not completely hiding the overall view, was soothing and meditative.

He remained seated, just watching the view, for some time before feeling any urge to do anything at all, and when he finally pulled his glance back from the view he absentmindedly picked up the first thing he saw in front of him, the stall owners' leaflet that he had dropped on the coffee table before going to the kitchen for breakfast. He did so mechanically, as if merely floating about randomly, a little like the snow flakes outside, and he proceeded to look at the leaflet as if the words were carrying no meaning, focusing on its form and its lettering rather than its content.

The whole thing was nothing more than a single sheet of paper, folded in the middle to give the impression of being somehow full of information. But the font size and the generous use of whitespace made it clear that there wasn't an awful lot to be said about the stall owner's position. Then, directing his attention to the actual message in the leaflet, he started to read.

"This Land is Our Land" it said in a big fat typeface, followed by a short argument in a needlessly bold typeface laying out the fact that the stall owners were the first ones to use the village square, and that Pedro never used it for anything. Being the first ones to use the village square productively, it followed that it belonged to the stall owners, and that Pedro's attempt to extract rent from them was nothing less than neo-medieval rent seeking. And having read this, Bjorn felt certain that the stall owners were in the right, and that no argument could be formed to counter this claim. Bjorn felt happy about having signed the petition. He agreed with it full heartedly.

The pamphlet also included a list of the stall owners who had joined together to form their union, and Bjorn found himself for some reason fascinated by the list of names. He soon found Peter's name on the list. There were several East Asian names too, as well as a couple of Russian looking names, but no Norwegians. The union was in other words a union of foreigners, all making exclusive claims to Norwegian soil, and this thought, although sinister in a way, did not worry Bjorn in the least. Rather, it got his imagination going.

Bjorn could suddenly see Lundby growing into a great cosmopolitan city with people from all over the world residing there, and he felt exited by his vision. "Was this in fact the project?" he wondered as he leant back in the easy chair. "Was Lundby in fact a conspiracy to create a huge city at the top of the world? A city to dominate the world. The heart of the empire, as it were."

Bjorn's visions expanded quickly where he sat, and he could see ferry services crisscrossing the bay in front of him, buildings everywhere, tall ones and smaller ones, industry, commerce, a great industrial and commercial hub right at the edge of the world.