At least there was no time vortex

This afternoon, Lin, Stian and I visited a local designers' holiday market across the river. I was looking around for some tiny, but pretty Christmas gifts (and bought some, too, for two of my readers here, in fact), when I found the most beautiful pieces of art.

They were small photographs printed on 15x15 cm canvas and treated with some colouring agent that lent a crackled texture as well as an aging or blurring effect to the images, making them look like weathered photos from the sixties.

I immediately loved them.

Moments later, the artist told me where she had taken them, and I realized they were mostly motives I had seen many, many times before. I had forgotten them the way we do things we daily sweep our eyes across while hurrying somewhere, but had nevertheless stored them somewhere in my memory layers: A deer statue near the city hall in Trondheim, a lead glass window on the Nidarosdom Cathedral, a high rise building on Youngstorget in Oslo.

And the motives I hadn't seen before were still familiar. There was a pink candy coloured ferry, a whiff of lye and brine and childhood journeys. There was a cool blue view of the Oslo fjord, a promise of summers at Kjørbo.

They cost too much to buy, of course, and I steeled myself to move on. But then I remembered that Pan's sister had given us money to buy art as a wedding present. I called Pan and he just said 'get them, get them.'.

So I did! Nine! Nine subconscious, blurry images of past, present and soon. They will hang three by three on the wall across from my Cuban loot, answering, if not shouting down the lewd Havana reds.

Just before I left, I glanced at the list the artist kept of the images she had sold that day. One of them was the one above, which I later found on her website. It's my spire. Unbeliveable. And unbelievable that I missed it. They were limited edition prints, she said, but she had a few more. Only problem is that it costs almost thrice as much outside the market.

Maybe the spire piece can't be mine since the thought of it has not yet sunk down into my memory layers. Maybe there would be a time paradox that would cause a time vortex and the end of the world if I saw the same sight on my living room wall as outside my window. Maybe I just wasn't supposed to get it today.

Maybe. But at least I know what I will get to reward myself if I ever sell my book.