Title:
On the Opera and the attempt to imagine the world without us (2009)

Author:
Simon Stranger

Publisher:
tekstopia.no

Place:
The Opera in Oslo

Read by:
Løvlie Anders Sundnes

Registered by:
User:Anderssl

The new operahouse in Oslo opened in April 2008. With free, public access to walk on the roofs of the peculiar building, it immediately became a landmark and a viewpoint located between the ocean and the city.

The Opera
And now, as you're standing on the roof of this iceberg-like monument
with a view to all the fjord,
the peninsula,
and the sun glittering in the sides of all the small boats
- while you're standing there you can do the following:
You can turn back towards the city, towards the freeway bridges, the trucks and the cranes,
take a deep breath and try to imagine that all the houses were gone.
Disappeared.
That all of it, the train station, the neon light billboards and the apartment buildings dissolved in front of you.
Then the roads. Lift away the asfalt, the cobble stones and the tramlines for your inner eye.
Along with the roads the people also disappear.
The baby strollers.
The man in jeans and t-shirt and white ear plugs.
The African mum with a headscarf and large golden rings.
In just a moment, you have managed to remove the entire city of Oslo.
What would be left?
What would emerge in the city's absence?
The quiet water sliding in towards the beaches and the rocks.
Birds wading in the water, between the tree cones, the twigs and the driftwood from distant storms.
And then you could have seen him.
The very first man who went down to the water just nearby,
seven thousand years ago.
You could have seen how he looked out on the water.
How he bent down and drank, and the mark his foot made in the sand.
There it is.
There's the start of the city.
A footprint.