the military guards the royal palace

it's late. the streets are empty. it's quiet. a distant siren or two cuts through the eerie silence and fades away. my beloved oslo feels like a ghost town.

everywhere there's police tape, road blocks and shattered glass. in a way it feels as if our innocence is lying there on the street - shattered as well. norway has been shaken up today - rattled from within.

i meet a few drunken teenagers who seem completely lost to what has happened only a few hours earlier. they get hushed down by someone in a window far above us and are immediately silenced; ashamed.

police are stationed around the blast site and i'm not allowed to get any closer, which is fine. i'm not there to look at a crater in the ground or damaged buildings. i'm out to clear my head, to walk off my anger, to comfort my pain and to feel what i feel in the city i grew up in. oslo is my hometown. with all its faults and its sort of low self-esteem, oslo has a little of everything: it's got a harbor, you've got nature close by, there's some interesting arcitecture, a castle and a palace and there's even a few old buildings to boot. oh - and oslo is the nations capital.

this post is not about my feelings for oslo, though. this post is neither about the killer. he gets enough attention as is. this post is about the emotions i felt walking through my city on one of the darker days in our nations history.

i dedicate this post to all the people who died or got hurt on this day and i pray for those who have lost someone they love. i love you. oslo loves you. norway loves you.

one love, one life. let's carry each other.

-morgan-