Traveling without moving

About a week ago I was making my way to a party through something close to a tropical rainstorm. When we reached the flat I was dying to get inside, open up my bottle of wine and dry my socks. Thanks to the host’s British hospitality I was able to do all the above even though there was no party. The reason: his former flat mate has vanished from the planet’s surface, nowhere to be found.

I wish I could say it was a friend of mine. Actually I hardly even knew the guy. We met at a party 3 months ago. He told me how much he loved his job at Danish television. And how much his producer-skills were on demand in Sweden. Cool guy, I thought, offered him a cigarette and mingled on.

3 months later the same geezer tells his Danish boss in the middle of a sunny afternoon that he will be back in 15 minutes, steps out of the office and…..disappears, without trace. It’s hard to stay indifferent in a situation like that. His friends were driving all over southern Sweden looking for him, the phones were ringing constantly and our host of the “party-that-didn’t-take place” was actually quite glad to have us over and finally have somebody to talk to.

The situation made me think a lot so I checked the statistics. Apparently 500 000 Swedish people are un-officially depressed. That means that every 16^th person you meet on the street is not feeling too well. Even if he is wearing a huge Hollywood smile behind the dark sunglasses. So, the lesson of the day: don’t forget to be nice to people. Tell nice things to people you don’t know, as long as you mean it. Let grandmas have your sit on the bus. Cheer up your neighbor by buying him some icecream. Cause you never know, a smile might change a persons destiny. And smiles are for free. Be a Juggler.

And stop feeling bad about yourself; compared to some other people, you are just fine.

Oh yeah. Mr Disappear Without Trace is finally found. He showed up in Finland 5 days later. He said he needed some time for himself. He might not get lots of that though since his mates are already threatening to beat him up as soon as he shows up in Malmö. Or was it all about an urgent need for attention?