An element of chance

One day a friend and I were traveling on a train in Norway.  We had been visiting friends and we were on our way back home.  Our trip was coming to an end.  The train had many stops to make and so our progress felt very sluggish.  Our ticket was more like a bus pass and allowed us to get on and off whenever we wanted.  The next stop didn't look very far on the route map.  We decided to get off the train and walk.

It was wintertime and the night air was crisp but not too cold.  We were young and it felt good to stretch our legs after being confined on the train for so long.  It did not take us long to get moving at a good pace.  We didn't talk very much but just enjoyed the stillness of the night.  Two souls adrift in a strangers land as the world slept under a blanket of snow.

The road climbed into the mountains. Further ahead it crossed over an old stone bridge.  To the right was a waterfall frozen in place.  Moonlight shone off individual ice crystals causing the waterfall to shimmer.  It almost appeared as if the waterfall was still falling.  Time itself seemed to stop as I stood and looked upon the scene in the silence of the night.  The image of the frozen waterfall flowing under the old stone bridge soon became frozen in my memory.

Fresh snow had begun to fall, large soft flakes.  By that time we had walked for quite awhile.  The next train stop should have only been ten minutes away, it had been over an hour.  Perhaps we should have stayed on the train, safe and warm.  We had come so far, surely the train would be around the next corner.  We chose to keep walking.


One hour had stretched into two.  The road obviously did not follow the train.  By that time we were much further into the mountains.  There were no houses around, no cars had passed us on the road.  We continued walking hoping to see someone or get somewhere.  Eventually a snow plow came by and picked us up.  The driver said the weather can change quickly in the mountains, we were lucky it was so mild.  We had made a mistake leaving the train, but with that mistake came a moment in time that I would never trade.