THE DOORS CLOSED, ONLY to open again, which was typical for this time of day. There was always some waffler standing there to keep them from closing as he shouted to one of his buddies who had collapsed against one of the pillars on the platform.
Sievert Sjödal remembered being that age and leaning against the very same pillar with the same amount of alcohol in his bloodstream back in the mid-1980s. He was sure it had been more fun back then. He recalled the night Lustans Lakejer played their farewell concert at Ritz. He had stood at the very front and even got Johan Kinde’s autograph afterward.
He had waited for the train that night. The atmosphere at the station reminded him of this evening; the only difference was that this time he was waiting for the train to leave so he could jump onto the tracks with his bucket and brush, a ladder over his shoulder.
He had to be careful where he put his feet, although he’d been doing this job for so many years now that he would have no problem performing the whole procedure blindfolded. He didn’t feel like he would be missing out if he couldn’t see: the ads he had spent the last few years pasting up were so hopelessly boring and stupid that he was certain not one of the millions of passengers who took the subway paid any attention to them. Even the 1980s campaigns had been better, like Gevalia’s “Unexpected Visitor” series, or the one from Nokia that no one had understood and kept trying to figure out.
But the campaign he was in the process of putting up right now was actually kind of unique, and he couldn’t help but wonder what it was actually an ad for. It featured the portrait of a man who looked incredibly ordinary, with five words written at the bottom of the poster in red letters.
IT WAS ME.
— TORGNY SÖLMEDAL