Pursuing the Sun

by Alexandra Khrustaleva (Kazakhstan)

I didn't expect to find Norway

The giant elephant-shaped fjord blocked the sun and cast an eternal shadow on a small Norwegian village I lived in. Being an exchange student, I considered myself lucky when the sun peeked out for an hour or two during the day. People around resembled pale snowdrops, their heads pointed down in anticipation for the sun rays to lift them up. The whole village froze in a fairy-tale, as though someone has shoved it inside of a snow globe, and everyone waited for the spring to break this glass. But unlike others, I couldn’t wait. I knew that the giant elephant would not move, thus I decided to go and seek the sun myself. I spent evenings at the kitchen table scribbling figures and numbers when the thunderous thought rolled in my head. Norway, besides being one of the most expensive countries in the world, kept most of its beautiful places unreachable by public transport. It was impossible for me to travel alone, so I started looking for a company. Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one captivated in this sunless confinement, there were others. We decided to unite our forces and raise money for the trip. We collected the used beer cans, went dumpster diving and minimized our spendings until we could, finally, pack our bags. On that day, we rolled an old Norway map and filled a tiny blue van with our happy laughter and smell of fresh tortilla. Our small crew headed West, to the isle of Runde, a small oasis between the land and the ocean. Runde being home for only a hundred people, met its true habitats in spring. Among the dozens of different species of birds, the wild Atlantic winds, monsoons, carried the most precious ones – puffins. These marvelous creatures always came to the isle at the end of April to nest among the sharp rocks of Runde’s cliffs. On a late February morning, we parked the car at the foothill of Runde. I opened the car door and the humid smell of salt filled my nostrils. I heard the rustle of waves, looked up and stumbled on the infinite blue surface of the Ocean. It was gently stroking the shore. We grabbed our backpacks, left the van and hurried towards the adventure. Exchanging smiles and jokes, we didn’t notice how the top of the cliff approached. The winding path ran up the hill and dissolved in the grey sky. The heavy clouds gathered in a dense ceiling, preventing the sunbeams from finding their way through. I stood on the very edge on the windswept cliff, with the blue abyss of the Atlantic Ocean spread before my eyes. My companions settled on the grass, opened up the tortilla case and poured the hot tea. I turned to join them when from the bottom of the cliff I heard a muffled sound of applause as if I stood in the middle of a theatre hall. The cliff was steep, so I bent, laid on my stomach and started crawling through the bushes of dried grass. My clothes soaked up the morning dew, straw tangled in my loose hair and dirt stuck to the shoe soles – I didn’t notice anything. This dull sound of applause became louder and louder. As I reached the edge and glimpsed beyond it, the colorful flock of puffins appeared before my eyes. Their black and white feathers dotted the ocean blue together with their red beaks. The flapping of the hundreds of wings filled the air. They carried the birds above the waves, creating a peculiar dance. Absorbed deeply by this vision, one moment I realized that puffins’ feathers sparkled in the sunrays. The clouds gradually dispersed and the glittering path appeared on the blue surface. Puffins circled above my head and flew towards this path. The ocean blue, the puffins’ wings and my chest flattered in a unison, rising and falling. This moment, I swear, we were infinite.