The barracks at Muskö naval base aren´t the fanciest places
in the world. Especially not the bathrooms. I don´t like the
bathrooms at all.
The walls, the first thing you notice, have the same bleak,
yellow-green colour your handkerchief would get if a
comicbook-villain sneezed in it.
And they´re pretty old as well. The most modern thing in
there are probably the Ultimatic® machines, dispensers of
the Ultima (TM) soap and the Ultima (TM) towels.
And then there are the compulsory Multi-User-Washbasins.
Ten taps, lined up in a silent row. Not a long lasting silence
though. Every other tap seems to be dripping now and then.
I´ve always found those a bit scary.
They are scary taps altogether. The kind that really hawks
back and coughs up the water when you turn them on.
Like everything else around here, they are made for
efficiency.
Not nice.
Not comfortable.
Don´t enjoy it.
It´s efficient.
Our toilets are constructed in a similar way. But we do have
walls between them. Or well, they don´t go all the way to the
floor or to the wall behind you, but they´re there.
So you can´t really see the other guy sitting next to you (or
well, maybe you could see his feet if you were to bend down
a bit...). Just hear him, and maybe smell him.
I think that´s something making us feel generally
uncomfortable,

You are afraid of the smell of shit.

the thought that what we do might be registered by that
fellow on the other side of the wall.
A bit weird, but true.
But I´m being spoiled now. I shouldn´t complain.
When I got back from a week in the field, the barracks felt
like heaven. That feeling has passed, but.. I guess it still isn´t
too bad, probably just me being tired of this.

At the moment though, I´m not in the barracks, but about
900ft into the mountain, where radar-people such as myself
work.
It´s not easy to tell though. This could be pretty much any
office-building, anywhere, except for the fact that there are no
windows...anywhere.
I´m on the midnight-til-4 a.m.-shift now, and there aren´t a lot
of things to do.
You know, there are two monitors linked to my computer. So
when I move the cursor over the edge of the screen on one of
them, it immediately appears on the other.
So I find myself trying to move the cursor to some place
between the two screens, making it disappear in those five
inches of plastic hull and air separating the monitors.
So far, I´m out of luck.

Ouch. Get a grip boy. A disappearing cursor?
A secret dimension between my monitors?
Yeah... I´m about as likely to find that as the key to next level.
You know, like in videogames.
Find the key, and suddenly you can open the door. Or pass right
through the wall.
I could use that.
Because it feels like I´m stuck.

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