Last spring my roommate and I held a party at our apartment in Bergen. We went out dancing all night and my friend (with Latin American roots) even learned us some salsa. I walked by myself home at four in the morning being pretty exhausted, but thrilled by having spent the evening with the best people ever. The streets were empty. The sun was barely on its rise and the only thing I could hear were the birds coming alive and my own footsteps. My feet were soar from all the dancing, but as I approached my street my senses were sharpened. I thought that this moment would remain in memory as one of the happiest in my life. How naive I was.
One night, exacly a week after I walked down that same street in my high heels and short skirt, a girl almost got raped just outside our apartment. I woke up hearing screaming of the kind that no normal human being could do, unless he or she was in a life-threatening situation. My bedroom is poorly isolated and just outside is the street. It took me a minute to understand what was going on. By then people from the other apartments run out and called the police. The girl was sitting on the pavement. Another girl wrapped her in a blanket and held her arms around her. She was hysterical for hours. She wasn't wearing high heels or a short skirt.
The days after I found myself looking at every woman as a potential victim, and at every man as a potential rapist. I was terrified in the most irrational ways. I can't even begin to understand what she felt and how it affected her life - the consequences of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Somehow I feel like it was her instead of me.
