I hate seagulls. Not all the time of course, when they flutter in the sky like white paper or float quietly on the shiny water and resemble beautiful plastic bathing animals. Then they are a natural part of the summer picture and you don't think much of them. Neither with hate nor love. But when they open their mouths and scream like sick souls you can look right down into their bloody shameless entrails. If a seagull has got hold of a fish head or a gut or some other filth and flies away with it in its beak, then the other seagulls pounce on her and scream "I want I want I want" and the result is that the filth falls into the water and sinks and none of them gets any pleasure from the filth. Seagulls have no sense of community. "I want I want I want." I dare not think which party they would have voted for if they had had the right to vote. Under such circumstances I say to myself; I'm glad I don't know a seagull personally. So that I would have to behave somewhat politely towards the person. I wouldn't have a seagull if you gave me one. If I had to choose a bird, I would say. Give me a waiter who chatters with his glasses. Hovering between the tables or coming. Pawing towards me. Gulls are known to stay together in pairs, probably their whole lives. They are known to be faithful to their partner, and we think that's nice. But I don't know, if I was married to a screaming, must-have, must-have partner. A screaming, gut-wrenching, fish-smelling partner, no matter how faithful she had been, I might have thought that it would have been just as good if she had found someone else. No. Give me a wife who smiles with her teeth. Standing at the station and happily comes. Running towards me. I mean, standing at the station and waiting when I get the train from Oslo or wherever I go. I have seen one Sunday in Lillesand harbor two seagulls that tried to rape a floating plastic can out between the piers in the middle of church time with children present. Seagulls behave like animals sometimes. As I said, quite often I hate seagulls. No, give me a dove that coos to its mate. I hate seagulls, but there are many things I love. For a long time I had the feeling when I met people that it turned out didn't hate or love the same things as me, and I thought that they must be crazy. I think many people still feel that way. Non-smokers for example who raise their children to be nasty little chewing gum smelling moralists who walk through the only smoking compartment on the train and say "ugh It smells like smoke here, smoke is dangerous, yuck." But as I said I hate seagulls for abovementioned reasons, but if I meet someone who loves seagulls and says so to me, or if I meet a non-smoker who thinks that smokers shouldn't have access to public hospitals or public railways but rather run after, for example, the Vestfold train, then I will try to look at that person with understanding. But it will not be easy. No.
