Prisoners of Time

I recently watched this amazing video. "Otis Johnson went to jail at the age of 25. When he got out at 69, he rejoined a world that was starkly different from the one he remembered. This is his story."

We often have strong memories when we go back to a place that we have enjoyed before. This year, I had the opportunity to go back to Stockholm after 2 years. Lots of memories. I, in fact, went to Stockholm twice. The second time I went to both Stockholm and Fejan. However, both times I failed to go to Kista, the place where I stayed for 4.5 months, during my entire stay in Stockholm. Our student apartments were located on top of a shopping center. Almost all the shops in the shopping center would close at 9 pm, which I dearly disliked. Other than that, we enjoyed an instant shopping whenever we wanted to. We did not have to walk for shopping.

As I was enjoying Farsta, Stockholm city centre, and Stockholm old city, Kista somehow slipped to the last of the to-visit list. Now, Kista has come back to the top of my places to go when I go back to Stockholm in the future. This is all to re-create the memories of 2013. I can feel the bittersweet feeling Otis faces in the above video. Losing freedom to stay in prison is harsh. While not judging his action and the judgement as that is neither my duty nor the intent of this blog post, I admire the way he expresses himself. This video has become quite popular and viral. I truly hope Aljazeera shares revenue from this video with him. He was quite entertaining and his voice was soothing to listen.a