alisa

She was a little tired, a little cold, and a little slow, like a clock left in a house where no one lives anymore. She was running down.

Reason, reason, reason-- it burned in her head, a sad brass refrain that she couldn't shake. What reason did she have for any of her actions? For wanting to go, for wanting to be alone, for wanting to leave all the people who cared for her most? What reason did she have for caring most for the people who cared for her least? What reason did she have for the broken moments in her words, the faultlines where there was nothing to do but swear or break rules? For the rock of bitterness or the suddenness with which she fell in and out of love?

She was a little late, a little dusty, a little ragged, and in her secret heart, she suspected that nothing was right with her. Dark eyes, maybe friendly, maybe just tired of you. Dark hair, heavy heavy blue-black; she looked up at oceans of sky and sometimes she thought that was her best friend.

All the wrongs she had done burned in her head: the people she'd hurt, the things she'd stolen, the lies she'd told. In her secret heart, she wondered if she was the least bit okay.

henna

-Ask me any question you like, but I won't answer it straight.

-As long as I can keep you dancing for answers, I will, and if after a while I feel like joining in, I'll join in. And maybe when I dance with you, you'll forget about questions and answers and just be. Then we can have a bonfire and a thousand chords on the electric guitar and the rush of green-gold scarves. Look behind you! I'll say, laughing because there's nothing to see and you still turn so fast.

-And someone will tell me men never really visited the moon and I'm laughing because I've been there, visited the people who live there, waved at Earth from the silver globe.

-Also, try not to wake up so suddenly; it's best to go slowly into it.

----------------------->

-You didn't think that's what I was going to say, did you?

juha

When he was much younger, Juha had attended protests nearly every weekend. He outgrew protesting in uni, but that didn't mean he didn't care anymore. His girlfriend, Iines, told him that he had sold out, whatever that meant. But he still cared, only not about the saimaa seal or mangabeys or marmosets. Marching in long lines with other people was great if you wanted whip yourself into a frenzied state and feel smug and satisfied, but it didn't change much. He remember when he marched past a raving lunatic on a street corner, preaching about the end of the world, and realized he was no different. Since then he'd stuck to quieter pursuits, though he still believed in animal rights and saving the environment.

A friend had encouraged him to get his hands dirty, so last week he'd arranged to have lunch with a former poacher and smuggler. Juha had met him in the jail cafeteria and discovered that his enemy was a man like him. He didn't think he could explain that to Iines, though.

He pushed his hair away from his eyes and tucked his hands into his pocket. He'd been scanning the street all afternoon, picking up trash and recyclables, and he was getting tired. Dirty hands meant hard work. The sound of music swirled through his ears and he lifted his head to see a band of buskers headed his way. Juha chuckled when he recognized the man with an accordion. They had rented a flat together a few years back, but lost touch after Juha moved out and stopped protesting.

"Juha, you ole rascal, good to see you!"

Juha grinned, caught up in the music and laissez-faire atmosphere the rovering musicians brought with them. He plucked a bottle from the bag of plastic bottles he'd spent all afternoon meticulously collecting, and danced in a circle around his old roommate, banging a bottle against his palm. Juha laughed as they made their way down the street. "Ahhh . . . the best kind of recycling!"

juho

(sounds: staralfur, by sigur ros- the life aquatic with steve zissou)
He told her that night that he had some hard thinking to do; he hoped she would understand and he was sorry. He could tell by the way she hung up the phone that she didn't understand and that meant he had more explaining to do, but there wasn't really anything he could do. What did she expect him to do?

He walked south until he got away from the clustered old houses and hit the moving lights. He did his real thinking there, where there was no quiet threatening him and no aloneness dragging him down.

He had some hard thinking to do, but once he hit the colored lights, where he knew he could always do his best thinking, Juho found he had nothing to think about. He felt like he was piloting some tiny submarine through ultramarine depths, lulled to sleep by the rock of the tides and the beautiful menacing tendrils of the ocean creatures. The people moved past like deep-sea fish, lost in the oceanic dark, like squid, graceful propellers. She was an eel or an anglerfish, and she didn't understand. Juho moved farther and farther south, through dark dilapidated caves of neighborhoods, through winding schools of foreign fish, through music and sound and rain and people shimmering through the world like fish and when at last he settled on the blackest ocean floor, feeling the glorious crushing weight of the whole Pacific on his chest, she was the jaguar shark he had been looking for for so long, and she was beautiful. He opened his eyes and he didn't know where he was. The city was gone, tapered down into a straight wet highway. There were trees, moving in the night air like kelp and the rush of water was wind in the air.
"I wonder if she remembers me," he said.

joonas and sonja

By 6:30 it was starting to get dusky, and the wind was coming in, bringing with it a sense of duty, a sharp taste of rich men's silverware, a broken keening sea-song. Joonas zipped his jacket up around his chin, and Sonja tucked her hands into warmer places. She thought, At least Joonas is good for keeping my hands warm. Then she repented of that thought. She had been letting too many thoughts like that slip through the cracks lately. Joonas made her happy. She was sure of that. Even if, she thought, he does laugh harder at his jokes than I do. He's still just the boy I was looking for. And finally, like the little tail of a comet, Why do I feel like I have to convince myself? That was a question that needed an answer, but she ignored it, and in the meantime, Joonas's hand was warm around hers.

And being seventeen, making music with her body, ragged red-painted fingernails, the sullen ends of her hair-- it got tiring when she was doing it alone. Sonja half-turned to Joonas and she opened her mouth and then bit her tongue a little bit and said nothing about how she liked having him around. Joonas was used to her changing her mind just before speaking. He thought it was intriguing, and he had even told her once that he loved it when she did that, so that now she couldn't do it without feeling self-conscious, but that probably wasn't Joonas's fault.

Joonas was usually colder than Sonja, and he thought, I wish I was at home, but he never wished Sonja wasn't there as well. Sonja was the other half of his puzzle. Sonja looked up at him and opened her mouth and even her teeth were beautiful. Joonas twitched out one of his surprising smiles and Sonja smiled back like ragged red nails.

They were very quiet together; it got about 6:50 and they were almost asleep, hand-in-hand through the cavern couture of the city. Sonja thought, Why are we even together? but she had always liked silences. Joonas moved his thumb over the tendons in Sonja's hand and then she opened her mouth and said, "Joonas..." but that was as far as she got, and she suddenly thought, I would be completely lost without Joonas, and being seventeen is very hard when you're doing it without a warm hand. Joonas looked down at Sonja with serious eyes and suddenly she was laughing and a little while after that they were out of the wind and his mouth was warm around hers...

raisa

Silk, frost. My breath settles on the scarf draped over my mouth and around my neck. Just above, the frames on my glasses grow pinching cold as I continue to walk into the northwest wind. I pass Surrey Street. Just two more blocks.

It’s winter and it’s the city. That should be enough to tell you how cold it is and how much I’d rather be home in my flat, curled up in the threadbare armchair by the window. The armchair is red when it’s not covered by my flatmate’s photography mags or draped in some sort of unfinished needlework. Right now, I’m knitting woolen mufflers for my nephews.

Frankfurt Street; almost there. The black bag of laundry is banging against the back of my knees. I try to avoid the faults in the sidewalk, but soon give up, bathing my weather-beaten boots in pools of slush.

I haven’t seen my nephews in ages. My sister married young-only 20 years old-and she and her husband were having babies before I had fully realized they were married. They don’t live far…just a few miles uptown.

Finally. I reach the laundromat and pull open the heavy glass door. A discordant jingling sounds overhead, adding to the steady whump and swoosh of operating washers and dryers. The air is heavy with the scent of bleach and detergent; a small sniff is enough to set my nostrils tingling.

Lights and darks, I’ve never worried about it too much. I just wash everything in cold water.

Carefully, I line the quarters up in their slots before slamming them into the machine.

I don’t mind waiting. There is a boy and girl sitting together in one corner-waiting for their laundry, apparently. I wouldn’t be surprised if the wash was finished hours ago.

I roll my eyes and squinch up my face from behind my glasses. By the couple, however, this goes on unnoticed.

Have I always been such a cynic? I don’t think so. I used to cry over a good love story and pick out wedding dresses and think up names for my children.

The machine at my back rumbles gently.

But I suppose I can’t have changed all that much. And I suppose that someday… someone will awaken the romance in my soul.

I smile, and shake my head, and bury my face in my scarf.

jussi

"They told me the classics never go out of style, but they do; they do... and somehow, baby, I never thought that we do, too."

--

There was no one on the street when I got up.

I'm not saying that's unusual-- I'm not saying anything's unusual.

I'm not saying that never seeing you anymore is unusual, or even that I can't really take it.

I'm keeping quiet, and there's hardly anyone on the street, which makes it easier.

--

At the top of the hill, I'm going to turn around and look back, and you'd better be there. And you'd better be alone.

sanna-liisa

It's the perfect place for something to happen. I've been waiting here for the last two weeks, every day over lunch hour. Nothing's happened yet, but something will; something will.

And in the meantime, it's a perfect sort of place for waiting. People walk by, tripping their eyes over my boots and sometimes they're the right sort of people to catch a secret laugh with. People are the salt of the earth; people are the light of the world. I'm more glad than I know how to say that I live with people and that people live with me. Just watching them pass makes me eight years old again. I'm holding hands, walking past the arcade. I'm sharpening my pencil; I'm tagging after you. I'm on the swings; I'm buying candy; I'm sleeping over; I'm learning cursive; I'm taking turns. I'm playing that I'm eighteen and there's nothing wrong with the world. It doesn't really come better than this.

frank

Frank loved the sea. The last time he could remember visiting it was when he was on holidays from elementary school, but still, he loved the sea. When he took the long walk from his downtown dormitory to U of Birmingham, there were moments when he tasted salt spray as it ran down his face and other moments when he could feel the sidewalk pitching fore and aft under his feet. But Frank had good sea legs.

“Morning, Mr. Sing.” Frank raised his voice as he stopped outside the Chinese fruit and vegetable market.
“Ah, good morning to you too, Frank!” came Mr. Sing’s reply. “Where you going?
“To school.” Frank said with a grin, preparing himself for the next question.
“Ah. What you take?”
“Cultural studies.”

“Ahhh.” Mr. Sing wagged his head in approval. “Culture studies. Very good. Well, here…study makes hungry boy.” With no further observations, Mr. Sing planted a large apple in Frank’s palm.

“Thanks, Mr. Sing.” Peeling back the cellophane lattice that protected the apple, Frank snapped off a bite and resumed his walk.

Sailors are particularly fond of apples, he was quite sure.

antti

Antti had an obsession for rooms the way some people had an obsession for music or hats. He liked hats, too, especially the brown fedora his droogs gave him last year, but he only liked them a little--rooms were his passion. Sometimes years went by before he found a room he truly loved. It wasn't even something he could identify, really, just a certain sensation, a certain texture and taste, that made him feel at home in some rooms. Most felt like prisons: square, oblong, round, upholstered, wood-paneled, swathed in tapestry--it didn't matter. Some rooms have life, and some don't.

On Tuesday, Antti wandered into the dorms at a local university. He entered a gray lounge with peeling walls and overstuffed green chairs lined up from wall to wall in rows of three. The room was drab and dingy, and the chairs were ripped and faded, but a hidden energy crackled beneath the surface. Antti took off his hat in reverence. He strode to the front of the room, sat down on the first row of chairs, and held his hat in front of him like a steering wheel.

A girl walked into the room just then, barefoot, dressed in black culottes, a scarlet sleeveless craftan, and a gorgeous golden-brown Afghan shawl. She looked like a Moroccan street princess, and he loved her for it. He waved with his right hand, his left still gripping the steering wheel/hat. "The bus is leaving, miss."

She smiled, mischievous and knowing, and sat cross-legged on the cushions beside him. "Is this seat taken?"

"No," Antti replied, keeping his eyes on the road like a good driver. "I saved it just for you."

jonna

Jonna set her bag down by the side of the road. Cars were flashing past in a way that reminded her of a film made in the 60's about Austria right before the war and it was 10 AM and a beautiful morning, and Jonna stopped walking and set her bag down by the side of the road.

She half-realized as she did it that it was rather foolish. She stood very straight and rotated at her waist, watching Milli and her three children passing like a parade: the pram (with the baby's feet kicking up into view sometimes) was leading , followed by Milli in a long brown sweater and sensible shoes. Kerkko, in yellow rubber boots, was holding the hem of Milli's sweater, and Aleski was trailing behind, waving and poking a long stick around.

Aleski was Jonna's favorite, although she pretended to be as fond of Kerkko and the baby who was named after her. (It was funny to think of the baby being named after her so soon before the fight with Milli. Jonna wondered how often Milli wished she had chosen another name.) Aleski had a streak of mischief that drove Milli half-mad, and Jonna was his firm ally in this-- before the fight she had spent almost every afternoon at Milli's, and she and Aleski built things out of couch cushions and Duplo blocks and yelled and Milli always laughed at Jonna, and Kerkko watched cautiously and tried to make up his mind, and--

Jonna very suddenly picked up her bag again and started after Milli. Aleski noticed her first; he turned and offered her a companionable grin.
"Hello, Aleski," she said. She should have been more contrite, considering the way she had talked to Milli and the way Milli looked now, turning around, but she could not be contrite when faced with Aleski's grin.
"What's in the bag?" said Aleski, peering coolly in amongst the groceries. Jonna did not answer. "Something for me, Aunty Jonna?" he persisted, just as if there hadn't been a seven-month silence since their last meeting.
"I'm sorry," said Jonna, half to Milli, who was watching her steadily, and half to Aleski, who was getting impatient. Milli looked down and away for a moment and then nodded.

Jonna was grinning in good earnest as she rummaged through the bag for the box of munkki she shouldn't have bought. Milli was, for the first time in seven months, beginning to be reconciled to her daughter's name. And Aleski, he was hungry.