Varasanat vaikenevat

Lukijoitta hyytyy virta
taantuu teksti vuotamasta
loppuu lysti laulelosta

Lukijoitaan kiittää peikko
luopuu pitkästä ilosta
jatkaa vain sanavaroja

Varasanat vaikenevat
odottavat innoitusta
mielen mustan muuttumista

Travelling Time – A Short Story in Three Acts

Act I

The restaurant car is completely full. A man seeks for a seat holding a coffee mug. At the rearmost corner there is a small table occupied by a dark haired pale woman wearing a black costume. Her glimpse touches the man gently and a small, hardly noticeable gesture gives him permission to ask whether he can join her company.

They sit in silence for a long time. The man looks at his coffee while stirring it. From time to time he looks out of the window. Then he starts a conversation and describes his feelings, tells how tired he is on traveling almost daily.

– Time ticks away, he says, – hours and hours just for transition.

– Also that is life, says the woman in a quiet voice and watches how the landscape changes while the train runs in the stream of time.

– It would be better if traveling would need no time at all.

A woman stares the man directly in the eyes. The man startles the intensity of her gaze, the deep space and bright stars he can see in her dark eyes. He feels as if something deep inside him would like to let go and slip through her eyes to freedom.

– Do you really want that, she asks.

– Yes, maybe. After all I would then be at home much sooner.

– I can give it to you.

The man feels incredulous and tries not to look suspicious. He watches her white hands and feels an increasing sense of unreality, like a cold stone in his stomach.

– I can take your traveling time, she says. – The part you do not want to keep. I'll take every hour, every minute and every second of it. You arrive at your destination as before, at the same time with other people. But you'll not notice the time it takes. You will only notice that you arrive as soon as you leave.

He looks at her and she allows him to see the truth in her eyes. The idea of immediate arrival fascinates him. He does not want to always be travelling to somewhere, he just wants to be in there, most preferably at home and right now. However, he is unwilling to waive his travelling hours, unwilling not to live every hour that is granted to him.

– I will get back to you, she promises when she sees his hesitation.

She gets up and walks away while he watches. He feels how the moments adjust to their proper places, the train rocks and arrives at the station.

Act II

The station is full of trains and passengers. The trains stand silently beside the platforms and wait for the departure time. Passengers hurry to catch a ride before the doors close and the train quietly breaks itself from immobilization.

Two conductors view the emerging passengers. Some of these passengers are busy with their baggage and with their children. Students can be identified by their backpacks and headphones, by their relaxed carefree existence. Business travelers bear their briefcases with wrinkles on their brows, without being able to withdraw from the urgency and execution.

– Business seems to be hard nowadays, says a conductor.

– Yes, it seems so, agrees the other one, throwing a peppermint into his mouth.

– Have you noticed how the eyes of some businessmen glaze over as soon as they sit in their places?

– I have. They also sit motionless during the entire journey, quite like they are dead.

– Right. They come to life just before their destination.

– Business is tough, isn’t it?

The conductors board the train. The train departs without whistling, starting to pull itself through time and space.

In the congested restaurant car, a man orders a mug of coffee.

Act III

In the middle of nothingness three dark figures are watching each other over the table covered with a red cloth. The time has come to a standstill and warped itself to a coil, sleeping near reality like a blue cat.

– Does it work?

– Yes it does, especially on trains.

– Then we’ll continue to increase the need to rush. Expediting the pain does not work well any more.

– Should we tell them?

– To humans? They would not believe.

– What?

– That it is all part of their own death, the time which they do not want to exist.

– They would not even want to think about it.

– And they do not have time for it, either.

A dark woman reaches to the sleeping cat, raises it on her arms and strokes it lightly. The cat purrs and circles on her lap. Then it rises, stretches and jumps back to reality.

The moment uncoils and the dark woman sits in her place in the restaurant car. Her hardly noticeable gesture gives the man who is holding a coffee mug and seeking a chair permission to approach.

Read original ones in Finnish: Act I, Act II and Act III.

Jjimjilbang

- How was the trip, asks Kalle from Teuvo, his neighbor.

- Well, actually I do not know, answers Teuvo. - It is different in there.

- That was Asia round trip, right?

- That was the intention, but it became one long sauna stay in Korea.

- For three weeks? That is quite a long time for sauna, and a long way, too, Kalle says with a laugh.

- Yeah. There was everything.

- In the sauna?

- That's what I said. It was quite an experience. We lay there on the floors, visited in the gym and did some shopping, ate from time to time.

- In the sauna? Disbelief can be seen on Kalle’s face. Neighbor is surely pulling my finger, he thinks.

- You can believe it. The saunas are as big as department stores, they sell anything there. Wife and girls liked it in the beauty salons. I had good times while playing with the computers.

- A computer in a sauna, you are lying to me, man, snaps Kalle.

- I am not. Look. The sauna in there is quite different from the sauna in here. They wear a special type of clothing while inside so they can walk around in various departments. Washing facilities are separate, but otherwise the men and women can use the same facilities. One can even watch movies while enjoying the heat.

- That is a lie, Kalle says in disbelief.

- Well, even it is warm, the temperature is no hundred degrees Celsius in every room there. But one can stay in a hot or in a cold room at will.

- Very weird.

- But nice. Everybody goes there. Families included. They spend weekends there. We stayed there for weeks. For night and day. You cannot believe how fine I feel now, Teuvo brags.

- At least you have something to tell about. I don’t believe half of it. What is sauna in Korean?

- Jjimjilbang.

- Oh my, that banging explains the whole thing, Kalle laughs.

- Bang means a room, my dear neighbor.

- I’m sure you are trying to trick me. I do not believe anything of that.

- Believe what you want to or go and see it yourself, Teuvo suggests. Then he takes his bike and drives away.

Read the original story in Finnish

Mutual understanding

A man is tired of his work and now lies on the sofa. He keeps his eyes closed to allow them to rest a bit. The world's noises and roaring sounds from the streets begin to fade away while the man's mind is slowly falling asleep. While he sleeps, the voices of true sleep thunder into the room.

All the bears that have been sitting on the sofa, seek their way to the man. The calm and peaceful togetherness make them feel happy.

A white-nosed black bear has pressed itself in the man's arms. With its ears curiously pricked up, it listens to the snoring voices the man utters. Finally, it raises its nose and responds to the man with a chary growl. The man reacts to the growl by changing the tone and rhythm of his snoring.

The bear and the man keep on growling and snarling in turns. The other bears are listening to the chat, looking at the man with a smile rippling on their snouts.

The man wakes up rested. He rubs all the bears between their ears and starts to tell them about his dreams. Without noticing it, he speaks in bear language.

Read the original story in Finnish

Fountain of Youth (R-18)

During the times when the world was still young and when the magical Sampo was forged, there lived in the north a terribly big giantess. While blacksmith Seppo Ilmarinen hammered Sampo all day and night, it got the giantess tired of everlasting hammer banging, she blocked her ears with lichen, laid down on earth and pulled the northern permafrost over her.

Time passes and this very day comes. The giantess awakes below the permafrost, stretches her limbs to make them supple and gets up. Taking just a few steps, she walks to the beach of the Arctic Ocean. There she undresses and takes her satisfaction in bathing, in washing herself clean as blueberry. Concurrently, she cleans her clothes in the ocean and spreads them on the mountain side to be dried by northern winds.

A man, who visits north regularly and who has walked all the paths on every mountain, passes by and sees the giantess. So beautiful and sweet is the giantess in the man's eyes that nothing can be more beautiful. The man's brain paralyzes, he just stares at the woman, and sees only her immense gracefulness. Without moving his eyes from the woman's pretty arches and elevations, he camps out on the mountain top, in a place where he can see the giantess. There he sits and looks at her, allowing her beauty and grace to flow into his soul.

The woman, that pretty giantess, thinks her big thoughts and lets the northern sun warm her blood that was cooled by permafrost. Blood warms and packs in the places where it creates the most pleasant feelings. She begins to feel how she is in dire need of manly touch. All the feelings and needs that were embanked by the ice now floods to her mind while she lies on the mountain side and opens herself towards the warming sun. So hot is the sun's heat that the giantess does not even want to contain herself, but caresses herself while the warm giving sun looks at how her enjoyment increases.

The man stands on the top of the mountain and watches the woman who is bigger than his dreams. He feels how the woman's passion extends to him. Knowing his will, he wittingly follows his instincts and the warm scent of the woman, going towards her humming and purring voices. Never ever has the man seen anything like it, never has his body reacted as it is now responding. Bursting with hopes, the man runs downhill on the mountain slope.

The woman, whose fervency is as gigantic as her size, notices a little man beside her. A man sized just a fair-span scale. She sees the shine in the man's eyes, knows his greedy thoughts. Unfortunately, the man is just too little for her. She would get no pleasure from his manhood between her legs. However, the giantess grabs the poor man and looks at him. The man just stands there slobbering, empty minded and naked, undressed already while descending from the mountain.

While holding the man in her hand she notices that the man is nevertheless quite a size to fit. She changes her grip and pushes the man, with his head first, deep inside her, so deep that only his feet remain visible. She feels how the man's body makes good for her giant womanhood, and how her wetness starts to increase, how her waters start to flow like rapids. The giantess gets more excited and drives the man even more deeper, again and again, back and forth. The man bathes in flowing waters and realizes how the burden of years drops from his shoulders, how his skin rejuvenates and youth returns to his every cell. He dives again and again into the woman and is more and more reluctant to come out from her, and thus resists as much as he can. While the man wriggles inside of the lovely giantess, she feels increasing pressure inside her. The pressure erupts with flooding fountain, the man feels rhythmic force that takes away all sorrow and pain, so that only the original meaning of manhood remains. The man drinks from the woman's fountain, wanting to swallow its life giving liquids to the last drop.

The smugly smiling man sits on the giantess's tummy with his legs crossed. The woman lies languidly on the mountain side cooling her down under the rays of the northern sun. The coldness of the permafrost in her veins has now been replaced by the pulse of life. She remembers again what it means to be a woman. The little man on her stomach is pathetically proud of his firm horn that has not agreed to soften at all after the treatment given by the giant woman. She takes the man back to earth, tells him to go away and shoves him a little. Then she turns over, pulls the edge of the mountain upon her using it as a blanket, and enters the passing boat navigated by the sandman.

The man sits on a tourist trap telling his story to tourists and thus earning many pints of beer every day. Although the story is mainly considered to be just a tale, some women keep on whispering to each other about the man's fabulous talents fit for joyous moments between a man and a woman. And although none of the men will admit that he believes the story, one can see a lot of old rigid men wandering around in the midnight sun and seeking for the fountain of youth and love.

Original in Finnish

Men's World

A man who is extremely large has shaved his head completely bald and has let his beard grow long and bushy. One of his ears is pierced and a tunnel sleeve in his earlap stretches it hard. The man is neatly dressed. He wears a business suit with a tie in compatible colors. With gestures that tell about concentration, he grabs a bottle on the table, raises it to his lips, and takes a long gulp groaning manfully.

At the same table, opposite him, sits a really big guy. He has long hair tied in ponytail. His chin is carefully shaved. His arms are full of multi-colored tattoos. The man is dressed provocatively in black leather clothes and fingerless leather gloves. He takes a bottle from the table, brings it up to his lips and takes a long swig while glancing at the passing waitress.

Waitress serves both men with a plateful of ribs. The restaurant has an excellent reputation for its grilled ribs and the men have decided to put that reputation to the test. Both hold the food with their hands and tore pieces from it with their teeth. Hot fat flows from the hot meat to the men's fingers and jaws. The meat is obviously delicious. It vanishes into the men's chewing mouths while the waitress brings more bottles for them to drink.

Between bites, the long-bearded man rocks a babysitter that is on the adjacent chair. The baby that has been sleeping on it starts to wake up and coos making his needs to be known. The man raises the baby on his arms and sways him in a very experienced way. Another man grins and makes faces but continues eating.

The man holds the baby against his chest, just like he were breast-feeding it. He dips his little finger in pork fat that covers his plate and then offers it to his child. Baby sucks the little finger with his eyes closed and builds his future diet by this experience. The smile on the man's face disappears when the other man asks: "Why do you not breast-feed it the same way?"

"I cannot yet," the man responds. "We talked about it with my wife and I promised to go and get the hormonal injections. Next week I may be able to do it, I suppose." A man is silent for a moment and continues: "How about you?" The other man blushes and bites a mouth full of hot meat. Then he concedes that he is already three months pregnant: "...because my wife makes a career and I have now all the time in the world."

Original in Finnish