Sauna Culture

In time, it may occur to Juhani that his ex never said she wouldn’t sleep around. Eveliina says other things: Tapio’s in good shape, Kaarina has a sexy septum piercing, Lilja’s in a polycule. But during this evening sauna, Eveliina isn’t saying very much. They sit next to each other, in the hottest corner, and watch as strangers lash the stones with ladlefuls of water. Another young couple, naked and firm, stare at Eveliina and whisper back and forth, laughing. Then the couple heads out to the dock, to lower themselves into the icy waters of the Baltic. Eveliina stands to follow. Juhani grabs her hand. He wants her to wait a little longer, to wait for the real heat, to forget about her recent revelation that she’s bisexual. She’s unaware about what is to come. The couple have yet to slip their phone numbers into her bag in the changing room. And she has yet to text them, to meet for coffee, then wine, then lines of cocaine in a club somewhere in Uudenmaankatu. Maybe she won’t yet grind on Helmi and Mikael and go back to their sleek apartment and have sex on the white leather sofa and later try some new positions in their imported California King. The three have yet to have that weekend away at Helmi’s summer house, an idyllic afternoon picking cloudberries and making rice porridge and threesoming in every room of the house. Later on they’ll stoke the fire in the sauna out back and wait for it to reach the right temperature. They’ll stand in front of the wooden hut and smoke a little marijuana and talk about what to say to Juhani. Should they lie and say things weren’t working out or be ethical and say things weren’t working out? Eveliina slings her arms around her new partners and reassures them she has no feelings for Juhani. I made no promises, she says. Helmi and Mikael stare at the smoke rising from the chimney, sensing Eveliina’s half-truth. They have been through this before. Helmi says they’ll make it work. And maybe they do. All that is yet to come. For now, Juhani grasps Eveliina’s hand, wet and hot and slippery, almost gone.

A Conversation

He takes a drink of his beer and a handful of cashews from the little silver bowl in front of him. Normally, I’d make a joke about him having nuts in his hands, but that doesn’t seem appropriate.Continue Reading

Kiddie Militia Member

My daughter ambles away from the little boy carrying two toy guns and a toy crossbow in a tiny toy holster, calling “Hey, hey” to her at the playground beside the bay. I usually encourage her to introduce herself, explain what she’s doing and invite other kids to join in, but today I don’t.Continue Reading

L’appel Du Vide

The man sent thinly veiled declarations of love, and detailed accounts of his struggles with unmedicated depression, with his hopes for improvement pinned squarely on my mother returning his affections. But when I asked what had become of him, she simply shrugged. The letters stopped coming.Continue Reading

Little Girl in The Mirror, Where is Your Home?

There is a little girl lurking just out the corner of your eye. She hardly ever speaks, and you hardly speak either. She has never done anything to you. She just stands in the distance, looking at you. Looking, looking, looking. When your eyes meet in the smudged mirror, she stares back, faintly sad.Continue Reading

Two Stories

I think of Renaissance art, of how difficult it is to tell the saved from the damned, the human from the holy. Imagine the miracle of this woman’s corded neck as she bends toward Sally’s ear. Her pinned name tag falls to the floor. I’m searching for the glint of an odd halo. Continue Reading

THE GIFT OF SIGHT

At this moment I am choosing to see because I know that even if I choose not to, even if I close my eyes or look away, everything will still be there, and if I miss ugliness then I’ll miss beauty, too.Continue Reading

Salina

Dad had rarely spoken of Salina. Said they’d been poor, and that was that. But once, he told us that his mother, long dead from a drunk driving accident, had been considered the most beautiful woman in Kansas.Continue Reading

THREE STORIES

All clean rice requires some violence.Continue Reading

Stranded

The mammoth carcass that had washed up from the sea was pearly gray and larger than anything I had ever seen. Not even my school bus would compare. A glimmer of sun glistened over it like the sea’s shedding skin, leaving what remained bound to the beach, wet, bloated, damaged and stranded.Continue Reading