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© Kirjaluotsi 2018
Life, authentic life, is supposed to be all struggle, unflagging action and affirmation, the will butting its blunt head against the world’s wall, suchlike, but when I look back I see that the greater part of my energies was always given over to the simple search for shelter, for comfort, for, yes, I admit it, […]
Näinä viime kuukausina, siitä lähtien kun Maitomies-juttu oli alkanut, olin saanut huomata, miten suuri vaikutus minulla oli ihmisiin, vaikka en tiennyt heidän edes huomanneen minua. “Se on kammottavaa, perverssiä, jääräpäisen määrätietoista”, pitkäaikaisin ystävä jatkoi. “Tässähän ei ole kyse siitä, että joku silmäilisi kävellessään sanomalehdestä tuoreimmat otsikot tai jotain. Kyse on siitä, miten sinä sen teet: […]
And then he’s gone. She can hear him walking away up the passage. His footsteps sound hesitant, but he doesn’t turn back. Nor will the moment return, which is true of all moments, though not equally. Alone in Pa’s study, what the room will always be to her, she lies down and closes her eyes […]
On rough nights when Robin retreated to my bed, he wanted to be on the side farthest from the endless terrors outside the window. (His mother had always wanted the safe side, too.) He daydreamed, had trouble with deadlines, and yes, he refused to focus on things that didn’t interest him. But he never fidgeted […]
He could see the leafless thickets of brush rushing past in the foreground before him, the white-hot horizon melting into the cloudless sky in the background, could feel the thin steel floor vibrating beneath his feet and his shirt billowing in the wind, but standing there leaning out through the door of the train, knowing […]
Edith, in her veal-colored room in the Hotel du Lac, sat with her hands in her lap, wondering what she was doing there. And then remembered, and trembled. And thought with shame of her small injustices, of her unworthy thoughts towards those excellent women who had befriended her, and to whom she had revealed nothing. […]
This is how the ambush begins: with the slow rise of a monarch’s shadow from a tall mountain peak. With the emperor’s faint image caught in the whir and snap of a camera, reflected in the glint of a lens to ricochet against fog and hill. As Kidane’s army, new recruits and seasoned fighters, prepares […]
Glen was the one who knew about the study, putting people in the Wilderness State. When things worsened in the City and Agnes’s health cratered, like so many children’s had, Glen was the one who offered his help to the researchers in exchange for three spots – for him, Bea, and Agnes. Bea’s hunch had […]
Today language abandoned me. I could not find the word for a simple object – a commonplace familiar furnishing. For an instant, I stared into a void. Language tethers us to the world; without it we spin like atoms. Later, I made an inventory of the room – a naming of parts: bed, chair, table, […]
Her body hung off the side of the bed, and by the odd angle Shuggie could tell the drink had spun her all night like a Catherine wheel. He turned her head to the side to stop her choking on her rising boak. Then he placed the mop bucket near the bed and gently unzipped […]
‘Maurice, what shall I do?’‘Well, have you been to see him yet?’‘Not yet. But of course I ought to. As soon as I can find someone to stay with the girls, for a night or two if it’s necessary, I’m going to go. Thank you for making my mind up.’‘No, don’t do that.’‘Don’t do what?’‘Don’t […]
at times like these Amma misses Dominique, who long ago absconded to America they should be sharing her breakthrough career moment togetherthey met in the eighties at an audition for a feature film set in a women’s prison (what else?)both were disillusioned at being put up for such parts as a slave, servant, prostitute, nanny […]
I stand up and rinse the gloves in the sink, but I don’t remove them. Ayoola is looking at my reflection in the mirror.“We need to move the body,” I tell her.“Are you angry at me?”Perhaps a normal person would be angry, but what I feel now is a pressing need to dispose of the […]
Nostalgia Nalan believed there were two kinds of families in this world: relatives formed the blood family; and friends, the water family. If your blood family happened to be nice and caring, you could count your lucky stars and make the most of it; and if not, there was still hope; things could take a […]
“Hetkinen, odottakaa, hiljaa! Kaikki seis ja aloitetaan alusta. Aloitetaan koko ilta tyhjästä! Koko juttu oli virhe! Delete! Backspace! Ei kyse ole siitä, etteikö teille olisi mennyt perille – te olette mahtavia. Ei se teistä johdu, minusta se johtuu. En tajunnut, millainen tilaisuus minulle on annettu. Herra jumala…” Hän pitelee päätään molemmin käsin. “Te ette usko, […]
“Minä en näet tiennyt. Luulin, että puut seisovat pystyssä.. Tajusin juuri, että niiden kädet ovatkin maan sisällä. Katso, katso tuonne – eikö olekin ällistyttävää?” Yeong-hye ponnahti pystyyn ja osoitti ikkunasta ulos. “Ne kaikki ovat ylösalaisin.” Hän nauroi innoissaan. In-hye muisti, että hänen ilmeensä oli ollut toisinaan lapsena samanlainen. Hänen vinot silmänsä olivat siristyneet ja tummuneet […]
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