Seer's Tower E-Book

Jani Ojala

• Herausgeber: BoD - Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: New Sand for Old Glass
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 857

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

It's 2031 and Eemeli Kangas is dead. Fernio keeps watch over his dominion of Siberian forest, enjoying more reach than he's ever had before. His job is not only to watch over Korok, Shiru, Ruini and Aeor but make sure the year-old giant wolves learn all that there is to learn about what makes humans the dominant species - everything they can be. Tiia is searching for answers. Suddenly losing everything and suddenly getting it back last year evoked something deep. She starts spending time with a single mother whose outlook answers a lot of her questions, but looming over it all is the mystery of this lady's husband and his shady involvement in international crime. Sammy is disillusioned. His life stays shockingly similar after gaining possession of a magic he can wield. He's in a more stable position, in every sense, than he ever has been. An illicit affair with a secretary shows Sammy that still waters run deep; life is long and full of situations that either don't satisfy you enough, or satisfy too much. Viktor lost two fingers in the Nevada Sunrise last year. It wasn't enough to completely lose his grip on things. He can still carry the weight he needs to; only now, it's with enough physical burden involved that it becomes an active reminder of the worth of his labor. Alex Coleman got his family back in the Sunrise. He appreciates his life as much as this good fortune will elicit... but gets more complications into his swing of things when something flies through his window. It's an unnecessary complication, but one he learns to love. At new heights of their power, the world's magics keep getting irritated by mankind's excess. When a fourth magic rears its head, it increases the potency of it all. Almost like Nevada Sunrise did. Only this time it's a perpetual flow, rather than a single explosive cataclysm. Because life is long.

Leseprobe

Jani’s books:

Coleman-Tarinat (2014)

Coleman-Tarinat 2 (2014)

Artner-Enkelin Multinotaatti (2014)

Ylipurema (2015)

Ice Road(Oulunsalo Fiction, Pt. 1) (2016)

Talisman(Oulunsalo Fiction, Pt. 2) (2017)

Helicopters(Oulunsalo Fiction, Pt. 3) (2019)

Oulunsalo Fiction: The Complete Trilogy (2019)

The Oulunsalo Gallery (2019)

The Coleman Stories (2020)

The Top 100 Albums of the 2010s (2021)

Overbite: Notes of a Summer in Captivity (2021)

The Top 100 Albums of the 1960s (2022)

Broken Shadows: New Sand for Old Glass, Part One (2022)

What Mynos Saw: New Sand for Old Glass, Prequel #1 (2023)

They Sang for That Island: New Sand for Old Glass, Prequel #2 (2023)

Seer’s Tower: New Sand for Old Glass, Part Two (2025)

Special thanks:

Santeri Kinnunen

for the cover-art.

for the map-illustration in chapter 33.

Sonja Rautio

for help in the editing process.

Joseph Marino

(from The Shitposting of Jazz to Come @ Facebook)

for a Bebop-joke I used in chapter 15.

Jacob Geller

for his video essay Fear of Cold, which I rewatched to write chapter 33.

Leonard Cohen

for The Partisan; big inspiration for a poem in chapter 38.

Aravind Nair

For the way your conversation made me feel. For the things you said and the music we heard together. I wouldn’t be the person I am now if

I didn’t have a friend like you at one point.

Rest in peace

1997-2024

Truth will mess you up.

”Air tenang menghanyutkan”

—Indonesian Proverb

RETURNING CHARACTERS

• James Coleman (The Coleman Stories)

• Eloise ”Blue” Green (The Coleman Stories)

• Anthony Coleman (The Coleman Stories)

• Alisa Kangas (The Coleman Stories)

• Tero Kangas (The Coleman Stories)

• Arto Grön (The Coleman Stories)

• Aaron Green (The Coleman Stories)

• Alexander Green (The Coleman Stories)

• Rafael the Prison-guard (The Coleman Stories)

• Lisa Thomas (The Coleman Stories)

• Joey Porter (The Coleman Stories)

• Johnny Porter (The Coleman Stories)

• Riikka Sundberg (Overbite)

• Roni Honkanen (Oulunsalo Fiction)

• Sanna Coleman (Broken Shadows)

• Markus Leinonen (Broken Shadows)

• HP Alardt (Broken Shadows)

CONTENTS Foreword – a quote from Sufjan Stevens

Act 1: Yellow Air”The Criminals at the Edge of Night”, a story I wrote when I was 12

Act 2: Purple LightAct 3: Orange Asphalt

Act 4: Blue HourAct 5: Green Street

Act 6: Red SecondsEpilogue

Foreword

”In the tower above the earth

There is a view that reaches far;

Where we see the universe

I see the fire, I see the end

Seven miles above the earth

There is Emmanuel of mothers

With His sword, with His robe

He comes dividing man from brothers

In the tower above the earth, we built it for Emmanuel

In the powers of the earth, we wait until He rails and rails

In the tower above the earth, we built it for Emmanuel

Oh, my mother, she betrayed us, but my father loved and bathed us

Still I go to the deepest grave

Where I go to sleep alone”

—Sufjan Stevens, The Seer’s Tower (Illinois, 2005)

Act 1

Yellow Air

Chapter 1

Release Date, Pt. 2

(Eemeli Kangas)

~

Two chairs stood perpendicular to one other in a ninetydegree angle.

Eemeli Kangaswas aware of the fact that a lot of time had passed. A lot of time since he took that dive off a cliff and successfully committed suicide, in Kätkävaara, right where he saw that tower that he was sure only people like him could see. At the behest of Shotimamimu… Lotta years.

The little boy’s theoretical form watched as a year’s worth of dust-specs landed atop one of the chairs. Not the other one though, just the chair at his right eye’s side. The left chair was moving too much to be affected by dust or any other nasty effects of stagnancy. It was rocking. Did it take a year for me to understand they were rocking chairs?

Eemeli’s eyes looked to the roof and he didn’t feel like he’s a Seer, or anything else that the talking dream-owl had made those promises about. No, this felt like it was still just a dream whereupon he was seeing… Was I a Seer the whole time?

He noticed his thoughts insisting to interrupt his flow-state.

The chair that was rocking had a baby on it, cradled and sleeping peacefully. Eemeli could hear their waning breath when the room fell into quiet again – when his own thoughts allowed him some silence. Staring at that baby is like looking at a mirror, Eemeli thought next – realizing that he’d said something profound to himself. Have I got no clue what I’m doing – what I have done to myself?

The boy had just jumped ahead in time by one year which felt just like a moment. Out of all the questions in his mind, that one – ”what have I done to myself?” – was the one that’s too much to bare. Eemeli – or whatever is left of me – had no idea where or who he was in this room that came right out of a dream; lit without a light-source. The more and more sure he became that he was just dreaming – and not really dead – the more agonizing it felt to be here.

Because once you’ve decided to kill yourself, mere dying becomes only a formality. If I’m just asleep right now, and seeing one of my regular dreams that I would just see every other night while alive… then that would be the worst.

The chair on the left kept rocking, and the chair on the right screetched as if something was moving it. It was inanimate, but facts seemed not to matter.

I always felt different from people my age. Alex bullying me in grades two and three seemed to be just a culmination of that, but when we made that sudden truce and suddenly became friends and were suddenly able to move back to Oulu around the same time, in the winter after… I became more popular in school. Hey isn’t this life after death? Isn’t this supposed to be the one place where I don’t measure my worth on how much STUPID KIDS AND BITCHES LIKED ME!

The cracking of a venere was heard across the room Eemeli’s presence was floating in. Its sound carried through the walls and multiplied as if Eemeli was just in the Allegory of the Cave. At least that’s what I think that allegory was, he thought. I’ve never even heard of it myself.

I guess my suicide was just wishful thinking and I’m really still just alive. Fuck knows I think like a normal person. Punctuate my emotional thoughts with curse-words and all.

It’s all okay.

I have a grip on myself. I have a vague idea of what is about to happen next. I have more certainty of the words I think. My eyes feel mobile instead of hit-by-a-sandstorm. I’m good. I’m al-- well I’m not that, but I am. Still I am. Who’s rocking that chair?

The rocking chair in which the baby had sat, looked exactly the same as Eemeli saw it throughout this vision. Moved just the same.

It began to terrify him now; the silence all around it became rough.

Because his eyes had gotten settled into the sight of this chair being rocked all on its’ own accord and--

--He blinked.

Eemeli stood inside a big lobby, where Shotimamimu greeted him like a peer instead of a pupil. This glowing, fat and stubby owl with little wings and who levitated instead of flying. The pupil-treatment had been common when Shotimamimu kept intense contact with Eemeli during his dreams in life. Seeing Shotimamimu, Eemeli remembered from back in his human-days that talking usually makes the thoughts go quiet:

♠ Shotimamimu. ♠

♠ That’s my name, don’t wear it out. How you feeling? ♠

♠ I’m not. You probably know that better than anybody else. Tell me… tell me something-- just tell me anything, Shotimamimu, because I am fucking confused. ♠

♠ Your suicide was a success, yes, if that’s what you want to know about. ♠

♠ What else would I want to know about? ♠

Shotimamimu could only hoot as an answer to that. Holy Hell, he’s an owl and I’ve never seen him hoot before. That’s weird…? Shouldn’t an owl be hooting all the--

Eemeli was laughing at his own thoughts.

♠ You would be wise to want to know about what’s gonna happen next. ♠ Shotimamimu said, subtly foreboding.

♠ Suicide doesn’t even give me a week of paid vacation? ♠ Eemeli joked, missing the nuanced delivery with which adults would always joke about work and not liking to work. Work… it’s all they ever talked about. Glad I never got that far in that escapade.

Suddenly there was air in what felt like Eemeli’s lungs and it felt more brutally crisp than any Finnish winter’s worst offering. ♠ Don’t do that. ♠ The owl instructed the human child.

There was a garbage can full of neatly folded A4-paper-sheets that Eemeli only now noticed, in the room, three feet behind the chairs and right below the window. The light that hadn’t shone in from that window, now made the sight of those papers bright. There is probably a lot yet that I still can’t see yet, isn’t there.

♠ Breathe? I can breathe? ♠

♠ Sure you can. But don’t. ♠

♠ Why not? ♠

♠ We’re under an Antarctic ice-sheet. ♠ Shotimamimu said to Eemeli, like it wasn’t the coolest thing ever for the boy to hear. Just all-casual-like, like somebody who’s working with one hand and answering questions in a busy manner with the other.

♠ We are? ♠ The boy couldn’t let go of his excitement about that information.

♠ Yes, we need a little bit of things from the physical world so we can keep doing everything that we’re doing in ours. ♠

♠ You’re kinda like United Nations? ♠ Eemeli asked, still unceasing in his burning red curiosity.

♠ We intervene with the living world. To do that, we have to have access to satellites and collect our dream-communicators’ gathered data into databases. Things like that begin to take space after hundreds of years of developing. And yes, there’s some similarities between us and the United Nations but what made you think of that? ♠

♠ Just-- I… You-- ♠

♠ Missing your parents, perhaps? ♠ Shotimamimu said, reminding Eemeli of just how much he hated to get interrupted by people back when he was alive.

Eemeli could feel Shotimamimu approaching quietly, as if he had something on his mind. He still looks like he doesn’t mean me harm though.

♠ I really hope that you’re ready for the next phase of your life after dying. Because I can’t make you ready for that. It just has to be within you. ♠

♠ Be within me, to be ready? ♠ Eemeli repeated like he’d heard some riddle, but he was taking this seriously. More and more so, by the moment.

His eyes looked around for a little bit and he realized after a few peeks left and one peek right, that no answer had been given by anyone anywhere whatsoever.

It was cold. But a different kind of cold.

Eemeli was standing on the looking-balcony of a tall, tall wooden tower and underneath him were the whites, greens and blues of Earth. Reaching into the stars… the Tower is to allow me entry. He walked over to one ledge and looked down to see:

Tero and Alisa Kangas wandered all over Lapland’s nature in Eemeli’s vision that he could not see outside of, no matter the rough effort to avert his eyes. He felt himself stepping back, seeing then that the looking-balcony was again where he was. Sturdy old ledge, just vaguely familiar in its’ shade of wood.

He had no time to think about the materials of the place though, as those steps lead him inadvertently to another ledge:

A radio-tower was falling over in the distance behind some shorter trees, but then the vision widened and reeled back like a dollying camera, to see vast premises barred with cement-walls. A courtyard, it seemed like. Two people stood there in with ample space behind each one’s back, and just shook hands. This intrigued Eemeli, he zoomed in closer with the ”camera” that he realized he could now operate his new seeing-ability as.

He listened to what they had to say

— ”Kätkävaara, Kätkävaara! Every rock here looks the same!” The man on the right – wearing slightly darker shades of clothing than the woman – sounded enraged with a calm face, and patience long-spent.

Then Eemeli realized that this vision had also turned into his brother and mother walking around in the Laplandic wilderness looking for his body.

Then Eemeli was on a looking-balcony again. This floor he stood on, this… hard but springy surface, started feeling like a selection-room inside a Crash Bandicoot-game. Warp Rooms, the game called them, Eemeli spoke to himself; he was pretty sure that Shotimamimu wasn’t within hearing-distance. This really feels like something that only I am doing; much like a wave is something that the whole ocean is doing. Why did I just quote Alan Watts even though I never knew who he was? Why do I worry about whether he’s in hearing-distance or not? I shouldn’t…-- I shouldn’t.

Something beat like a tribal drum and immediately lured Eemeli’s eyes away from visceral thoughts about video games. He was standing at a third balcony’s edge, and only now noticing that there only are three. It’s not a square floor, but a triangle.

He felt like choosing a winter-level, because those were always fun in Crash. Ones where you get to those ice-patches and do those super-fast slides on them that take down your enemies for you if they so happen to step into your way.

Eemeli felt like nothing’s in his way now. No, his Seer-eyes were looking out into a pale white vastness with snowfall for texture. No details, no colors. No cold wind… can you believe a seer-entity can’t breathe? That makes all this adjustment so hard. All this… I should really start writing some things down about the way I feel.

”I mean not writing, exactly”, the boy’s former voice from earthly life, spoke back to him from the vastness of the winterdesert-vision. ”I can’t write anymore. I can obviously, however, hear my own thoughts! As eechooooeees!!”

He was starting to have fun with it.

”And anyway…” boomed the same echoing voice, only now infected with a haunting tone, ”…he’s dead if he’s been wandering around here without anybody. Boy when I find that helicopter-pilot I’m gonna skin him alive, starting at the dick! What fucking moron, a professional person, a grown adult, believes some orphan-boy’s lies about going to a family retreat in Kätkävaara? That’s bullshit! He killed my little brother, that fucking imbecile, is what he did!”

Those were Tero Kangas’ angry words about the disappearance of Eemeli Kangas the 11-year-old boy who pulled off a masterful lie to a helicopter-pilot, one Matti Soisalo who he’d met at a classmate’s birthday-party. Eemeli was pretty sure he took three steps next, to situate his present self at the center of this looking-balcony. He was now completely defeated in this subconscious argument against himself. Now resigned to the fact that he cannot stop thinking about the way Eemeli Kangas died. Processing that his mother and big brother have both lost him because he made a decision that they couldn’t have in any way prevented because neither of them knew him, not to mention being an orphan is what made all this--

♠ --grow into this. ♠ The boy finished his thought out-loud, to company he had – another presence he had become unmistakably aware of in the last two whispers of wind.

♠ Yeah you’re probably right. ♠ Eemeli heard Shotimamimu talk once again. ♠ Do you have the words? Did they come to you? ♠ ♠ What, the words that really make me a seer and take me out of this brain-chemical-induced fantasy of sitting inside the Seer’s Tower when I damn-well know it won’t look like this when I get up there? ♠

♠ What you imagined here isn’t too far from what the Seer’s Tower really looks like. ♠ The owl said in a way that backhandedly complimented the boy’s great imagination.

The boy liked it. He felt himself smiling despite being only a pair of seeing eyes.

♠ First two questions: will I be a pair of seeing eyes only? Will it feel the same as this feels right now? ♠

♠ Yes. ♠

♠ And has everything you said to me, been true? ♠

♠ Everything in this chapter? ♠ Shotimamimu asked for specification.

♠ No, everything in the time I’ve known you. Has it been true?

And be honest. ♠

♠ Did your foster-parents hit you? ♠

♠ Sometimes. Nothing that I didn’t deserve though. I was over there flipping tables when I couldn’t get what I wanted, and I realize now that that was wrong and they had no other choice but to hit me. ♠

♠ But you’re mad at your dad for not being there for you. ♠

♠ Abandonment is not violence. ♠ Eemeli had a good point.

♠ So you decided what justice is based on your own feelings? ♠

♠ What? How did you turn this into yet another question at me? Answer one of my questions for once, Shotimamimu! Has everything you said been true? ♠

♠ No. ♠

Like a hook into a lake

Goes caution to the wind

This ain’t all I have, but it’s more than I can stand

Rain just falls, it doesn’t form a drop or land

Pillars of knowledge have their births and endings

Dots and arms achieve nothing other than reaching

The occurring nature of appearance

That I shall Maintain my senses

Eemeli Kangas transformed into a Seer-entity, after the ancient 8-line-poem came to him out of pure organic spontaneity. The poem which Mynos the Founder said when the dimension’s physical realm only consisted of a dark hallway with rows of library-shelves in a chronologically organized manner. The poem which – when the words come to you – are the last necessary, definitive sign, that you belong as an astral Seer.

The transformation was now complete. The child of Alisa Kangas and brother of Tero Kangas, finally completed his transformation into an entity traveling exclusively in the astral realm. Eemeli became only able to communicate with subliminal aspects of awareness. The 11-year-old boy became ageless.

Chapter 2

Never in the Same River Twice

(Sammy Sieppi, James Coleman)

~

June 2031

NEW YORK

Sammy Sieppi was pacing around the space of Sandking’s office. His former boss’ place of business was a place where so much things happened. So many things that still nevertheless collided into one eclipsing kind of memory inside Sammy’s mind. About a year had passed since the departure of Curtis ”Sandking” Marston, Sammy’s boss, and his mystery had been buried. Search for Sandking’s dead body had ceased to be, and instead transformed into a grey past tense, along with the details of Sammy’s multiple conversations, lectures and sparringmatches with the old man. It had all blended into one full-length memory. It almost felt like Sammy had ever only spoken once to Sandking. At least that’s how he felt. He’d noticed a change within himself, at least in the moments he’s alone and doing nothing but reeling back, thinking… not the same person anymore. I’m not the same person anymore, who once carried a sawed-off shottie on my person and blasted at Sundberg-bandits all cowboy-like, leaning out the window of a moving car.

I’m not the same person… Sammy’s intrusive thoughts kept insisting that he keep this notion in his mind, whilst his body walked on autopilot past a showcase-cabinet, where said sawedoff shotgun – named Sirpa – proudly stood next to a spear that had lost all color and had begun to rot out vis-á-vis the wood of its handle. …What if I told the Finnish judges I’m ”not the same person” anymore? Would they let me come back into their country then? Sammy had a contentious thought, which he gave up on right away. Old beefs. Never gonna get resolved.

The television was on; something Sammy was cognizant to this entire time on some level of sensing, but which still surprised him as the screen turned from a darker color into bright light in a blink. It cast a reflection on the cabinet’s glass doors.

Sammy’s own shotgun has now become the absolutionweapon. Something about the way that weapon operates, made it spawn out of Travis ”Maskmaker” Marston’s grip and then transport its’ powers into Sirpa, when that Marston also bit the dust. Sammy remembered the moment he stood in that Nevada Sunrise and his weapon changed color and caught a new pigment from the desert-air, seemingly. The change of that magical transmission was real and was lasting. Sammy still saw the occasional firefly flickering around Sirpa on some nights, when he’s just in deep-enough sleep to not fully ascertain if he’s awake or not.

Autopilot had directed Sammy’s tall frame into sitting down at his own boss-chair. This chair still had a freshness from the factory on it, carrying over by the scent from the leather.

— ”Call me whatever you want but never call me tasteless.” Sammy spoke to himself – a habit he’d unnoticeably picked up sometime in the last long winter of thinking and leading Sandking’s gang. ”It was obvious I couldn’t sit in Curtis’ old chair. That much respect I have to have for him in absentia – even if he lost all of his for me along the way.”

Sammy looked at the TV, and the bright footage on it was just the news covering last year’s mass-resurrection event. He hadn’t listened to any of the newscast about his heroic deed, and wasn’t gonna start now.

Still. A year later. It has not stopped being wide-spread and interesting and shocking news, that almost a hundred people were magically born again; some of them had been dead for over 20 years, and they just simply came back to life in the age they’re supposed to be. Resurrected…

Sammy wasn’t sure if the mass-resurrections were a good or a bad thing for the world. On one hand, everybody now knows certifiably, that magic exists. I’ve been careful – and lucky – that the fact I’m wielding this magic hasn’t leaked out to the public.

But I guess that’s just because people hate me enough and consider me to be enough of a danger to society as is. I doubt that Absolution-Sirpa would even make a difference in the way people hate me.

I haven’t even done anything with it. Absolution… wipeout, Curtis called it. Devastation, in its’ absolute form. I’ve never killed anyone with it. Kenny Marston wrote a lot of the spells and recipes down a hundred years ago and those texts are in this office, but most of how it was used last year was shit that Maskmaker learned and his writings are buried somewhere deep within a hole in the desert. I bet Travis Marston wanted to leave a deep impact. Instead he left a deep hole where the things people could learn from him, were lost forever.

— Wow I have been doing nothing this morning but think.

”Police have doubled the patrols of cemetaries in the capitalarea and UFO-sightings have do--” was what the spry-looking, plainly speaking female newscaster had the time to say in her newscast before Sammy turned off the television.

In an un-recorded moment Sammy had walked pensively and with controlled steps, to an IKEA vinyl-shelf at the left backcorner of the room. Standing on top of the simple, unicolor shelf were three vinyl records: The ”Angry” Young Them! by the band Them, released in 1965; Sunshine Superman by Donovan, released in 1966; and Bitches Brew by Miles Davis, released in 1970. All three were original blessings. Sammy’s mom’s topthree favorite records.

As Sammy’s eyes kept glancing around, from left to right, they stumbled onto a framed picture of a smiling woman with an open body language but dignified demeanor. ”Saara Sieppi, 19542030”, the picture said.

Sammy’s mother’s favorite albums got a place of prominence in his office after he inherited her whole collection. When Saara died, the top of the shelf wasn’t used to display ”current obsession” albums anymore. Now, the son only kept the three albums on display that the mother had revealed to be the most important to her ever.

Sammy got a call.

— ”Yeah?” He answered it.

— ”Hey, Sammy, are you busy today?” Asked the voice of his best friend, Charlie Ek; not even knowing how much I needed a comforting--

— ”Yeah I’m free, what? What’s up?” Sammy interrupted himself.

— No, nah, it’s just thatFreddiesaid he’s missed you. He wonders when you might be coming over.

Sammy felt suddenly like his heart weighed two-hundred and nine pounds. He didn’t know what to say.

BUFFALO, NEW YORK

67-year-old James Coleman was sitting alone. Looking at a miniature globe on his desk, he faced the room whilst scanning finer details with his eyes. Most fine was the established nation Republika Srpska, which proudly adorned red color next to a green neighboring Serbia. Srpska’s recent independence had gotten James to update his table-globe once again.

— ”That’s only the smallest of the changes since I’ve been gone.” He lamented to himself with a confessional-like tone as if I was recording one of those videos again. That’s where I learned to talk that way. To an imaginary audience.

The cardboard-box that the globe came in, was sitting on the corner of the room and within viewing-distance. James’ order had arrived just earlier today. His fingers kept scanning the little globe and the patterning of its’ surface impressed him with its intricacy.

He was feeling serious. Reminiscing on last year, back at Nevada where he spawned back to life along with like a hundred other individuals. All out there, on the deserted field, friends and enemies and all. You know at least half of us would come back and keep doing the same old shit we ever knew how to do.

James hadn’t felt as invincible since that day. Since he was resurrected by that cataclysm of death-magic irregularity. Since that Nevada Desert’s dry air unrelentingly exacerbated his dry thirst. Since he’d seen his family-members Anthony, Damien, Sanna Coleman… and had that chance to menacingly say hi to his offspring which hated him so. Now, he was sitting in his own house at the suburb, listening to coffee pour, The Roots’ song Never playing from the speakers and a dead look pointing at water in a glass that lamp-light bounced off of. This flu’d been getting the best of him lately. There was a lot of sensory information that James kept a serious face in spite of. Still. Still.

He didn’t feel like his thoughts were serious or emotions were getting filtered. He’d given up after two days of suffering with his disease – I didn’t even remember back on that glorious sunrise when I arose… how much life can suck when you’re out of force.

— I know I’ll kick this disease. I’ve kicked them before.

Still, an inkling was somewhere behind that thought. James was certain that resurrected people can still die. Among the resurrectees on that desert – on that morning – was his father. A man in his 90s at that point, Joshua Coleman was dead on arrival for his rebirth.

— How poetic.

James was feeling lucid again. More and more lucid as he thought of the death of his father. Second death. No rebirth. No chances at life.

— No chances… the life of a Coleman.

This was the longest that the old man had gone in a week without thinking about Blue Green’s emeralds which are buried out in Siberia, under a cave; which would be the road to gaining Greens’ fortune and returning to the glory-days of what was once New York’s finest criminal organization. If enough of the old contacts in government and precious metals, are still in place, the Greens could grow big enough to even take over the Sandmen.

— Before these Marstons came… shit, we wiped the field clean for them. All they had to fight against were some Relativessurvivors, and no Alberghini has ever been fit to lead. Now they got that kid as their boss. Sammy Sieppi…

James remembered talking with Alexander Green just before this flu hit – back when this nagging feeling at the roof of the mouth was emitting ominous signs of the disease’s arrival, but there was still life-force within the body to sound all tough and serious and all-business, when talking to the resurrected Green.

The speakers sounded:

”Street dreams, this is the moment

The moment that feels like forever

This is the end, to where I began

And it feels like forever”

James had not sat up from this chair all day, except to get that mail. No thought towards eating all day; he was feeling his hunger now as he quickly rose up, globe still in his hand.

The old man wanted to know as much about the world as possible, as fast as possible. He knew that before stepping out into the word with a real purpose he’d have to be ready. He knew he’d missed out on a lot while being out of the game for all those years. He knew, and understood – his main philosophy revolved around the fact – that being prepared is the most important thing when facing big opponents. That includes ones he doesn’t know much about.

This time, both of those things were unfortunate realities for Coleman. He knew nothing about the way The Sandmen are run, or about how that Russian organization got to control all that Inuit land. They’re likely better schemers than me. More intelligent. They likely have more influence than I can believe and both organizations probably operate under a mutual understanding of how business should be done. I know Sammy Sieppi from the Sandmen and Viktor Ekholm from the Vulovic organization are good friends, at least.

— But they can rest assured… I’m coming for them.

”All I know, it’s all I know” said the song in the speaker as it was coming to an end.

”It’s all I know, all I know”

Chapter 3

Neheh

(Viktor Ekholm)

~

Viktor was alone. His aimless steps had lead him to the front of that CD shelf which his mom used to own – back when the damn thing had breath in it. The first critical thought about the scrape-marks on that shelf’s side, scared Vik away to the next thing. Standing next to a window didn’t prove satisfying either, because the inner glass had a stain Viktor hadn’t accounted for and didn’t wanna even think about messing up the veneres again in order to clean up. You usually can live with stains once you let go of the idea of cleaning them, Viktor analyzed his situation whilst his body motioned autonomously.

He was rising to stand. Pink Floyd’s Us and Them was playing from a black speaker in the corner of the living room. This speaker was as tall as a dog but a better companion; an impressive investment, despite the fact the man has lots of money either way. Never seems to get spent.

Idle steps had lead him to stand in front of his CD shelf again and looking into the P-section for Pink Floyd-records. He wondered half-aloud if he’d remember which ones his mom had. Dark Side of the Moon was an obvious one, because it is playing, and because it is Dark Side of the Moon.

Something Viktor wasn’t seeing, but noticed regardless was that the bad hand’s thumb was pressing so much on the topsurface of the shelf – while he was kneeling to read the backs of five Pink Floyd-albums – that he was probably bound to leave a fingerprint to the dust.

— ”I wonder what my fingerprints look like. I know a couple of agencies that have records of them, I should maybe get a--” The man said an incomplete sentence to an empty audience.

He saw his thumbprint in a thin layer of dust. He had also affirmed the amount of Pink Floyd-albums in the collection but already forgot about that. He couldn’t help but notice the item right next to his thumbprint – the hand. The bad hand. The one he had burned by gripping his hands around Maskmaker’s Absolution Spear at the big 4v1-hoopla that he had with Sammy, William and Alex against Maskmaker Marston.

— ”Maskmaker Marston.” Somebody could’ve heard Viktor speak, if there were anybody else within hearing-distance.

He saw his right hand, which now was completely missing a pinky and whose ring-finger was cut off at the first joint. The burns’d been too bad, for the skin of the palms to remain intact on its’ own, and months of hospital-visits ensued after initial injury in the desert. Skin-transplants… is there any more poetic metaphor of the way my life is right now? The man thought to himself, feeling a sensation of being ”on borrowed time” which had carried him from spring to summer.

Viktor could still remember being a chubby kid when he started first grade. When this hand’s fingers were un-clenched and just relaxed, the fat at the thumb’s joint was so thick that it could be pinched with the same hand. One person tried to bully Viktor about his fat fingers in grade 2, too. But that kid had to move to another city because his mom died. That memory still made Vik smile, when he thought about it as a grown man. He didn’t even remember the classmate’s name – just his face when his dad called the school with the news.

”…And in the end it’s what the fighting’s all about…” sang Pink Floyd’s song from the speaker. Viktor had forgotten the music, momentarily. The rotten mood he’s in, had a sliver of comfort to it because it’s so familiar.

Now, Viktor’s hand was wrinkled, skinny and burnt. Skin had melted off. The doctors were never able to fix it, and the drive from the Nevada desert had taken five hours… and 48 minutes.

Remembering that had inspired Vik to pick his phone out of his jeans’ pocket. Why am I wearing pants? I’m inside, and don’t even have the windows open…

Before he could continue that thought, Samuli Leinonen was already answering his collect-call to the Helsinki prison:

— Home of the burger, what’s your beef?

Somewhere in an unrecorded moment, Vik had pressed the remote’s button to turn off the music. So that he can hear and focus on just one thing at a time.

— Hey Samuli. I just wanna talk. You got time?

— Now what kind of question is that, my one-handed friend?

Viktor’s loud cackle to that comment was the first time he’d laughed in at least a week. I’m so lonely.

— You were totally right about Sopranos. That final episode. I watched it yesterday.

— Oh yeah, Made in America. How about that ending, huh?

— I’ve got nothing to say about that.

— That’s good. I am firmly on that side-a myself-uh.

— But you were absolutely right, like… I felt it so much when Tony and Paulie were talking, about that promotion at the front of the pork-store and Tony had that great quote. ”But to not live your life? What the fuck are you gonna do?”… Dude, Samuli, you were so right. This is still the greatest show of all time.

— I told you, didn’t I?

— You did.

— Yeah.

Viktor just realized it had been a year since Nair died, his great plan to free everybody failed, but then didn’t fail, but then his hands burned in the confrontation. No great final battle with Maskmaker, no big victory or cinematic moment of looking to the skies. Nope, instead just burning hands. Nothing ever goes my way. That truth is so old that you woulda thunk it be expired by now. What were we talking about.

— ”That’s fucked.” Samuli was saying to Viktor, after Vik’s silence in this phone-call had grown uncomfortable. ”I’m getting a lot of nightmares too… on the nights that I can remember. What was your last dream like then?”

— I was at Muhos. Y’know, where Pasi had that hideout and I took his-- I shouldn’t say these things on the phone should I?

— ”No, but I remember the house.” Samuli said, resolute. ”I remember it from your Pasi-story.”

— So in this dream I was at that cabin again, but the car key didn’t fit, and I was trying to get it in but it just kept bouncing outta there and before I knew it, a giant fucking wolf was after me. I had to run, I was suddenly in the woods, there was a wolf after me – not like Nair-huge but as huge as like those direwolves in Game of Thrones. I was in those woods, made it to a clearing and ran and ran, until I saw that it was useless. I was going nowhere. All that running, and nowhere… just the same trees in front of me over and over again. Then I turned my head to the side. The wolf wasn’t running after me, it was running with me. Same direction, and beside me. And my hands were both on fire.

— Did it hurt?

What a weird question to ask. …but no, it didn’t.

— Wow that was a very Buddhist remark of you. Real ’how many beans am I holding’ type shit.

— ”Huh?” Samuli reacted.

— How’s your day been? At the can? What did you eat?

— Butter pecan ice cream.

— Ew.

— ”Disgusting?” Samuli’s last comment had been a joke – a Wu-Tang Clan reference – but he was going along now.

— I’m allergic to peanuts, didn’t I tell you? Days like this when all I do is think about shit that’s gone wrong, that is one bad fortune that has not yet fucking befallen me. To eat nuts and go into shock and die. At least that has not happened ever once!

Viktor could hear how Samuli was having a little bit of a hard time finding a proper answer to that. He could hear his thoughts for a secret moment between seconds there…

At the same time – without Viktor remembering anything – his bedroom’s window had been left open. A leaf got blown in by summer wind from outside. It made a delicate flip and then a half-flip in the air, once carried in. After those it was flying in a straight line. Gracefully, it landed atop the CD shelf.

HALF AN HOUR LATER

Viktor sat on his couch and kept flipping the audio-system’s remote control in his hand. No plan or inclination to really continue listening to music; just slowly deciding what he should do next.

Then he thought about killing somebody. Just going out, killing a person and then coming back home.

A most peculiar after-effect of last year, everything that happened in Siberia and then happened in Nevada, was that I have not killed a single person ever since then. Not since being in those woods, and talking about my hate honestly for the first time ever. Learned that lesson, though. But yeah, anyway… a year without killing, it’s been-- I don’t even remember when it’s been that long. Maybe I discovered some fucking humanity about myself and about nature from having to look at frozen trees for twenty days.

I don’t have that regular guilt or regret whenever I kill. I don’t. I haven’t felt any way about murder since I stopped doing it for the time being.

I don’t know.

It just never felt wrong for me. More of a rush than anything. People get addicted to gambling, Coca-Cola and other shit too.

The leaf that had flown in with the wind, landed right next to Viktor’s thumbprint on some dust atop the CD-shelf.

Viktor noticed.

He walked over to the shelf, to look. He saw that the markings of the fingerprint were in the same composition as – looked completely identical to – that leaf’s little veins.

They were one and the same.

Chapter 4

The Seer Towers

(Eemeli)

~

THE ASTRAL DIMENSION

It all played inside Eemeli’s mind.

Like a memory, it played, although it had not really happened at all.

That vision – clear as day, far more welcoming than it ought to be – of a giant wooden tower rising into the stars in the sky, from just a pebble. Eemeli was a pair of eyes floating inside its premises. He could not touch anything.

He was standing on that same cliff-edge from which his mortal body had taken that plunge – jumped off a cliff and into death. This is where we first go to look.

— ”This is where we first go to look.” Eemeli heard a grown man’s voice; one whose conviction was completely made up of experience. Old experience. Experience that came off as severallifetimes-old.

Turning around to look, was quick work from the boy because he didn’t have a body anymore to turn. Not to say I wasn’t quick with it even when I was alive. I was the fastest boy in class.

Standing behind Eemeli was a man in some ancient-looking clothes. Drapes, was the first word that came to the former boy’s mind as a descriptor. For the first time, unsure.

He was facingMynos, the founder of this place. He really wanted to know what Mynos meant by the words he just said; he’d not forgotten a single one. ”This is where we first go to look”.

— What do you mean?

— ”I mean”, Mynos began speaking. ”This is what everybody wants to find out first. Where their bodies are, and whether or not somewhere in the story, somebody will find it. That’s what every new person we induct, wants to know. Wants to use their abilities on, first, before they even know what their capabilities are. There’s small exceptions though.”

strawberries in spring-time

Eemeli had a difficult time following what Mynos said but he was pretty sure he’d gotten the gist. The ancient man was talking in cryptic terms but hearing it made Eemeli feel that he’s being taken seriously. He could remember at that very moment, the memory of his wool-socks. Ones Riina would sew for him. Foster-mom always had a pair on-demand when an old pair would get holes in it. She was precious that way. At least her intentions were. What Eemeli would not tell Riina – tell anybody in that house – is that his shoes were one-number-too-small for two whole winters and that’s why he hated putting on wool socks over the regular socks. They always made his pinky-toe hurt. He hated walking with all that footwear on. He sweated an unnatural amount, from the pain, even when it was -28 degrees outside and of course he’d always have to walk everywhere on those days.

He could not tell what this new sensation was that reminded him of socks so much. Mostly he just felt like telling Mynos that dying hurt less than living. But Mynos was starting to look like he’s two steps ahead of every thought Eemeli may have, so it felt futile to even make a comment; that’s what’s rubbing me wrong so much right now, not my stupid woolsocks anymore.

Eemeli still didn’t understand the get-up of that ancientlooking man. Hand-sewn shoes – hey, maybe those were the thing that made me think about woolsocks! – and a brown togalike thing. It looked like Mynos was wearing leather, but of what animal, Eemeli couldn’t tell. It looked like he hunted the very thing he’s wearing back when he was alive and it – like him – has not aged since death. Why do I not know anything? Wasn’t this supposed to be a ”now you know everything”-type of deal?

— ”I am.” Mynos affirmed to Eemeli.

— You are what? I didn’t say anything?

— ”And you won’t. You were right a moment ago, there. I am wearing something that I hunted.” Mynos said to Eemeli with the authority of a mentor. ”But the reason you’re seeing me in front of you as a man in his early-twenties now – a freaky mark on my wrist – is that this is how I looked when I died.”

— When did you die?

— Calendar says it was the year 800. But I did not have a

calendar then.

pretty happy accidents

— ”I really have no way of processing this information right now,” Eemeli said in the manner of asking for a five-second breather. ”…existing in this moment right now. Is dialogue the only thing I can engage in?”

— That was a good choice of words, Eemeli. How’d you know that word? I’ve been watching you and I know, nobody ever taught you what the word ”dialogue” means.

— I know a lot of things right now. I don’t learn, I just know. It’s…-- it would be scary, but it isn’t. I don’t feel. I only have a notion. Pretty fucking sure I am not at that cliff’s edge right now, but in some room.

— You are in a story, Eemeli. This is all 01110011 01110100 01101111 01110010 01101001 01100101 01110011.

Eemeli looked around and realized that he knows binary code now, somehow, someway.

Despite that fact there were no walls. Nothing held walls around an inconceivably vast whiteness anymore.

my awareness

All this white and borderless space, so magically conjured, reminded Eemeli of snow. Snow, and how calming it is to look at after sitting in class all day and getting a compounding headache. That calmness, that escape, that feeling of getting off school was a source of warmth in and of itself. Even on winter-days. And when he felt that feeling in life, snow would be what his eyes would be unable to escape.

Then Eemeli remembered a distinct tree-branch. One time in life, for some reason – after a pounding bout of cold and snow – a small tree’s branch had bended right in front of his face at a street he always walked. There were no tree-branches hitting him in the face, until this one morning there was. The quickpaced boy had barely had enough time to see that branch and look out, so as to not get hit in the eyes with frozen snowcovered twigs. He still felt mad at that memory, in this interstellar observatory he’s trying to make sense of, as a new form; a Seer that is yet un-trained.

He didn’t reckon why this particular school-day and this particular sucker-punching birch-tree’s branch was such a core memory to him. He didn’t even remember what day or month it happened, it just stuck with him. It had felt inexplicable.

Except now.

Except now, that he was dead.

Now that he was dead he understood absolutely why that tree-branch was a core-memory for him; something he remembered so vividly for so long for no reason.

It was becausewhen life throws something at you, and you don’t see it through for all of its’ worth, you’re going to miss it. If you never look deeply you’re always going to feel like you missed something important. Not every lesson has the courtesy to hit you right in your face.

— ”I know you think that that was all just prose, Eemeli, but I heard all of it. Good life-lesson!” Eemeli heard Mynos’ voice. That guy sees and hears everything…

Chapter 5

Facing the Wind

(Sammy, Charlie Ek)

~

NEW YORK

Sammy ejaculated.

This chair – surprisingly comfortable despite no controls being pushed to get the headrest the way he usually likes it – was occupied by him and the lady whose walls he’d just finished poking. All 6½ inches of him, soaked in a naturally good feeling that every man has wished he could replicate without the human baggage.

This was a pretty regular screw of his. Marcia. A former secretary, who had wanted to pursue a social relationship afterwards. And then to stop due to Sammy’s polyamory. And then to come back for reasons half-explained and ambiguous. Sammy had thought for a period of time that he represented something to her, but moments of elation like this had no space for being critically picked-apart, nuance by nuance. The sexual act was over, the woman’s shoulders sweating a little bit against Sammy’s fingertips which held on to her in that loud moment of ecstasy without a smile.

This is business as usual, was a phrase Sammy had running in his head after the two had cuddled for the next 30-or-so minutes at the office-couch. Who could look at the time?

Enough time had passed that he honestly already wanted her to leave. But he understood that some questions would need to get answered – some ideas entertained – before the long kiss goodbye. He’d kind of had enough of these waiting-moments already, he kind of wanted to light a smoke and blow it out of the window, turn the radio on… but he was thinking if he does that with her, it’ll start feeling too communal up in here.

— I’ve really got--

— ”Yes, you’ve got it where it counts, Sieppi.” Marcia carefully – but confidently – interrupted him. ”Now don’t say another word for another five minutes because I’ve got to be sure these legs stop shaking before I attempt--”

Somewhere in an unrecorded moment, Sammy had walked to the couch to put his tongue into the woman’s mouth. Tension was in the air, just as thick as it was when she came here and opened up their sexual encounter with the delightful declaration that she’s ”so ready for this”, or something like that. They always think they’re ready… Nobody’s ever really-- I don’t remember what it actually was that she said when she came here, do I?

Sammy terminated the French kiss. Marcia’s ”you got my legs shaking”-cliche was interrupted by it, which was nice. Temperature in the room had risen just a little bit from this kiss, but only enough to remind Marcia of her satisfaction. Sammy saw her eyes roll back the way they always do when she can’t control them. She proceeded to look deep into Sammy’s eyes and he started to resist that but then she let out an elated, slow sigh and closed her eyes. Which he inturn only saw as an opportunity to get back to his paperwork. If I don’t work nobody’s gonna work around here.

Fifteen minutes later, door shut behind Marcia and Sammy was alone again. This was business as usual. The getting is good, but the getting’s also… just getting. Marcia had left behind just a scent of today’s lunch-break activities and Sammy knew that opening any window or vent of this office, would just make it fester, grow, stick out more in that sore thumb-fashion. He had no idea when he’d derived such a strange notion about postcoital smells inside of a room, but it’s just become something he likes to handle with closed windows and shut doors. I like to think of it as an honest way to be with your odors.

Not like any neighbor would smell this though if I did let some air out. I’m on the fourth floor. I don’t even get mosquitoes in the summer. People forget that that is a great side-effect of living at higher floors. He realized he was beginning to narrate events, and didn’t like it; the busy city’s noises were filtered out because Sammy hung on to every thought that appeared. Post-nut clarity my ass. He picked up his phone and made a call.

The phone was signaling that it’s working – trying to reach a prison-line. He was in some dire need to talk to a buddy, and Samuli Leinonen was the natural choice. His brother – more exactly his younger half-brother – serving life-sentences in the Finnish max-security prison that was Sammy’s home too, a couple years back. Samuli would understand what’s going on even when he doesn’t fill him up with details, even about what happened today; even about how he feels. Brothers have a connection like that. I don’t wanna let Marcia become a thought. Become an idea in my head again. This wasn’t even supposed to happen, we were just not-talking for months and she came back to me. That’s never a good sign when a woman comes back after time like that – even if it’s just for the dick. It means she’s had him on her mind. He didn’t like being on her mind.

— ”I’m feeling guilty.” Sammy said to the phone, before little brother had even said a greeting or anything formal.

— Guilty? Something must’ve happened today.

— Don’t do that to me.

— ”…Okay, I won’t.” Samuli complied, but he knows that I only said that because he was correct so soon. And this has to be a cross-questioning instead of just going straight to the truth. I need to be interviewed about this. I don’t know how I feel yet.

— I mean the status is nice, and everything else, but… Samuli did you know I’m rich? Like imagine the numbers we dreamed, out-loud as kids, having in our bank-accounts. Imagine what amounts of money we dreamed we would have when we grow up? I go to the store to spend those amounts of money.

And it was true. Sammy was a millionaire dozens of times over the last time he checked his net worth. In taking over Sandking Marston’s entire organization – The Sandmen – he got to reset some of the rules. One of the older rules that old man Marston was oddly strict and strangely insistent about, was that all his higher-ranking lieutenants all own a bunch of property, all across America. East Coast, West Coast, heartland and Midwest and Mississippi. Renting and leasing wasn’t good enough; The Sandmen were ruling New York which was and has always been America’s epicenter of crime. They had to OWN the places they live!

— ”Owning property” Sammy interrupted something his brother was talking about, that admittedly had gotten absolutely zero attention from him. ”…had been something infact that our old and recluse leader got angry about, once or twice.”

— ”Angry?” Sammy heard that Samuli was being compliant for the most part… but there was a hint of curiosity to be felt in there too.

— Yeah, we all had property – safehouses – all over America. I never even went to some of the places, but I had to own them. Then I took over and changed the rules. That rule seemed to be the biggest waste of money and resources for our people, and an unsurprising amount of lieutenants agreed that that rule can go the way of the dodo bird.

— Lieutenants? Don’t you call them ”capos”?

— No, fuck that. Why would we do what we did to the mafia, to then start using their vernacular? Fuck all that. Let them rest where they rest. It’s a new day.

— Okay so you got rich for having all those safe-houses. What, you rent them out to people?

— Some of them, yeah. I let my accountant take care of the particulars. Shit, I’m so suddenly rich that even something like that sounds gauche coming out of my mouth.

— Well it must not have been ”sudden” if you took all that time to buy all that property.

Kendrick Lamar’s Rich Spirit was playing from the radio.

— No, Curtis made sure for me that I had all of it. In fact when I did change the property-rules for our guys we counted together everything everybody has, and I had the most assets by far. Well, Charlie had more than me, but his stuff wasn’t listed in the same network as the rest of ours. He kept it separate because affiliation and suspicions and all that. He’s smart, Charlie. He did most of the accounting and other agita-inducing stuff for that whole shit. Didn’t wanna use my accountant for some work that he could do himself… Charlie’s really smart.

— Yeah I don’t know how he keeps juggling all that, plus that whole huge family. He must really have a knack for it.

— Charlie tells me it’s all thanks to his wife. And I don’t doubt it, I’ve met Cindy. Nicest lady ever!

”Bitch, I’m attractive” sang the song from Sammy’s radio.

”Can’t fuck with you no more, I’m fasting”

— But listen Sami. I wouldn’t let all that shit get to me if I were you. You shouldn’t let this line-of-thought, that you came so suddenly to all this fortune, get to you and make you feel undeserving of your blessings. You’re old enough, you’re in your 40s, you’ve done enough shit and risked your life enough to be rich now.

— I’ve got more money than Sakari, can you believe that?

— Really? He said that?

— Last Christmas we had a chance to talk on the phone, yes. He still hasn’t touched a milli’.

— ”Oh, yeah.” Samuli was responding to Sammy’s information in a clearly uncomfortable, ”I haven’t talked to little bro in too long”-type of way.

— Little brother talked to you too, right? He’s not a pussy punkass bitch who’s too good to call his brother in jail for Christmas to talk?

— Oh no! No no, of course he called. We talked. He was in Switzerland.

— Good. Good, good, ’cause I swear I caught a vibe there.

— What vibe?

— ”You’re clearly pondering something. Or thinking about a way to say something to me right now.” Sammy put his brother on the spot just a tad bit. I know how he gets when he gets like… he gets.

— I am thinking actually about how to approach asking my next question from you, brother dear.

— What’s the question?

— Did the sex today make you think about all these themes? And

if it did, why? Was it a lustful reunion with a mistress?

What-- how--

— ”Do I have sex-voice or something?” Sammy directly challenged that challenging question right back.

— Just caught a vibe. What are you really feeling guilty about? — You sound just like my mom, asking me how I feel after I just told you how I felt.

— Therapists are like that, but sorry. Sami you’ve always known what you gotta do, and then subsequently you’ve done it. What could be so complex that it’s giving you a complex?

— I killed an entire family, Samuli…

— ”Sami, let me cut you off.” Sammy’s ears perked just now when he realized his brother’d started saying his name with the Finnish pronunciation of it. ”This is all happening to you, or you’re letting this feeling take over just because you miss mom so much.”

Sammy hung up after hearing Samuli say that. No words, no fluff and no extra-explanations; he justhung up.