What Mynos Saw E-Book

Jani Ojala

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 225

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

NEW SAND FOR OLD GLASS: First Prequel It's the year 800 and Mynos lives in his family's old home with his pet-wolf and pet-sheep. Their family was a staple of a growing farming-community in Southwest Finland. Now there's two of them left. Now, middle-brother Veros is the only one still looking after Mynos. Mynos is the town's shaman, a restless artist who acts as a bridge between people who see him either as clueless, or pure-at-heart. Tragedies have almost wiped out Mynos and Veros' family. Mynos refuses the older brother's torn-by-the-wild outlook, and secrets unravel as to how everybody got the way they are, while Mynos just... sits there. Sits there and carves, sits there and paints, sits there and talks, sits there... and wonders if he means anything at all. In his years as the town's top artist, Mynos has had the chance to brush up against all matter of proud people, but all that those experiences have provided him -- all that anything seems to provide him -- is making his introspection merely intensify. He wants to love. He refuses to hate the nearby owls as much as the Village Master does. He wants something that's made here in the close corners of his cold house, to stand the test of time. To have something to show for all these moments alone in his room. To live on, after he dies.

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)

The Seer’s Tower

Magic of Sight

CONTENTS

FIRST WORDS

– by Runei

Mynos Crafts

(chapters 1-5)

Mynos Moves

(chapters 6-10)

Mynos Decides

(chapters 11-15)

Mynos Does It

(chapters 16-20)

Mynos Lives

(chapters 21-25)

LAST WORDS

– by Runei

SPECIAL thanks:

Sonja Rautioco-writing chapters 6, 9, 11 & 14 creative assistance in characterization

Mika Ojalaco-editing

Santeri Kinnunencover art design

You handsome people, you.

FIRST WORDS

My name is Runei. I’m a wolf. Or… I was. I don’t know what I am now. I guess I’m a wolf.

This is the story of Mynos, who was and is lots of things to lots of people. To me he is my owner and my best friend.

I’m telling you this story – which I believe is best-told starting around the times when his owl-party’s last preparations were being made – because he himself doesn’t wanna tell it. He thinks it isn’t worth telling, but I think otherwise. And I believe I have a unique perspective on it. I was there.

Everybody else who was, is no longer with us. It’s been over a thousand years.

Mynos’ two pets were me, and a sheep named Vin. Now, I know that sounds like an unusual situation or like something that tells a lot about a man, that he was able to have a wolf and a sheep as a pet. Isn’t it kinda like having a cat and a mouse?...

…Okay I guess that does tell you a lot about Mynos.

Mynos was the son of two above-average contributors to this small village they lived in. Wealthy-enough family, to live in a stone house. Cobblestone… Cold as houses like that would get at night, it was a real sign of importance to live in one. Showed that you had your foot down heavily in the community. This achievement by the family was only able to be maintained by Mynos’ two very able-bodied older brothers, Veros and Ajus, who worked all the time. Worked overtime. They were a big part of the whole village getting fed, after their parents died in an accident. Mynos… was more of a dreamer. He found work in that field, actually.

The party that Mynos was getting ready for – in the year 800, one year after Ajus went missing while walking North – was a bird-worship thing. This was still a lot of years before Christian Crusades, before troubled times and diseases and people having last names and people having a superiority-complex over all other living creatures.

You might wonder why I can talk? Write? Write you this story right now? I’m a wolf, and in the modern world wolves don’t talk.

Men can ask that from their own heart if they really want to know. All I can say to that question is, there used to be way more of my kind.

In some cultures, the arrogance toward animals began with self-preservation reasons such as growing a collective dislike for predators… although, mind you, wolves hunted with humans because you guys walked on two legs. That was an immediate sign to us at the time, all the time, that we’re dealing with someone that is able to out-maneuver us.

Sorry, I got side-tracked. This is a… sensitive topic.

Anyway, in some cultures it began with a growing hate towards big animals that might get a sudden urge to kill you for food. Then, in some cases – such as this farming-community in Southwest Finland – it began with a shared hatred of owls.

Yeah, that’s right. Where did owls come into this? What do owls even have to do with anything? Why owls, instead of some big predator?

All of those are valid questions, dear reader, and my only answer to them is I don’t know.

Anyway, one day Mynos was sitting in his home and shearing Vin.

Chapter 1

I’ll Probably Never Understand

(Mynos, Veros)

October 800

— ”You gotta forget about her, man. I hate seeing you like this.”

Mynos was letting the instructive, well-intending voice of his older brother Veros fade into the background as he focused. He was picking apart the longest, toughest wools of his pet sheep. Vin was being particularly good today. He knew he had to make careful work of this, as not to hurt the fair sheeple. It was being good to him; he had to be good back.

He was always beautiful, Vin. Mynos thought the shearing-process’ first step only highlighted that – taking off everything overgrown that looks out of place, trimming Vin until he was pretty enough to take out for compliments around the village. But no matter how many times he told Vin that he was beautiful, the animal would still go off in its’ fits of self-consciousness.

— ”Mynos! When did you stop listening to me this time?” Veros’ voice rang again from the middle of… this.

That prompted the young man to raise up his eyes, to finally face his older brother whom was addressing him.

— This is really meticulous work, Veros, I can’t be looking at you and looking at Vin at the same time.

— Damn this whole shit, why do I bother trying to teach you when all you can think about is that half-witted creature’s hair?!

— ”Hey, fuck you.” Vin the sheep turned his head to Veros, and spoke with a grumpy voice, in as clear language as the two people in the room.

— ”Stop! With the movements…” Mynos quickly lowered his voice back down in the middle of giving his demand to the animal. ”Even my hands aren’t steady enough for those.”

— ”And what the hell is even this business with the bird-party? It’s still going on, seriously?” Veros sounded like he was interrogating Mynos at this point.

Mynos kept deeply scanning the sheep’s back with his eyes. He was done with the upper back, and felt confident to now move forward.

— ”I gotta hear it from my hunting buddies that my little brother back at the village has gone coo-coo and is hosting a celebration for an owl-icon? What is it with you and all these ideas?”

— ”The Village Master is a stone-cold idiot when it comes to his views about birds. I think this kind of a demonstration is a great idea to get someone like that out of his seat. Let’s see him and his officers throw stones at the whole hundred of us.”

— ”Why are you the person who has to stand up to the Master? Even if you’re right, why do you have to do it?” Veros was getting audibly shorter on patience. ”Don’t you understand--”

— ”No, Veros.” Mynos said, now turning his head away from Vin’s back, to face his brother directly. ”If understanding means agreeing with you about everything, I’ll probably never understand.”

— This isn’t about me or about you, Mynos. And what is that talk about hundred people? There aren’t that many people living in the village.

— ”People have promised to come.” Mynos said, taking a wooden jar and dipping his index- and middle-fingers inside of a substance.

Mynos was focused. Veros stood up from a piece of wood, hand-cut from what was once a whole log. He’d been sitting on the recently-finished bench, and Mynos was still seated on his work-stump, as he looked back at the sheep.

— ”People have promised. Linda keeps promising you all kinds of things, Mynos. What’s come out of that so far?” Veros brought up points he firmly believed in; something he was sure should get to his brother. Trying to tell his younger brother what to do, was a struggle for the experienced hunter who – everywhere outside of this cottage – felt like he had the final say. The executioner’s grip.

A more powerful weapon than any spears or bows he’s mastered in his years of hunting.

Appreciating Veros’ intentions, Mynos still made a conscious decision not to respond. This was obvious bait he didn’t wanna bite into. He’d started out on this shearing-project before Veros came here to give him all this advice, and he was gonna finish it. Vin wasn’t looking too patient either; Mynos noticed that the longer his brother stayed in the premises, the more agitated the sheep got. Impulsive movements were still smart, but getting more haphazard.

— ”Mynos, you’re doing nothing but dreaming lately. I’m worried about you, and we’re all we have.” Veros tried to sound convincing and keeping a patient tone sounded laborsome for the big brother. ”Why don’t you listen to my advice? Don’t you think I’ve seen more world than you have? Enough to tell you that you’re definitely on a quick path to get stoned.”

— ”I do…” Mynos said a half-focused-sounding response, his eyes twitching to look up to Veros, but knowing they had to stay on for this particularly particular part of his operation ongoing.

— ”I’m serious, there’s something different about you.” Veros said to Mynos with a decidedly more sympathetic tone. ”The only time I really see you get excited, is when Linda’s coming over. And you know that that thing is gonna end up being a disaster, just like this owl-party of yours. Why don’t you come with me for a hunt once or twice, to come see what that’s like? Runei is really getting better out there, too. These last two times he’s been a big help. Hell, I feel like I’ve been helping him and not the other way around, he’s that good.”

— ”Yeah, wolves can hunt.” Mynos said, short of any other response. Struggling hard to focus.

Somewhere near the mid-point of what Veros was apparently deciding to tell him now that I’m in the middle of something I want to be over before the sun sets… a flash came before Mynos’ eyes, prompting him to look at his left hand which was resting on the corresponding leg. He saw a firefly resting on top of the loose skin between the pinky- and ring-fingers’ joints. Those joints popped out a lot in his hand, the bone-part, but not as much as they did with Veros. That’s something everybody in the village considered the mark of a good hunter; which further meant that Mynos didn’t know what business he had having joints that look like that. His knuckles looked like he had been to his share of fights, and that couldn’t be further from the case; he didn’t even like hunting at all. He lived with Vin and Runei, and the wolf did all the necessary hunting for the household.

Mynos had tried it once or twice – hunting – and was immediately repulsed by the savage activity. But he didn’t want to let Veros know. He’d join on the trips now and then to please his big brother, even if he would end up always making excuses for why he won’t actually kill anything.

Veros is a great big brother, Mynos thought. I owe him a lot. A lot of that I can’t ever repay. It’s never been the same since Ajus went missing, and there was no memory of anyone called mom or dad for the three of us. Still Veros always tried his best to make us two work as a family, just as much as the five of used to, in those times there’s no memory of. Mom and dad died before I could form any memories. Veros remembers though. He really has an exceptional memory, doesn’t he? Sure as shit remembers every single time when Linda has let me down or disappointed me. I just always feel like it’s more about him than it is about me. Like he views me as a continuation of him. And I don’t like that. I don’t like that, or want that.

After a moment with the firefly, Mynos was staying incredibly focused on the shearing, now that he’d moved into such deep parts of the process that Vin himself would be too self-conscious to walk out, looking like this; only the back-half of the wool was left on ’is body.

He’s definitely sleeping inside the next night. Always gets self-conscious when he’s bald; even though he knows it’s part of how things work.

Mynos could tell that Veros was tired of this silence which had gone on for a long time while Mynos kept right on working on this project, as if Veros and all his sage advice weren’t even there.

”Mynos?” He heard Veros say, and the warm thoughts inspired him to look directly into his brother’s eyes. Lifting his left hand, to proudly present the firefly to his brother.

— Look at this, Veros. The little guy’s lost.

Veros saw the stupid sympathetic look, the gleaming innocence of which annoyed him to no end. He always had to be the practical one, with Mynos always getting all these ideas and following his heart into trouble.

— ”Mynos. Where are you going to be in life ten moons from now? This is a serious question.” Veros felt like he absolutely had to ask.

It was an urgent question. Mynos knew that tone of Veros, that made it clear his business was most urgent, most serious.

— Why do you ask me all these questions now? Veros had had it.

— Seriously, this is it. I’m done with your hopeless dreaming. You just don’t get it, and I don’t think you will.

— ”Get what?” Mynos asked after a five-second pause because I was hitting yet another sensitive part of this animal’s back. What am I gonna do? Stop?

This time Mynos didn’t get a reply. Only Veros’ boot-steps were heard, as he walked out of Mynos’ two-room house.

Later that night Mynos made careful work of laying his bones down on a tough wooden bed, softened by a carefully knitted sheep-wool mattress. This thing has been dreadfully close of coming apart lately, with him throwing himself in there as well as some night-guests who didn’t mind how they put themselves down here, but that’s beside the point. Women can do just as they wish in this house; just like any man can.

— ”Abraxas”, Mynos said quietly enough for only his own ears to hear, as he blew a candle on top of a wooden night-stand beside his head.

He went to sleep.

Chapter 2

What Can Wolves Do Then?

(Mynos, Runei)

— Days like this drive me crazy. They reaally drive me crazy.

— ”What are you talking about? You’re doing nothing but sitting and carving that thing of wood.” Mynos heard a faint, distant voice from the other room of his house.

His eyes were fixated on the fine details of this piece of aged spruce, and he didn’t flinch in posture, expression or hand-steadiness, as he responded:

— I haven’t done anything, just went to the Main Street to get bread. All day I’ve been in the house, and all day these projects have been here waiting for me. I go to see another person, and think about how they’ll influence my ideas that I come up with. I’m thinking of Linda and something we talked about last spring right now.

— ”What, you’re thinking about people and whoever you’re thinking about will somehow turn the shape of that wooden statue different? You had your idea already when you started, right?” The low voice from the second room questioned Mynos’ sentiment.

— It’s not that simple at all, man. Other people can influence my sculptures’ very fundamental ideas, man. They can influence a detail that, without which the statue wouldn’t look the same at the end. Make me think of shapes and swirls. Other people see the carving, and they only see the surface. All the thoughts that went into it… and they only see the surface.

Mynos had a polite pause in his speech. He was deep in-focus, and as ten seconds went by without the other voice calling back, he started speaking again:

— I know we’ve talked about thoughts before, and I know your firm stance on this is that I think too much. But I have to bring it up. Some days all I do is think about thinking.

— How do you have time to do anything when you’re doing all that thinking?

— ”I don’t know.” Mynos admitted, without any trouble. ”I thought I had the time today. And I’m really lucky; no one else in this village, who’s able to work, works from their home.”

— People pay you a lot for those things?

— ”Pay?” Mynos was confused. ”What’s that mean?”

— Pay, I heard a hunter say that word last night. Or, I heard him use it before. But last night I met him at the woods again and it was, he was-- fuck, I forgot what I was about to say.

— You knew him from before, but you were reminded of that again last night when you saw him?

— Yeah, exactly.

— You don’t think all that much, do you?

Mynos turned his head behind, anticipating his buddy to step into the room. Confrontational and admittedly condescendingquestions like this would always inspire him to say what he really felt, and Mynos was near-certain that the pattern would repeat itself.

He was right. He looked to the second room’s door, and past a beautifully carved base of a huge totem-shape statue, three times the size of a chair, slightly smaller than the base-stone onto which this house was built – years and years ago. Out from behind that stepped a full-grown wolf, Mynos’ other pet, Runei.

— ”I’m sorry I’m not as much of a precious brilliant artist as you.” The wolf said bluntly.

— I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, Runei. You’ve just been really distant ever since you came back from the woods. Did something happen?

— Something always happens in the wilderness, Mynos. That’s why it’s called the wilderness. Not that you’d know anything about that.

— You’re right, I’m definitely not as good as you at hunting. That scalp you brought me was nice, by the way.

— Are you gonna use it on one of those, then?

— Runei, you know how I feel about that smell…

— ”Yeah, you would die out in the woods.” The wolf said assertively, and with a little bit of an eyeroll.

Mynos smiled at that.

— Did you see Vin this morning? He’s pink again.

Runei laughed at this information, and the mental image – along with a slew of memories that came about with it. He and that sheep didn’t get along in the start, but the whole thing and the suppositions people have, about wolves and sheep being natural enemies, turned out to be a mere joke to the two at the end of the day. He did always love to poke fun at his sheared buddy when he was in his sheared state. That’s when Vin would always get the most agitated. It didn’t even need mean words to happen, everything just felt rough and pokey to Vin and he cursed at everything he walked into for week after shearing.

The Pink Week.

Runei smiled again.

It was clear to Mynos, that his wolf was thinking about those times again. He knows I take a long time to think.

— ”He asked me last night if he can come along and play decoy again, but I had a bad feeling. I see he stayed home instead, and got treated?” Runei said, all light-hearted.

Mynos didn’t answer; he was too deep into an attention-demanding detail on the owl baby-ornament.

Runei got lost in the sight of his owner again. Owner, huh… Mynos never felt like that to Runei. His house has always been a nice place to return to, after nefarious affairs out in the wilderness. This home was something safe. Something that Runei knew, would always wait for him.

— You gonna decorate Vin’s statue with that fur, or…? I got a cape that needs fixing before winter. Not to make a fuss, but I’m just saying. It’s gonna get cold.

Runei remembered how dry last summer was, and based his weather-forecast upon that information; he thought it needed no mention at all because Mynos surely understood this as well.

— ”Oh yeah, I got plenty off Vin this time.” Mynos said, after taking a second to catch his breath. ”It’s been a really good black moon. He’s getting fertile. Catches a lot of looks from girls. But he likes to pretend that I don’t notice that.”

Runei didn’t answer right away, but instead looked as the shape formed as if Mynos only needed to touch the surface of that wood, for the magic to happen. Mynos made carving wood look as easy as drinking water.

Runei noticed he hadn’t said anything in a long while, and fixed that:

— Really means a lot to you, this work, huh?

— I like to think that it’s my mark on the world. I like to think that when guys see a statue of mine on the square, they’ll read my name from it, they’ll have a memory of me. Eventually those memories turn into stories. People color them with details they like. I die, and I’m not here to correct the stories. The stories live on. Then the stories get forgotten. But you still read my name from them.

— ”You don’t want your stories to be here for as long as those carvings?” Runei asked, because he was unsure what to ask.

— ”No,” Mynos explained, his eyes still on his work. ”Because my name, which is carved to the bottom-corner of everything of-value that I make… is all I’ve written about myself. I decided to write it, and it will never not be.”

— ”Well, what if it catches fire and burns?” Runei realized he had started daydreaming with Mynos, and wanted to counter his sentimentality in some way. ”What if everything you make, everything you work so hard for, burns? And that carving is the first thing to burn, if that happens.”

— ”Wood is quite the flammable material, yes.” Mynos said with a coy half-smile, full of little intentions.

Runei understood only half of those words. A grunt that he couldn’t control, was let and it rang on the low register.

Mynos finally turned away from the completed sculpture – which was only gonna need some solidification later, but that’s fine, we’ll get to it – and looked the wolf dead-in-the-eye.

— I mean, if everything I do is for naught, and if everything I make, burns, it only means that I tried and it wasn’t enough. A man can only try.

— ”Yeah?” Runei answered.

From the tone alone, Mynos picked up on the attitude that was gonna accompany whatever he’s got to say next. He didn’t care about it, though. The dark-grey fur of the wolf was such a pleasant sight for his eyes after looking at plain brown wood for hours-on-in, that the animal can have his best shot at me.

— ”What can wolves do then?” Runei asked.

Mynos got a grin on his face.

— ”We all have our place in the world.” Mynos said, as the grin turned into a smile and pointed at Runei.

Runei smiled at Mynos, too – lovingly.

The following night, Mynos laid his head down on his pillow.

— Abraxas.

Chapter 3

On a Typical Day

(Mynos, Xavi)

— ”Man.” Mynos couldn’t help but talk out-loud to himself. ”I really need a friend. Or really need to talk to somebody. Or really need. Just need.”

He did. It was a more abstract feeling than anything you could put your finger on and call a thought. He was feeling desolate in a cold cabin whose walls were at the exact same place as yesterday, yet with all matter of color just a little more flat and un-remarkable than previously. He didn’t like it when color got like this. Color itself… such an important thing to him and how he works; why he works.

Before letting himself get consumed by this weirdly specific sensation, he turned his head to open a window made out of a square wooden board. Passing yesterday’s carvings, he had to walk through a living room’s bare decoration, and as new air from outside flew into his lungs he breathed in, then out, then in and out again and repeated the pattern long enough to let him understand that these steps were all that’s needed.

— Maybe I am right where I’m supposed to be in life right now. The town’s madman. Or maybe not. Maybe nobody thinks a second time when I walk past. Why do I always make those grand statements about how everything’s gonna be alright and how alright I am? It’s alright not to be alright. I… don’t know what to say. Breathing really was all that was needed. Not every breath is perfect. But they’re still breaths.

— ”Go back to sleep, Mynos.” A flat voice said behind Mynos’ back. He’d been too slow to notice anybody moving closer. He knew this would be Veros’ voice, because Runei’s back out on the hunt again and never likes to stay indoors for too long. Not to mention Runei doesn’t sound anything like Veros. Why am I being so dumb today?

Mynos looked behind himself only to see Veros step out of the frame of his vision; into that little side-room Mynos visited so rarely that it might as well not even be a part of this house. Veros had a knitted hey-bag at his back. He was holding it up with his shoulder and with a posture that made him seem un-cautious.

Mynos looked at yesterday’s carving, next to his feet, once more. He only needed to walk to the side of his spruce-bed to start thinking about Ajus again…

Ajus was the big brother of Mynos and Veros. The oldest of the siblings. Mother and father had both passed away in a bear-accident years ago, and the brothers grew up together more or less. Most people in the village were orphans at far younger age than Mynos and his brothers, which is what he always tried to tell himself whenever he’d get overwhelmed by the sensation that he is an orphan. The feeling of not having parents, was much more visceral than just to state it and acknowledge its’ existence; such an overpowering feeling that it’s best-avoided. Both Ajus and Veros were notably older than the youngest son. The Village Master – it had been said – was orphaned the same day he was born… but everybody knew to take his stories with a grain of salt.

Mynos had plenty a great memory with his father. He remembered his father as a reserved man, whenever he’d be home. Quiet on his chair, usually calling the last shot whenever the kids would get difficult and mom get them to act right.

Until he died.