I bought a fifth of cheap whisky and at midnight went out to climb the sledging hill at Malminkartano. It is a hill built out of rubbish, and in the winter when it is covered with snow people go sledging on it. It was deserted. I was alone.
The night was dark and clear... crisp would be the word. You could see as far as the Neste tower in Otaniemi, the water tower in Lauttasaari, the Lutheran catherdral in the town centre, and away on the opposite side of the hill the condensation from the cooling towers of the Vanta powerstation rose straight into the air. I looked at them and thought they were exclamation marks. Only the sentence that proceeded them was missing. Typical. Messages never come when you are looking for answers.
I drank down the whisky neat... straight from the bottle. A sip at a time as I looked at the stars in the cloudless sky. Light travelling from outerspace. How many years had it taken to travel all that distance for me to see on this starry starry night.
I finished off the whiskey and found a big bit of cardboard and decided to go over the edge of the steepest slope that nobody else dared to go down. The moon was full. Madness.
