This story has been excerpted and translated by Henri Antikainen from Harry Salmenniemi’s Varjotajunta, published in Finnish by Siltala in 2023.
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He wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin that was slightly too small. It was difficult: there was hardly any paper. Returning the dishes was challenging: they had to be lifted to a high counter. The chopsticks almost fell. He looked at the Tokumaru sign and thanked the staff. He did it in Finnish, even though he had been communicating in English. It was a basic mistake.
He started walking toward the coffee. He passed by Fish Market and Bistro S. Wallin, then by La Kantinetta, which specialized in Italian cheese and charcuterie boards, and then past Ba Bun, which served Vietnamese food, until he reached the escalators near which the Espresso House chairs were spread out. On the crowded terrace of Espresso House, a pair of parents were drinking their coffee while their children were drawing. It looked horrible, because it was like an advertisement: The father had a regular black coffee in front of him, the mother a cappuccino. There were a suitable, planned number of children. The children were smiling and in good spirits; they had white, linen-like hair, and they were supported in life and their hobbies.
People were cutting their cakes, eating their sandwiches, drinking their coffees. They kept ordering; there was a line at the counter.
Espresso House was completely full.
There was no crowd on the escalators.
One must stand in a way that one doesn’t have to hold onto the handrail. I don’t want to touch anything: viruses and bacteria will find their way through the defense system.
I know myself, and that means: I know I am weak and vulnerable, I know I am fickle. I know I get stressed and confused easily, I know how to be preemptively disappointed in myself.
I know myself, and therefore I have no illusions of strength, endurance or kindness. I know I am full of everything that others would rather reject.
The shadow is around me, and I no longer have the strength to care.
The shadow follows me.
I am it myself.
The escalator carried him steadily, convincingly.
He rose to the level called Nordic Avenue. There were clothing stores in front of and around him. He could make out the Bik Bok and Carlings stores. T-shirts hung on plastic racks inside them.
He ascended further.
Everything was simultaneously possible and impossible.
He continued to the Downtown level. The stores looked so similar that they were hard to distinguish from each other. Above, there was a huge H&M logo. Wealthy-looking women walked into the Marimekko and Iittala stores. People were visible through the windows. They were both real and reflections, mirrored in multiple directions. They looked enormous, life-sized.
On the upper level, the escalators became crowded.
He was approaching the core of the shopping center.
Suddenly, people were coming from all directions.
They had bags in their hands. Only his were empty. He dragged along an ugly, worn-out backpack that weighed on his shoulders. It wasn’t stylish, but it was practical. Just like the clothes he usually wore. The backpack contained shirts, underwear and socks. They had all once been black, and now they were a bit washed out, somewhere between black and gray.
He arrived at the atrium, where a large mushroom towered in the center. There were noticeboards visible high up on the left. They indicated where the trains departed. It was a comforting sight, something ordinary and reliable.
He moved toward the mushroom. He noticed people sitting and drinking beers on top of the mushroom. They had the body language of customers. He realized there was a bar in the mushroom.
The mushroom looked cozy.
He approached its base.
He went to the counter, looked at the menu and prices, and felt relieved: the mushroom served coffee, and it wasn’t expensive.
He steeled himself.
— Hi, he managed to say.
The cashier turned toward him as if startled and put something down from his hand. It looked more like a flashlight than a phone.
— Hi, the cashier said.
— Do you order here and go up there? he asked.
— Yeah. Then you can go up there.
— Nice.
He ordered a coffee.
The cashier was friendly but absent.
— Anything else? the cashier asked.
— No, thank you, he said, like a customer.
He glanced to the left, saw the information board.
Some train was announced to be delayed.
It wasn’t his train.
The cashier poured the coffee slowly.
He accepted the coffee, paid with a card; the contactless payment didn’t work, so he had to enter the code.
Again, bacteria and viruses.
I don’t know the difference between them. I don’t remember much from biology classes. It was explained there, many times, and I’ve come across it elsewhere too. Antibiotics help against bacteria but not viruses. I don’t remember why. I should have paid more attention. But I couldn’t be bothered; I was just waiting for school to end. So I could do something else, whatever that was, standing here and paying for coffee. I thought this would be life, and that school was something entirely different.
I stood in a long hallway, waiting for the classroom door to open. It didn’t open for a long time. People gathered in the halls. I knew most of them. I can’t recall their faces anymore. The memories are fuzzy. I stood in the hallway and saw myself from a high angle. I was unhappy in a way I didn’t understand: I got sick far too often, and many things seemed to be against me. No force supported me. I was unhappy but without reason, just as now I’m happy without reason. I understand even less now.
Since Joel was born, I’ve mostly been happy. Some force helps me get through the evening when the Legos look colorless, and my steps are heavy, and my shoulders are weighed down.
Life is just as much a struggle as before, but it feels entirely different.
Some kind of hopefulness helps me, something like love, which occasionally reveals its face.
He stood under the plastic mushroom and thought about love.
He took a deep breath.
That was something he sometimes remembered to do.
He took the coffee and napkin in hand and started moving toward the stairs. The backpack was so heavy that moving was laborious.
He reached the stairs. The first steps went well. Then a woman came toward him; he had to step aside, and he almost spilled coffee on himself. From then on, he had to think about each step individually, carefully placing his feet.
The mushroom began to sway.
He was swaying it himself.
He was heavy, burdensome.
He got to the top of the stairs and reached the mushroom’s roof. On the right was the terrace of Jungle Juice Bar, and on the left, the terrace of Sieni Lounge Bar. Surprisingly, many tables were free. He was in the heart of Mall of Tripla, above the hustle and bustle in the central hub of traffic and logistics, and yet he was almost alone: only two couples sat on the terrace. They fiddled with their phones, looking bored with life and their surroundings.
The mushroom still swayed.
He sat on the edge of the mushroom and set his backpack down.
He rubbed hand sanitizer into his fingers.
He was about to blow his nose into the napkin but then remembered he had his own tissues with him. He took one out and blew his nose. Down below, there was a crowd, people everywhere, heading in all directions. Travelers and customers, consumers, bags, skirts, coats, phones, objects and subjects. Many walked slowly, spending time.
It’s hard for me to understand sitting around in a place like this.
And yet I do exactly the same.
I put myself in situations where I don’t feel comfortable.
I have a stone in my shoe; I am the stone.
He took off his shoe and shook it.
The stone fell to the floor.
He drank the coffee. It was better than usual, but it didn’t taste like anything. The ceiling had white beams and windows. Through them, the sky was visible. The sky grew darker the longer he looked at it. Yet it was full of light pollution, gray at the edges. He dug into his backpack and took out Osamu Dazai’s novel No Longer Human. He started reading from the beginning:
My life has been a shameful one.
I can’t even guess what a life worthy of a human being is like. I was born in a village in the northeast and was already quite big before I saw a train for the first time. I climbed up and down the pedestrian bridge without understanding at all that its purpose was to facilitate the movement of people from one platform to another. I was convinced that the station area was intended to be made more fun and exotic with the bridge, a place that would resemble some foreign amusement park. I lived under this delusion for a long time, and strolling on the bridge seemed to me a very charming way to pass the time. I thought it was one of the most elegant services the railways had developed. When I later realized that the overpass was merely for practical purposes, I lost all interest in it.
The same thing happened when, as a child, I saw photographs of the subway in my picture books: it never occurred to me that it was invented to serve practical needs; I assumed that traveling underground instead of by ordinary train was a novelty and a delightful pastime.
I’ve been sickly since I was a child and often had to stay in bed. Many times I lay there thinking that the sheets and pillowcases were rather boring decorations. It wasn’t until I was around twenty that I realized they had a practical purpose, and upon this realization, the human dullness utterly depressed me.
He put the book down. He felt embarrassed to be reading a great Japanese modernist on top of a mushroom. He had a habit of regularly turning to Dazai’s book, but now it brought no comfort.
Upstairs was Café Picnic, a sushi restaurant, and next to it, the salad restaurant Bunny. Above them on the Soul Street level were the private clinic Health House and Fitness24Seven. Experiences with Health House: bad, indifferent. Experiences with gyms: unpleasant, painful. They suited each other: injuries and symptoms acquired from working out, for which you could pray for relief at Health House. A middle-class passion play, and partly also my life.
I’ve never succeeded in developing a gym routine.
It would be easy for me to improve my fitness by going to the gym. It would be easy to sculpt my basically slim and fit body by going to the gym, but I can’t do it. For some reason, it’s impossible. Going to the gym makes me feel bad, overstrained and tense. Of course, I’m doing something wrong. I should consult a personal trainer. I could get some guidance.
The one time I did that, it only lasted for one session.
The personal trainer was professional, and that was exactly the problem: he lacked joy, spontaneity. The personal trainer presented a program that would make my abs visible in a few weeks. I couldn’t follow it. I couldn’t care that much. I no longer have the energy for such goal-oriented training. I don’t have energy for anything. I have a confusing, unpleasant relationship with goals. As soon as I did a couple of squats, I realized that abs weren’t worth the effort.
When I think about my body, I immediately feel sad.
Bodies are dreadful.
There’s so much about them that can break.
When you think about the intestines and digestion, it seems impossible to drink coffee or eat lunch.
When you start thinking about breathing, suffocation feels inevitable.
Breathing should be felt, not thought about.
My neck is stiff.
I wish I were completely different.
I wish I could suck in my stomach, straighten myself, stretch.
If I started going to the gym regularly, eating would immediately become a problem; I would have to eat more filling foods, I would have to start consuming more protein right away.
I don’t want to get into the situation where I exercise a lot and then have to eat more and more all the time.
I’ve seen it up close.
It looks miserable.
At this age, it already meets the criteria of a tragedy.
Exercise belongs to the younger.
It belongs to children.
When I was young, I played soccer all the time. That’s how my youth was spent. My memories of sports are confusing, not pleasant: a few good friends, yes, the smell of grass and the joy of scoring a goal, but also the smell of the locker room, the suspicion among teammates, the constant injuries. My hip, back or knee was always hurting; the hamstrings were always on the verge of tearing. We trained so hard that each of us took turns vomiting.
I don’t understand how I endured it for so long. I guess it was the ball’s fault. Balls are nice. I guess I did anything to be able to kick a ball. Since childhood. But that still doesn’t explain anything. The past is impossible to explain or understand. People are surprised when I tell them I used to take sports seriously. They can’t believe it. And many say that a background in sports is a great thing, that it’s a good foundation to build on, that a sports career is the best possible launchpad for adult life. My parents keep repeating that because it’s not true. Their attitude reflects a misunderstanding that has always existed between us. Between my strange, messy fumbling and their systematic striving. Between creativity and discipline. I would much rather think about band memories now than soccer memories. I would much rather think about gig trips than match trips; I would much rather have goofed around with musicians backstage than watch teammates messing around at some Kokkola Cup.
The most sensible thing is to actively forget about sports. I must think about something else. And yet, the field events immediately come to mind. My dreams are still full of soccer, its stream of images and sounds: raised hands, shouts, the feeling that someone is close; a turn with the ball, a pass far out to the wing; the goalkeeper’s kick off, the struggle for the ball. Defending a corner kick against massive opponents is a regular nightmare of mine. I hear chatter, and it’s like the talk of the crowd at halftime when nothing is happening.
I was seven years old then.
We were playing the last match of the neighborhood league season. I managed to advance down the wing. The opponent defended so poorly that soon I was alone against the goalkeeper. I took a lousy shot straight at the goalkeeper. The disappointment and shame made me close my eyes. But I heard my teammates start to shout. I wondered at it. When I opened my eyes, I saw the ball in the net. The goalkeeper was in a strange position. It took a long time to realize that the ball had somehow gone through the goalkeeper. The goalkeeper looked crushed because he had made a stupid mistake. I didn’t care. I started running around the field, and my teammates ran after me. We ran toward the bench. We had no idea how to celebrate a goal. It was the team’s third goal of the entire season. We were truly awful, and we were happy.
I remember my first goal so vividly that it almost makes me sad.
Everything has gone this way. So much time has passed that now I’m an adult and waiting for a train. Not so much time has passed that the train would already be at the platform. It hasn’t even left Helsinki Central Station yet. It hasn’t even arrived at Helsinki Central Station. It has to pass me by once first so that it can then return to me. The train has to go in the wrong direction so that it can come back in the right direction.
When more people came to the mushroom, it began to sway again. He swayed with the mushroom. He was like a buoy near the harbor. Osamu Dazai’s book lay in front of him on the table. It reminded him of humanity, of fragility. He put it in his backpack. It described existence so precisely that he didn’t dare read it.
Newcomers arrived at the top level of the mushroom. They were two women who looked confused. Their hairstyles were like those of actresses; they were full of shabby drama. They glanced at both of the lounge areas. They went and sat on the juice bar’s terrace with coffees in hand. It was obvious they were doing something wrong, breaking property rights. Equally obvious was that no one would point it out to them.
The mushroom lounges were astonishingly empty.
All the tables at Ratamo Beer Station below were full. There were long lines at Hesburger. But the mushroom was empty. It was inexplicable. I’m growing increasingly fond of the mushroom. I almost hope someone will start talking to me, marvel at the wonder of the mushroom with me, its amazing emptiness. The mushroom is plastic; that’s why I feel connected to it. I never liked the mushrooms growing in the forest, whose stench I hated even as a child; instead, I like plastic mushrooms that rise in the middle of shopping centers. In nature, mushrooms are superfluous, but in shopping centers, they are the only option. It’s easy to like such necessities.
Es muss sein.
I can sit here with my hands in my lap.
I can enjoy the mushroom.
I can wait.
I can look at the clock too often. Check too often if the train departure time has changed. It hasn’t. The other trains are on time too. The board offers no surprises. Future passengers look at it absentmindedly, pausing in front of it.
Relief: there is nothing to do, everything is over. No interviews, nothing to say, nothing to write. When I return home, after sleeping for one night, the duties will return. I’ll ride my bike to the writing studio and to the grocery store again. Every day, I’m constantly weighed down by a rushing sensation that’s close to panic. It’s the shadow of everyday life. It’s the feeling that the muesli is running out, the purees are running out, the milk and tomato sauce are running out, that I’m tired, and yet I still must go to the store.
Leave the house, push through the hallway, proceed on to the street.
But now there’s nothing to do, no duties. The only duty is to return home, to endure waiting long enough for the train to arrive, and then to get on board. To manage to walk to the train, to find my seat, to sit for a long time, to change trains in Tampere, to manage to get on the new train, to find my seat again, to manage to go to the restroom, to look outside. To do all that until I reach Jyväskylä. Then, strengthened by my arrival, I can walk home, or if I’m completely exhausted, take a taxi. Now it seems impossible: the journey spreads out before me like a vast basin filled with mud, sand and rocks, and I have to wade through the experience. There’s always something to worry about. I must think about the train tickets I printed and carefully placed in a plastic sleeve in my backpack next to my iPad. I must show the printed tickets if the train’s internet doesn’t work. At moments like this, a smartphone could save me. It would offer something to do, stimuli. I feel like writing something, but I’m too tired to take out a pen and paper. If I try to write, it won’t work. I know that. At moments like this, the text dries up immediately. The only sensible solution would be to start meditating. I have plenty of time now; I’m in a safe space; I’m on top of the mushroom, isolated from other people. There are so many stimuli around me that I’m irritated and stressed. I constantly see people below me in new lines and formations. I see the clock, which just moved slightly, revealing a new minute. Train departure and arrival times. An advertisement for a gym chain. A person dressed as a giant chicken. On their way to a party, one might hope. A man my age, awkwardly dragging an advertisement placard for the dollar store chain Tokmanni. It looks like the placard has been kicked in half. Still, the man seems to be protecting it. He looks just like me. Just as tired and worried, a thoughtful expression.
That’s the last image.
It’s enough for me.
I won’t resist anymore.
I give up.
He placed his hands in his lap, lowered his gaze to the surface of the table, let his vision blur and took a deep breath.
It was preparation for meditation.
It was nothing.
He just sat there.
Breathed, breathed.
Death, placard, death.
Young man, Tokmanni, middle-aged man. Death, shame, placard. Fatigue, nervousness, waiting in line. A formation that breaks into another. People like clouds or fog.
I can only hope that no one is watching me. I can only hope that I am as alone as I think I am. There’s no one anywhere. There’s a hum, a beep. People talking, but they’re far down below. The plastic absorbs my feet, the floor supports me. I listen: surprisingly quiet. Even though people chatter as they walk under the mushroom, even though occasionally there are some announcements, it’s actually pleasantly quiet. Everything is pleasant. Everything is quiet. I’m like at the seashore. Or maybe I’m on a boat. The mushroom sways; I sit in the cabin. I can look directly inside myself, I can see: nothing, just dimness, a hint of light at the edges of the darkness. Some letters, a hint of color. Maybe Ville’s Photo. Maybe One Hour Photo. The problems of photo shops these days, does anyone still go to them… Yet they exist. I get lost but notice that I do, awaken. I breathe deeper and deeper. It’s felt in the stomach. It doesn’t hurt but is felt. Someone answered the phone. Now they start talking. Does it disturb me, does it prevent something? No, it doesn’t disturb or prevent anything. I’m inside my head. I’m inside my body. I’m in the world, in space, and there’s nothing I can do about it. There’s nothing I can do about consciousness, which is like eyelashes near my eyes. I think, therefore I get lost. I must breathe deeper. It happens. Breathing happens. The temptation to look at what’s around me. Someone answered the phone again. The same voice, a woman who spoke just a moment ago. She has problems with her phone. The temptation to see what she looks like. She answers, starts listening, sounds like she’s talking to her husband. One could write anything about it. A story where people only talk on the phone. Nothing happens. Yet it’s interesting. It’s interesting when nothing happens. That’s why something is always happening. A thought, and its image: another thought that pushes out from under the first. Or they are the same thought, like two images superimposed. How absurd. The lines continue. The mushroom sways. More people are coming, or maybe they’re leaving. A flow, expansive, more listened to than felt. That’s me. I have space; the ceiling is high above me. Aerosols fit in the space. I fit in the space. Footsteps approach. Is someone coming toward me? No, they turn away. The mushroom sways differently when people turn. The sounds of newcomers: two young men. There’s no reason to see what they look like, and I don’t look. The voices are steady, even. Reliable. There’s an oaky roundness and wild herbs in them. A delicate plummy aftertaste, a hint of horse stable.
I focus on my breathing, I fail.
I forget the failure, I focus, everything happens naturally. The tension melts from my body. It doesn’t happen suddenly, sharply. It happens gradually. Nothing is sharp-edged; no change that matters is.
He sat there so long that he almost fell asleep.
He, me.
Thoughts and feelings intertwined in a way that he was used to: he was like a patient on the therapist’s couch; he was like an armchair, and he was the therapist. He listened, tried not to judge. He watched as the patient, himself, unraveled on the couch, almost cried but didn’t. He looked straight ahead but saw nothing: his eyes were closed. He did that for a long time. He observed himself as if watching a soccer match; it was entertainment, not solely worrisome.
Thoughts are like niches in some temple wall, but the temple is nowhere.
They disappear.
Somewhere an announcement, a large dome; a solemn procession through the space. Then the kickoff, a key, a book; a finger pointing up. The audience is silent. It focuses. I’m at a piano concert that never begins. I listen to how the piano doesn’t play. The silence is precise, endless. The simultaneous peace of white and black keys; similar, different. The piano is a sea with no wind. The sea is so calm that it has almost ceased to exist. If you listen to it, you hear nothing; and I stand facing it. No sound, a slight breeze that comes from somewhere far away, cools the face. I listen: no birds, no sounds, no outside, interior. The whistle in the referee’s mouth, but it’s not blown. Transition, view. The harbor, sounds. Shoes on, Joel saying: shoes on. How amusingly Joel says certain words, how he mispronounces them, how Joel doesn’t say “boob” but “bubu.” It makes me laugh. I hear how I think. Thoughts are heartbeats. Something presses under my sternum. Longing, fear. It feels like Joel is nearby, breathing, falling asleep. Yet the train announcement is always in the background. Breathing, rustling, like a fan. Joel likes fans. He always watches them excitedly. I have Joel close to me, in my arms, and yet behind my head. The wind starts to blow from the sea. But not the wind, the announcement, which is gentler than before. It concerns the train to Tampere. Announcers are always so serious, as if they really had something to say. It might be my train. It might be something important that I missed. I’ve let my hands fall. At some point, I’ve fallen asleep. This has been yoga nidra. This is yogic sleep, nothing else. By the sternum, there’s a sea where the wind no longer blows. The heart no longer beats. There are only announcements, darkness. Somewhere far away is Joel, somewhere nearby, how he breathes and dances. He does all the moves carefully. Joel is like that. I am like that. My son, and yet entirely his own person. Coffee, which flows into the sea, loves. I’m grateful for that. These are thoughts that are not thoughts. Now I’m at the border where I no longer exist. I’m so far out that I’m just a faint line being drawn of me. The line stays in place; it’s an eyelash or a hair. It’s right near the eye. The eye itches. It sees the sea, which is empty. I am the eye or the sea. I’m not a tapestry to be hung on the wall, nor a wall, nor hands. I’m something else. Staying still in the dimness, confused in the dimness. This silence. This infinite. Flickering. Blurring, trembling.
He awoke, startled.
The clock had advanced forty minutes.
I’ve been somewhere far away. I thought I had my eyes closed for at most fifteen minutes. I must have seemed odd. I must have seemed crazy, passed out, or ill. But no one came to talk to me, to check my condition. I could very well have had a seizure. I could very well have died. I might have embarrassed myself. Of course, I did embarrass myself. A person who has everything together, work, hobbies and family, doesn’t sit at the station with their eyes closed. I might have seemed so strange that someone took a picture of me and is now sharing it all over the internet. I might have scared the people around me. My neighbors. That’s the word, neighbors. Maybe the people around me are terrified. Maybe they’ve called someone to make sure I’m harmless. They are hostages of my dreams. They are victims of my meditation.
The people around me have changed. No one is staring at me. I’m among them just like anyone else. Of course, they think I’m crazy. In a way, I am, of course. Everyone is. I can think they’re crazy, and they can think I’m crazy. That makes everyone feel better. That man is looking at me. He seems nervous, touches his nose. That’s not wise. The man might be sick next week.
All mistakes are punished.
Especially touching your nose.
Punishments are disproportionate.
The man touches his nose for a second, wipes it once, with no other pleasure than reducing an itch—and next week, he might feel a sore throat, then muscle aches and fever, and the symptoms could last for weeks. The man can’t exercise or do anything else: he must rest just because of one gesture.
Joy and suffering are not evenly distributed. I want more coffee, so that I can fully open my eyes. Meditation erased the coffee. The caffeine has disappeared: it melted into the meditation.
Soon I’ll get up, buy a sandwich, and then stand on the train platform in the fresh air. I can stand under the shelter and watch the rain.
That’s something I long for: to exist in such a way that existence doesn’t touch me; to be alive without noticing it.
I long for existence without the burden of existence, and that, in turn, is impossible.
I am impossible yet I exist.
Existence is impossible around me; it swarms everywhere, continues its impossibility, multiplies it. Again the mushroom sways. However, the coffee cup is not in danger of falling. Everything is designed to be safe, experiential. You can feel the swaying, but it doesn’t risk the products. The coffee stays in place. The table stays in place. I feel the inevitable pushing and pulling force that affects me and everything around me. I’m in a vast tunnel. We all are. This is a wind tunnel. Neighbors: their hair, their eye infections. The wind picks up. People move like money. I’m cold. I’m hot. The heat makes me cold. It gnaws at me. It digs ever deeper into me.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Harry Salmenniemi was born in Finland in 1983 and studied philosophy and political science in Helsinki, Rome and Melbourne before returning to his hometown, Jyväskylä, where he co-founded a publishing cooperative dedicated to avant-garde poetry. He is the author of seven poetry collections, four short story collections and three novels. These books, along with his interdisciplinary collaborations in film, opera, theater and visual art, have given him a reputation as one of Finland’s most versatile contemporary writers. His most recent novel, Valohammas (2025), completes an autofictional trilogy that began with Varjotajunta (2023), from which this excerpt is drawn. “Varjotajunta has been for me an exploration of the contexts of thinking,” Salmenniemi said in an interview in 2023. “Autofiction as a genre is inherently prone to parody, because the self-critical writer quickly wonders why anyone would want to listen to exactly me ramble on about my life. It’s fun to explore the boundary between what is worth telling and what no one finds interesting anymore.”
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Art credit: Willa Nasatir, Butterfly, 2017. Unframed chromogenic print pinned to wood panel, 73 1/2 x 60 in. Courtesy of the artist and Chapter NY, New York.
This story has been excerpted and translated by Henri Antikainen from Harry Salmenniemi’s Varjotajunta, published in Finnish by Siltala in 2023.
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He wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin that was slightly too small. It was difficult: there was hardly any paper. Returning the dishes was challenging: they had to be lifted to a high counter. The chopsticks almost fell. He looked at the Tokumaru sign and thanked the staff. He did it in Finnish, even though he had been communicating in English. It was a basic mistake.
He started walking toward the coffee. He passed by Fish Market and Bistro S. Wallin, then by La Kantinetta, which specialized in Italian cheese and charcuterie boards, and then past Ba Bun, which served Vietnamese food, until he reached the escalators near which the Espresso House chairs were spread out. On the crowded terrace of Espresso House, a pair of parents were drinking their coffee while their children were drawing. It looked horrible, because it was like an advertisement: The father had a regular black coffee in front of him, the mother a cappuccino. There were a suitable, planned number of children. The children were smiling and in good spirits; they had white, linen-like hair, and they were supported in life and their hobbies.
People were cutting their cakes, eating their sandwiches, drinking their coffees. They kept ordering; there was a line at the counter.
Espresso House was completely full.
There was no crowd on the escalators.
One must stand in a way that one doesn’t have to hold onto the handrail. I don’t want to touch anything: viruses and bacteria will find their way through the defense system.
I know myself, and that means: I know I am weak and vulnerable, I know I am fickle. I know I get stressed and confused easily, I know how to be preemptively disappointed in myself.
I know myself, and therefore I have no illusions of strength, endurance or kindness. I know I am full of everything that others would rather reject.
The shadow is around me, and I no longer have the strength to care.
The shadow follows me.
I am it myself.
The escalator carried him steadily, convincingly.
He rose to the level called Nordic Avenue. There were clothing stores in front of and around him. He could make out the Bik Bok and Carlings stores. T-shirts hung on plastic racks inside them.
He ascended further.
Everything was simultaneously possible and impossible.
He continued to the Downtown level. The stores looked so similar that they were hard to distinguish from each other. Above, there was a huge H&M logo. Wealthy-looking women walked into the Marimekko and Iittala stores. People were visible through the windows. They were both real and reflections, mirrored in multiple directions. They looked enormous, life-sized.
On the upper level, the escalators became crowded.
He was approaching the core of the shopping center.
Suddenly, people were coming from all directions.
They had bags in their hands. Only his were empty. He dragged along an ugly, worn-out backpack that weighed on his shoulders. It wasn’t stylish, but it was practical. Just like the clothes he usually wore. The backpack contained shirts, underwear and socks. They had all once been black, and now they were a bit washed out, somewhere between black and gray.
He arrived at the atrium, where a large mushroom towered in the center. There were noticeboards visible high up on the left. They indicated where the trains departed. It was a comforting sight, something ordinary and reliable.
He moved toward the mushroom. He noticed people sitting and drinking beers on top of the mushroom. They had the body language of customers. He realized there was a bar in the mushroom.
The mushroom looked cozy.
He approached its base.
He went to the counter, looked at the menu and prices, and felt relieved: the mushroom served coffee, and it wasn’t expensive.
He steeled himself.
— Hi, he managed to say.
The cashier turned toward him as if startled and put something down from his hand. It looked more like a flashlight than a phone.
— Hi, the cashier said.
— Do you order here and go up there? he asked.
— Yeah. Then you can go up there.
— Nice.
He ordered a coffee.
The cashier was friendly but absent.
— Anything else? the cashier asked.
— No, thank you, he said, like a customer.
He glanced to the left, saw the information board.
Some train was announced to be delayed.
It wasn’t his train.
The cashier poured the coffee slowly.
He accepted the coffee, paid with a card; the contactless payment didn’t work, so he had to enter the code.
Again, bacteria and viruses.
I don’t know the difference between them. I don’t remember much from biology classes. It was explained there, many times, and I’ve come across it elsewhere too. Antibiotics help against bacteria but not viruses. I don’t remember why. I should have paid more attention. But I couldn’t be bothered; I was just waiting for school to end. So I could do something else, whatever that was, standing here and paying for coffee. I thought this would be life, and that school was something entirely different.
I stood in a long hallway, waiting for the classroom door to open. It didn’t open for a long time. People gathered in the halls. I knew most of them. I can’t recall their faces anymore. The memories are fuzzy. I stood in the hallway and saw myself from a high angle. I was unhappy in a way I didn’t understand: I got sick far too often, and many things seemed to be against me. No force supported me. I was unhappy but without reason, just as now I’m happy without reason. I understand even less now.
Since Joel was born, I’ve mostly been happy. Some force helps me get through the evening when the Legos look colorless, and my steps are heavy, and my shoulders are weighed down.
Life is just as much a struggle as before, but it feels entirely different.
Some kind of hopefulness helps me, something like love, which occasionally reveals its face.
He stood under the plastic mushroom and thought about love.
He took a deep breath.
That was something he sometimes remembered to do.
He took the coffee and napkin in hand and started moving toward the stairs. The backpack was so heavy that moving was laborious.
He reached the stairs. The first steps went well. Then a woman came toward him; he had to step aside, and he almost spilled coffee on himself. From then on, he had to think about each step individually, carefully placing his feet.
The mushroom began to sway.
He was swaying it himself.
He was heavy, burdensome.
He got to the top of the stairs and reached the mushroom’s roof. On the right was the terrace of Jungle Juice Bar, and on the left, the terrace of Sieni Lounge Bar. Surprisingly, many tables were free. He was in the heart of Mall of Tripla, above the hustle and bustle in the central hub of traffic and logistics, and yet he was almost alone: only two couples sat on the terrace. They fiddled with their phones, looking bored with life and their surroundings.
The mushroom still swayed.
He sat on the edge of the mushroom and set his backpack down.
He rubbed hand sanitizer into his fingers.
He was about to blow his nose into the napkin but then remembered he had his own tissues with him. He took one out and blew his nose. Down below, there was a crowd, people everywhere, heading in all directions. Travelers and customers, consumers, bags, skirts, coats, phones, objects and subjects. Many walked slowly, spending time.
It’s hard for me to understand sitting around in a place like this.
And yet I do exactly the same.
I put myself in situations where I don’t feel comfortable.
I have a stone in my shoe; I am the stone.
He took off his shoe and shook it.
The stone fell to the floor.
He drank the coffee. It was better than usual, but it didn’t taste like anything. The ceiling had white beams and windows. Through them, the sky was visible. The sky grew darker the longer he looked at it. Yet it was full of light pollution, gray at the edges. He dug into his backpack and took out Osamu Dazai’s novel No Longer Human. He started reading from the beginning:
He put the book down. He felt embarrassed to be reading a great Japanese modernist on top of a mushroom. He had a habit of regularly turning to Dazai’s book, but now it brought no comfort.
Upstairs was Café Picnic, a sushi restaurant, and next to it, the salad restaurant Bunny. Above them on the Soul Street level were the private clinic Health House and Fitness24Seven. Experiences with Health House: bad, indifferent. Experiences with gyms: unpleasant, painful. They suited each other: injuries and symptoms acquired from working out, for which you could pray for relief at Health House. A middle-class passion play, and partly also my life.
I’ve never succeeded in developing a gym routine.
It would be easy for me to improve my fitness by going to the gym. It would be easy to sculpt my basically slim and fit body by going to the gym, but I can’t do it. For some reason, it’s impossible. Going to the gym makes me feel bad, overstrained and tense. Of course, I’m doing something wrong. I should consult a personal trainer. I could get some guidance.
The one time I did that, it only lasted for one session.
The personal trainer was professional, and that was exactly the problem: he lacked joy, spontaneity. The personal trainer presented a program that would make my abs visible in a few weeks. I couldn’t follow it. I couldn’t care that much. I no longer have the energy for such goal-oriented training. I don’t have energy for anything. I have a confusing, unpleasant relationship with goals. As soon as I did a couple of squats, I realized that abs weren’t worth the effort.
When I think about my body, I immediately feel sad.
Bodies are dreadful.
There’s so much about them that can break.
When you think about the intestines and digestion, it seems impossible to drink coffee or eat lunch.
When you start thinking about breathing, suffocation feels inevitable.
Breathing should be felt, not thought about.
My neck is stiff.
I wish I were completely different.
I wish I could suck in my stomach, straighten myself, stretch.
If I started going to the gym regularly, eating would immediately become a problem; I would have to eat more filling foods, I would have to start consuming more protein right away.
I don’t want to get into the situation where I exercise a lot and then have to eat more and more all the time.
I’ve seen it up close.
It looks miserable.
At this age, it already meets the criteria of a tragedy.
Exercise belongs to the younger.
It belongs to children.
When I was young, I played soccer all the time. That’s how my youth was spent. My memories of sports are confusing, not pleasant: a few good friends, yes, the smell of grass and the joy of scoring a goal, but also the smell of the locker room, the suspicion among teammates, the constant injuries. My hip, back or knee was always hurting; the hamstrings were always on the verge of tearing. We trained so hard that each of us took turns vomiting.
I don’t understand how I endured it for so long. I guess it was the ball’s fault. Balls are nice. I guess I did anything to be able to kick a ball. Since childhood. But that still doesn’t explain anything. The past is impossible to explain or understand. People are surprised when I tell them I used to take sports seriously. They can’t believe it. And many say that a background in sports is a great thing, that it’s a good foundation to build on, that a sports career is the best possible launchpad for adult life. My parents keep repeating that because it’s not true. Their attitude reflects a misunderstanding that has always existed between us. Between my strange, messy fumbling and their systematic striving. Between creativity and discipline. I would much rather think about band memories now than soccer memories. I would much rather think about gig trips than match trips; I would much rather have goofed around with musicians backstage than watch teammates messing around at some Kokkola Cup.
The most sensible thing is to actively forget about sports. I must think about something else. And yet, the field events immediately come to mind. My dreams are still full of soccer, its stream of images and sounds: raised hands, shouts, the feeling that someone is close; a turn with the ball, a pass far out to the wing; the goalkeeper’s kick off, the struggle for the ball. Defending a corner kick against massive opponents is a regular nightmare of mine. I hear chatter, and it’s like the talk of the crowd at halftime when nothing is happening.
I was seven years old then.
We were playing the last match of the neighborhood league season. I managed to advance down the wing. The opponent defended so poorly that soon I was alone against the goalkeeper. I took a lousy shot straight at the goalkeeper. The disappointment and shame made me close my eyes. But I heard my teammates start to shout. I wondered at it. When I opened my eyes, I saw the ball in the net. The goalkeeper was in a strange position. It took a long time to realize that the ball had somehow gone through the goalkeeper. The goalkeeper looked crushed because he had made a stupid mistake. I didn’t care. I started running around the field, and my teammates ran after me. We ran toward the bench. We had no idea how to celebrate a goal. It was the team’s third goal of the entire season. We were truly awful, and we were happy.
I remember my first goal so vividly that it almost makes me sad.
Everything has gone this way. So much time has passed that now I’m an adult and waiting for a train. Not so much time has passed that the train would already be at the platform. It hasn’t even left Helsinki Central Station yet. It hasn’t even arrived at Helsinki Central Station. It has to pass me by once first so that it can then return to me. The train has to go in the wrong direction so that it can come back in the right direction.
When more people came to the mushroom, it began to sway again. He swayed with the mushroom. He was like a buoy near the harbor. Osamu Dazai’s book lay in front of him on the table. It reminded him of humanity, of fragility. He put it in his backpack. It described existence so precisely that he didn’t dare read it.
Newcomers arrived at the top level of the mushroom. They were two women who looked confused. Their hairstyles were like those of actresses; they were full of shabby drama. They glanced at both of the lounge areas. They went and sat on the juice bar’s terrace with coffees in hand. It was obvious they were doing something wrong, breaking property rights. Equally obvious was that no one would point it out to them.
The mushroom lounges were astonishingly empty.
All the tables at Ratamo Beer Station below were full. There were long lines at Hesburger. But the mushroom was empty. It was inexplicable. I’m growing increasingly fond of the mushroom. I almost hope someone will start talking to me, marvel at the wonder of the mushroom with me, its amazing emptiness. The mushroom is plastic; that’s why I feel connected to it. I never liked the mushrooms growing in the forest, whose stench I hated even as a child; instead, I like plastic mushrooms that rise in the middle of shopping centers. In nature, mushrooms are superfluous, but in shopping centers, they are the only option. It’s easy to like such necessities.
Es muss sein.
I can sit here with my hands in my lap.
I can enjoy the mushroom.
I can wait.
I can look at the clock too often. Check too often if the train departure time has changed. It hasn’t. The other trains are on time too. The board offers no surprises. Future passengers look at it absentmindedly, pausing in front of it.
Relief: there is nothing to do, everything is over. No interviews, nothing to say, nothing to write. When I return home, after sleeping for one night, the duties will return. I’ll ride my bike to the writing studio and to the grocery store again. Every day, I’m constantly weighed down by a rushing sensation that’s close to panic. It’s the shadow of everyday life. It’s the feeling that the muesli is running out, the purees are running out, the milk and tomato sauce are running out, that I’m tired, and yet I still must go to the store.
Leave the house, push through the hallway, proceed on to the street.
But now there’s nothing to do, no duties. The only duty is to return home, to endure waiting long enough for the train to arrive, and then to get on board. To manage to walk to the train, to find my seat, to sit for a long time, to change trains in Tampere, to manage to get on the new train, to find my seat again, to manage to go to the restroom, to look outside. To do all that until I reach Jyväskylä. Then, strengthened by my arrival, I can walk home, or if I’m completely exhausted, take a taxi. Now it seems impossible: the journey spreads out before me like a vast basin filled with mud, sand and rocks, and I have to wade through the experience. There’s always something to worry about. I must think about the train tickets I printed and carefully placed in a plastic sleeve in my backpack next to my iPad. I must show the printed tickets if the train’s internet doesn’t work. At moments like this, a smartphone could save me. It would offer something to do, stimuli. I feel like writing something, but I’m too tired to take out a pen and paper. If I try to write, it won’t work. I know that. At moments like this, the text dries up immediately. The only sensible solution would be to start meditating. I have plenty of time now; I’m in a safe space; I’m on top of the mushroom, isolated from other people. There are so many stimuli around me that I’m irritated and stressed. I constantly see people below me in new lines and formations. I see the clock, which just moved slightly, revealing a new minute. Train departure and arrival times. An advertisement for a gym chain. A person dressed as a giant chicken. On their way to a party, one might hope. A man my age, awkwardly dragging an advertisement placard for the dollar store chain Tokmanni. It looks like the placard has been kicked in half. Still, the man seems to be protecting it. He looks just like me. Just as tired and worried, a thoughtful expression.
That’s the last image.
It’s enough for me.
I won’t resist anymore.
I give up.
He placed his hands in his lap, lowered his gaze to the surface of the table, let his vision blur and took a deep breath.
It was preparation for meditation.
It was nothing.
He just sat there.
Breathed, breathed.
Death, placard, death.
Young man, Tokmanni, middle-aged man. Death, shame, placard. Fatigue, nervousness, waiting in line. A formation that breaks into another. People like clouds or fog.
I can only hope that no one is watching me. I can only hope that I am as alone as I think I am. There’s no one anywhere. There’s a hum, a beep. People talking, but they’re far down below. The plastic absorbs my feet, the floor supports me. I listen: surprisingly quiet. Even though people chatter as they walk under the mushroom, even though occasionally there are some announcements, it’s actually pleasantly quiet. Everything is pleasant. Everything is quiet. I’m like at the seashore. Or maybe I’m on a boat. The mushroom sways; I sit in the cabin. I can look directly inside myself, I can see: nothing, just dimness, a hint of light at the edges of the darkness. Some letters, a hint of color. Maybe Ville’s Photo. Maybe One Hour Photo. The problems of photo shops these days, does anyone still go to them… Yet they exist. I get lost but notice that I do, awaken. I breathe deeper and deeper. It’s felt in the stomach. It doesn’t hurt but is felt. Someone answered the phone. Now they start talking. Does it disturb me, does it prevent something? No, it doesn’t disturb or prevent anything. I’m inside my head. I’m inside my body. I’m in the world, in space, and there’s nothing I can do about it. There’s nothing I can do about consciousness, which is like eyelashes near my eyes. I think, therefore I get lost. I must breathe deeper. It happens. Breathing happens. The temptation to look at what’s around me. Someone answered the phone again. The same voice, a woman who spoke just a moment ago. She has problems with her phone. The temptation to see what she looks like. She answers, starts listening, sounds like she’s talking to her husband. One could write anything about it. A story where people only talk on the phone. Nothing happens. Yet it’s interesting. It’s interesting when nothing happens. That’s why something is always happening. A thought, and its image: another thought that pushes out from under the first. Or they are the same thought, like two images superimposed. How absurd. The lines continue. The mushroom sways. More people are coming, or maybe they’re leaving. A flow, expansive, more listened to than felt. That’s me. I have space; the ceiling is high above me. Aerosols fit in the space. I fit in the space. Footsteps approach. Is someone coming toward me? No, they turn away. The mushroom sways differently when people turn. The sounds of newcomers: two young men. There’s no reason to see what they look like, and I don’t look. The voices are steady, even. Reliable. There’s an oaky roundness and wild herbs in them. A delicate plummy aftertaste, a hint of horse stable.
I focus on my breathing, I fail.
I forget the failure, I focus, everything happens naturally. The tension melts from my body. It doesn’t happen suddenly, sharply. It happens gradually. Nothing is sharp-edged; no change that matters is.
He sat there so long that he almost fell asleep.
He, me.
Thoughts and feelings intertwined in a way that he was used to: he was like a patient on the therapist’s couch; he was like an armchair, and he was the therapist. He listened, tried not to judge. He watched as the patient, himself, unraveled on the couch, almost cried but didn’t. He looked straight ahead but saw nothing: his eyes were closed. He did that for a long time. He observed himself as if watching a soccer match; it was entertainment, not solely worrisome.
Thoughts are like niches in some temple wall, but the temple is nowhere.
They disappear.
Somewhere an announcement, a large dome; a solemn procession through the space. Then the kickoff, a key, a book; a finger pointing up. The audience is silent. It focuses. I’m at a piano concert that never begins. I listen to how the piano doesn’t play. The silence is precise, endless. The simultaneous peace of white and black keys; similar, different. The piano is a sea with no wind. The sea is so calm that it has almost ceased to exist. If you listen to it, you hear nothing; and I stand facing it. No sound, a slight breeze that comes from somewhere far away, cools the face. I listen: no birds, no sounds, no outside, interior. The whistle in the referee’s mouth, but it’s not blown. Transition, view. The harbor, sounds. Shoes on, Joel saying: shoes on. How amusingly Joel says certain words, how he mispronounces them, how Joel doesn’t say “boob” but “bubu.” It makes me laugh. I hear how I think. Thoughts are heartbeats. Something presses under my sternum. Longing, fear. It feels like Joel is nearby, breathing, falling asleep. Yet the train announcement is always in the background. Breathing, rustling, like a fan. Joel likes fans. He always watches them excitedly. I have Joel close to me, in my arms, and yet behind my head. The wind starts to blow from the sea. But not the wind, the announcement, which is gentler than before. It concerns the train to Tampere. Announcers are always so serious, as if they really had something to say. It might be my train. It might be something important that I missed. I’ve let my hands fall. At some point, I’ve fallen asleep. This has been yoga nidra. This is yogic sleep, nothing else. By the sternum, there’s a sea where the wind no longer blows. The heart no longer beats. There are only announcements, darkness. Somewhere far away is Joel, somewhere nearby, how he breathes and dances. He does all the moves carefully. Joel is like that. I am like that. My son, and yet entirely his own person. Coffee, which flows into the sea, loves. I’m grateful for that. These are thoughts that are not thoughts. Now I’m at the border where I no longer exist. I’m so far out that I’m just a faint line being drawn of me. The line stays in place; it’s an eyelash or a hair. It’s right near the eye. The eye itches. It sees the sea, which is empty. I am the eye or the sea. I’m not a tapestry to be hung on the wall, nor a wall, nor hands. I’m something else. Staying still in the dimness, confused in the dimness. This silence. This infinite. Flickering. Blurring, trembling.
He awoke, startled.
The clock had advanced forty minutes.
I’ve been somewhere far away. I thought I had my eyes closed for at most fifteen minutes. I must have seemed odd. I must have seemed crazy, passed out, or ill. But no one came to talk to me, to check my condition. I could very well have had a seizure. I could very well have died. I might have embarrassed myself. Of course, I did embarrass myself. A person who has everything together, work, hobbies and family, doesn’t sit at the station with their eyes closed. I might have seemed so strange that someone took a picture of me and is now sharing it all over the internet. I might have scared the people around me. My neighbors. That’s the word, neighbors. Maybe the people around me are terrified. Maybe they’ve called someone to make sure I’m harmless. They are hostages of my dreams. They are victims of my meditation.
The people around me have changed. No one is staring at me. I’m among them just like anyone else. Of course, they think I’m crazy. In a way, I am, of course. Everyone is. I can think they’re crazy, and they can think I’m crazy. That makes everyone feel better. That man is looking at me. He seems nervous, touches his nose. That’s not wise. The man might be sick next week.
All mistakes are punished.
Especially touching your nose.
Punishments are disproportionate.
The man touches his nose for a second, wipes it once, with no other pleasure than reducing an itch—and next week, he might feel a sore throat, then muscle aches and fever, and the symptoms could last for weeks. The man can’t exercise or do anything else: he must rest just because of one gesture.
Joy and suffering are not evenly distributed. I want more coffee, so that I can fully open my eyes. Meditation erased the coffee. The caffeine has disappeared: it melted into the meditation.
Soon I’ll get up, buy a sandwich, and then stand on the train platform in the fresh air. I can stand under the shelter and watch the rain.
That’s something I long for: to exist in such a way that existence doesn’t touch me; to be alive without noticing it.
I long for existence without the burden of existence, and that, in turn, is impossible.
I am impossible yet I exist.
Existence is impossible around me; it swarms everywhere, continues its impossibility, multiplies it. Again the mushroom sways. However, the coffee cup is not in danger of falling. Everything is designed to be safe, experiential. You can feel the swaying, but it doesn’t risk the products. The coffee stays in place. The table stays in place. I feel the inevitable pushing and pulling force that affects me and everything around me. I’m in a vast tunnel. We all are. This is a wind tunnel. Neighbors: their hair, their eye infections. The wind picks up. People move like money. I’m cold. I’m hot. The heat makes me cold. It gnaws at me. It digs ever deeper into me.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Harry Salmenniemi was born in Finland in 1983 and studied philosophy and political science in Helsinki, Rome and Melbourne before returning to his hometown, Jyväskylä, where he co-founded a publishing cooperative dedicated to avant-garde poetry. He is the author of seven poetry collections, four short story collections and three novels. These books, along with his interdisciplinary collaborations in film, opera, theater and visual art, have given him a reputation as one of Finland’s most versatile contemporary writers. His most recent novel, Valohammas (2025), completes an autofictional trilogy that began with Varjotajunta (2023), from which this excerpt is drawn. “Varjotajunta has been for me an exploration of the contexts of thinking,” Salmenniemi said in an interview in 2023. “Autofiction as a genre is inherently prone to parody, because the self-critical writer quickly wonders why anyone would want to listen to exactly me ramble on about my life. It’s fun to explore the boundary between what is worth telling and what no one finds interesting anymore.”
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Art credit: Willa Nasatir, Butterfly, 2017. Unframed chromogenic print pinned to wood panel, 73 1/2 x 60 in. Courtesy of the artist and Chapter NY, New York.
If you liked this essay, you’ll love reading The Point in print.