Helicopters: Oulunsalo Fiction, Part Three

By Jani Ojala

The last part of the Oulunsalo Fiction-series, "Helicopters" makes jumps back in time to draw contrasts with the troublesome present, looks at the pieces scattered on the floor, picks them up, asks the questions and gives the answers.

Riku and Pasi return to a home vastly different from the one they left when they disappeared two years ago. The identity of The Russian is revealed, and with it, unveiled a web of deceit where everybody's played a part. Viktor and Samuli run into each other in the most unlikely circumstances after the former's stayed in hiding ever since last year's office-shooting, and the latter's fallen into a deep depression. One having lost his parents and the other having lost his best friend in the multi-cliffhanger ending of Talisman, each man's path takes them to different spiritual directions. While picking up the pieces of their lives in the aftermath of disaster, they must soar like a spectacle in the sky in order to reach their destinies before it's too late, and Oulunsalo gets frozen by Eastern mobsters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Release date: May 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9789528089506

Jani Ojala

I'm a writer who's written fiction for ten years as a serious hobby. I wrote my first story fifteen years ago in my bed before sleep. It was called "SAAREN PAINAJAINEN" and it was about an island being wiped-out by a tsunami... where sailors then set foot to look for treasure. Writing has been an escape, a burden and a feverish quest for meaning AND a pure clarity unlike anything else. But it began with an island. "They Sang for That Island" is THE story that started it all; a story that I feel incredibly happy, incredibly satisfied to finally turn into a book.

Book preview

that.--

PLAY 1

The Scheme of Weeks

Chapter 1

Playing It as I Go

--What I did, what I have done, was nothing more justifiable. What I took away from this bitter realization, was very plainly that people just can’t plan some things. You know, all my life, ever since I was little, I’ve been so sheltered that I could actually be able to list all of my fears. Losing my mind, completely falling out of reality, has always been the biggest one. Every single encounter with borders of my psyche – the paranoia of living in this dark fucking house alone with my memories all winter only scratches the surface of what I’m describing here – has just been… it’s all been getting to me. To the point where I’m now past exhaustion. I’ve felt so uncertain and weary about things that aren’t even practical, that a sleepless night is more of the norm for me nowadays. I try to get it together, soldier through being the only one I can count on. But it’s fucking excruciating.

Anyways, since that shit happening, since the whole world took notice, and turned upside down like it hadn’t since 9/11… my biggest fear, only fear in life, has been… that it’s all been for nothing. I don’t even have to be me, with where I’m at and what kind of a past I have, for it to be a frightening reality to me that life can end at any moment without any reason at all. That goes for all of us, everybody out there. And I can’t plan bad luck.

You know, I’ve been following the way I thought, acted, dealt with feelings and such, back when I was in my phases, and living the fast life… and I noticed a pattern. Every time, my drive to achieve could be traced back to one fear. No, one primal instinct. I can’t leave this life without leaving some kind of a mark. I know I do a lot of bitching, a lot of worrying over nothing. But the thought of everything just ending and no one remembering me after I’m dead… that’s the worst. That’s now my biggest fear."

Sitting on his computer with an impressive afternoon stubble and an ergonomically poor posture, Viktor stopped typing for a while, to quietly reflect.

It was a hot summer’s day in 2016, and he’d been in hiding ever since last year. What is that music playing in the back anyway? He thought as he layed his eyes on the little television-tube that shone a really dim light – adjusted to barely bright enough for you to figure out what you’re playing. The main menu of Grand Theft Auto IV was what the screen was on display. The music’d just stayed there, in the background, as Viktor got into this spurt of words, with the journal.

He fell back in deep contemplation and mirrored himself – focusing on the thick stubble on his chin that made the man, looking back from a dark corner of the small TV screen, look like a homeless person.

— No. I’m not doing it. I’m settling for a fucking beard because I’m not going through cutting it with those petty fuckin scissors which are all I have for shaving-equipment in this house. Vik talked to his reflection, as he would to anybody keeping him company.

He then gave an affirming smile to it.

— No more talking to yourself today though, alright? It’s decided, the beard stays as it--

In the middle of his sentence, Viktor turned his face back to his cell phone. From it, he looked up gta iv theme song, and among the search results was the name Michael Hunter, with his song Soviet Connection.

That’s a cool fucking theme song. I can tell the guys at Rock-star, or whatever the company is, took their time picking--

Wait, what do I give a fuck?

He got up from his computer-chair, turned around, walked out of the room, across the hallways of his house, into the vestibule to grab a cigarette-pack from a hat-rack, took one cigarette out from it, and stopped.

After a hot second, he peaked his head out from a window on his left. He looked the other way first instead of the front yard. He was sure that’s the direction they would have popped one in his head from, long-distance style, had he checked his front yard first. I wasn’t born yesterday. Back of the head, that’s how they do it.

He then cleared his throat and lit a cigarette inside. Blowing the first toke out as far and loud as he could without sounding like a whale which isn’t necessary right now, he didn’t hear any outside noises in the neighborhood, and finally felt comfortable enough to step outside to finish the smoke.

Chapter 2

Birds Only See Us as Shadows When The

Blinds of Our Windows Are Closed in the

Summer

[January 1983]

Well that net was a waste of precious time. A younger Tapani heard a voice of an older boy say from a moderate distance. Very pessimistically, it said those words.

It was his older brother, Ilmari.

The two brothers were ice-fishing, out a decent walk’s worth from Varjakka beach, on the frozen sea. Tapani idly scanned his surroundings and, aside from the wide open view in all corners of his field-of-vision, saw three fishing holes in front of him, made close enough to each other for a net to be pulled underneath.

He ignored his brother’s remark, and told him succinctly:

— We ain’t gonna catch any if you just stand there and leave the net tied up like that.

Ilmari left him without a response.

— You want me to help you with that? Tapani asked.

— No, it’s fine, I got it. Ilmari replied, opening a net and continuing to walk to the furthest of the three fishing holes.

It was under the surface of the ice where he attached the net, as Tapani got to pulling it with this plank-and-rope combination they’d brought along, stretching it into one hole after the next. There, Ilmari came in to help, and do the same until the net was successfully stretched. Between the three holes the brothers’d carved up, it would be set to hang.

It ran like clockwork; the older one’d been doing this for a number of times before.

Ilmari’s process was cut short in the middle of him attaching the net beneath the third hole, as the thing started to pull away from his hand with unexpected force, making it hard to hang on. He yelled for Tapani, with words he can’t recall. Tapani came to his aid, helping him hold on to the net quickly, and big brother left little brother responsible for holding on to the thing.

Tapani looked at the pared-down sets of equipment the boys had brought along for these fun fishin’ times: nothing but the stick they used to carve the holes and this plank-rope combo Tapani was now grabbing on to for-dear-life. Just those, their jackets, and the net of course, were brought along. Tapani heard Ilmari yell at him to let go of it! and complied. He then looked as a marvel unfolded before his eyes: his older brother dug up the fishing net in its’ entirety – in it, a four-kilo trout; the thing that was yanking on the boys’ net and making all that trouble just then.

They left the spot, and for the walk home, Tapani had to settle for putting the huge fish inside his director’s jacket – between the inner surface of its’ hem and the shirt underneath. Almost there, walking past their neighbor’s house, Ilmari said something:

— Feeling proud of