Surrealism




Untitled short fiction

By Pekka Varpuluoma


We were chained by our necks to a wall. We couldn’t see anything that happened behind or in front of us. The space was cold, you could feel the chill that blew through the atmosphere. And then there was the stench the kind of smell you could imagine to have on a morgue. We couldn’t really take it any more so I figured it was easier for us just to pass out. When we woke up next morning, the chains were still there, although now our necks were free. Somebody had just moved them to the next possible location. To our backs. That really wasn’t so bad after you got used to it. This same cycle rotated on every day for the next few weeks. Sometimes they had moved the chains to our legs, sometimes to our hands or shoulders. At times they really had fun at our expense. Their sick, twisted minds thought, it was hilarious to chain us into a form of a dance. That dance of course being Gangnam Style. Ha ha, very funny indeed.

When we finally got out of the cave, the light blasted towards us like a typhoon. Or should I say a tsunami, because of the bits and pieces of information they had told us, it seemed we were on an island. Some very far away island, because all one could see from the shore was pure nothingness. Just flowing waves all the way to the bitter end. The end being the viciously laughing sun on the skyline. We looked around the island and found nothing to eat. Not anything. Not even some fruits, like bananas, or coconuts, oranges or passion fruits. No wonder every one of us at some point went bananas. No wonder Coco got nuts in live television. Some of our fellow shore freaks couldn’t get the idea of the orange, flaming gas ball out of their minds. No wonder Mel Gibson’s Passion Of The Christ was so full of exaggerated scenes of the Roman soldiers beating the hell out of Jesus.

After long nights and weeks of tripping and seeing all kinds of hallucinations, we got to the point of desperation. There wouldn’t be anyone to save us from singing sad, sad songs of our current state. Our generation, the spoiled brat media kids, had watched too many remakes and spoofs of legendary films and TV-shows. So all we could think of were songs like.. “ Where has the rumm gone?” or “ Their taking the hobbits to Isengard!” or the nauseating sounds of Epic sax guy. Some wise man once said that ‘ No man’s an island’. Well at this point, all tired and life wasted on petty, little crimes like The World War 3, I couldn’t really agree with Jon Bon Jovi.. I mean his a living legend sure, but maybe it wasn’t he's best move to go to cryo sleep for a couple of hundred years. Just because you had the fame of a rock star ages a ago, doesn’t mean you have to keep on going in our environment.

In my past life I really couldn’t decide whether it was Hitler or Darth Vader who won the Epic Rap Battles of History. I guess it doesn’t really matter now, because if we don’t get back to the anesthesia center soon, some of us are going to die young. Too bad I never got to the stage 11 to see the Land of Confusion. Hmm, which one is better, the original Genesis version or the modern day Disturbed version..? I guess I’ll never know, because talking to myself from the past is too confusing even for me. Like it was when Sokrates was still hanging around here somewhere. I remember him, the old goat with a beard as long as the old ball and chain he was hanging around with all the time. I told him never to mess with the gods, but why would he have had believed me. I was only his brightest student. Maybe that’s why I gave him the cyanide.


Untitled story

by Jenna Pikkarainen


I looked at myself in the mirror. I felt exhausted and it showed; my skin looked lifeless and grey in the sickening yellow light of the toilet. I washed my hands, took one last glance at myself and stepped outside into the hallway. It was peaceful and quiet. A nurse passed me by and gave me a gentle glance. Maybe she saw my exhaustion or then she just looked at everybody like that. Of course she would. Everybody here needed sympathy. But I couldn't take it, it didn't matter anymore. I looked at the pale green linoleum floor and listened as her steps moved farther.

In the waiting room I saw Brandon and next to him a doctor. Brandon already had his coat on, and the doctor was holding a little cardboard box in her hands. So this was it now. A loud humming in my ears made it impossible to hear what the doctor said but it was probably the usual: they did everything they could but there was just too much damage to be repaired. She was very sorry. I stared at the little box and heard her say over the humming:

- I put it in this cardboard box because I thought you might want to bury it. I can go change it to a metallic one if you wish.

- No, no. It's fine. Thank you.

She handed me the box, looked at us respectfully and left. Her leaving somehow made it real. We were alone in the waiting room and we had to bear all the reality the room had to offer. Brandon touched my arm as an indication that we should go. I followed him to the car through the thick fog and moisture that hung in the air. The cardboard softened in my hands and gave in a bit because of the humidity. I noticed that on one side of the box there was a little dark stain that slowly grew. It had to be buried as soon as we got home, I thought.

On our way home Brandon asked if I wanted him to be there when I buried it. I nodded. He stared at the road, squeezing the steering wheel. He kept repeating in a hoarse, quiet voice how sorry he was. It was no use. It had already happened. I asked him to be quiet and continued to look out the window where the trees ran along the side of the road in all their autumn glory, softly covered in fog.

I went to get the shovel from the shed after we'd gotten home. With the box in one hand and the shovel in the other I went to the backyard which was covered in wet maple leaves. I put the box on the ground. The dark stain already covered two sides of it. I started digging a hole. Brandon was standing a little farther off, looking at me blankly. I wanted him to be here, to see what I had to do. To see what I had to give up. The ground was soft and the hole was quickly dug. I knelt down beside it and took the box in my hands again. My trousers got wet from the leaves. I opened the box, just to get one last look at the content of it. It was already turning grey and the last drips of dark red blood were soaking on the cardboard. My heart. I had to bury my heart.




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