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I.
True story.
Last week, following a 10 hour shift at work, I came home exhausted and delirious. Ville dedicated himself to matching my delirium and soon we were laughing our ribs into pieces.
We have two large windows in our apartment, one in the living room and one in the bedroom. As sirens began to sound (a usual occurrence, we live in the center of Helsinki), he jumped to the window in our bedroom and rolled up the blinds.
“It’s dinner and a show!” he said.
I joined him at the window, adding excitedly, “I love living in New York.”
We watched as a fire truck appeared on our street. Then another, then another. One of them had a crane. Three police cars followed.
“We have a front row seat!” he said.
We watched as the fire trucks parked on the sidewalk in front of our building. Two fire fighters, in full gear, got out of the truck and beamed a searing searchlight directly into our window. Then they began rushing into our building.
The tone shift was immediate and ridiculous.
“They’re going into our building,” I said.
“I think we need to leave,” said Ville.
We threw on our coats and took the stairs. Firefighters rushed past us, going up. When we reached the lobby a police officer was holding open the gate. Ville asked him, in Finnish, what was going on. I couldn’t follow any of this exchange, though it seemed like we were fine to go back into our apartment.
We started walking back up, and Ville translated.
“A lightbulb burst on the sixth floor,” he said.
I thought I had misheard him. The street was literally blocked off outside.
“What?”
One of our neighbors, who we had never spoken to before, opened her door as we neared the third floor. Ville explained in Finnish what had happened. I was still confused.
“A lightbulb?” I insisted, as we entered our apartment again.
“Yeah. There’s no fire. A lightbulb just burst, and someone called the police.”
I shrugged off my coat; levity returned. I said, not for the first time — “Finland isn’t real.”
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