Fiddle in the Flames

1

The was something rotting within this story right from the start.

Sohni is a mythical hero of the Estonians, also known by the name of Kalevipoeg, which the character shares with the national epic of the country. It so happens that Sohni is also the name of a Finnish newspaper, which has flatly refused to grow up. I proposed to the editor to adjust to the times a little, change the name to the lot sexier Oscar, but he just stared at me funny.

He does that plenty these days.

In the board of Sohni, a slightly surprising alliance between the old money and the green left has been forged. Forget the sour expressions on the owners' faces at the press conference - that's PR, and everybody knows it. These creeps couldn't take a crap without the treehuggers holding their hand. You could call it a relationship of mutually relinquishing oblivion. Every attempt at saying anything at all gets one in the back of the head before even drawing its first breath. One after the other... it's like spinning a coin with heads on both sides. Slowly you start questioning your own eyes.

The past is the present: this reflects the ethics of our grand majority. This country has returned to the acute anxieties of the Oedipal phase, and stays put. Our press dug the trenches. They are also in charge of entertaining the troops. That is something they know how to do, you have to give them that. 

One thing about a self-censorship like that is, you're learning to write as you circumvent it.