Psychological thriller in Finland: Her name still works. Her life doesn’t.
If you go home, you’re dead
Anna stops walking. Is this a prank from a friend? Some sort of weird welcome home after a holiday in Japan.
Someone bumps into her.
“Excuse me.” A young Japanese man says in English. He bends down to right his shoe that had come off when he’d collided with her heavy case.
The phone in her hand buzzes again.
She clicks. A photo pops up of a moving van in front of her house. Then another of her furniture being loaded. Her fingers flick through images of empty rooms.
“What…”
Another message.
If you go to the police, you’re dead
The crowd flows around her with practiced impatience, cases swinging wide to avoid the obstacle she’d become. Oblivious, she checks the number. It’s unfamiliar.
“Are you OK?” he asks. “I’m sorry. I don’t speak Finnish. Is it alright to ask?”
A notification flashes.
At that moment, finding a very deep hole somewhere in Lapland suddenly seems appealing.
She opens it. What else could she do? The urge to find out what’s going on is strong.
In fact, wherever you go, you’re dead
The phone slips from her hand, clattering onto the honey-coloured floor where thousands of shoes cross every day. He picks it up and tries to pass it back. She freezes, as though she’s standing on thinning ice. He glances uncertainly around the terminal, perhaps seeking help, then back at Anna.
“Please take. It’s yours.”
Trembling fingers close around the purple case. She nods a thanks and stumbles outside. A cold grey afternoon hangs over Helsinki, with a sharp breeze off the Baltic and a lingering threat of rain.
The long-term carpark is exactly as she remembers. Except for one thing—her car isn’t there. Is she in the wrong place? With distaste, Anna pulls out her phone. The once cherished device is now seriously trauma coded. A quick scroll through notes confirms that it’s the right level, the right location.
For several seconds she stares at the empty space, waiting for reality to correct itself. If her bright orange Volkswagen is gone, what else is gone?
Maybe the photos are real.
A sharp tremor runs from her phone into her palm, and travels straight to her stomach.
“Oh god, no.”
She tries to ignore it. But it’s insistent, indifferent to her panic. She clicks.
Remember, what I said. That thing about being dead. I’m not joking
Anna falls into a crouch close to the cold concrete and cocoons her head with shaking arms. She stays like this until her knees hurt. Slowly she struggles to her feet, clasps the handle of the suitcase packed with sweet memories of a great holiday.
Without realising she’d made a decision, she finds herself in the queue at the taxi rank. When her turn comes, she mumbles her address.
Where else can she go, but home?
When the taxi drives away, she stands in the quiet street of birch trees and bicycles. Her house looks like the other houses; neat, practical, and unremarkable. It is simply her place in the world.
The door is still red, the roof is still pitched high, the windows are still large. But there the sameness ends. A different car sits in the gravel driveway, the treasured pot plants are gone, and the cream curtains are now green floral.
The cold wind cuts through her light travel jacket, chilling her bones.
A strange woman comes out of her house. The gaze that scans Anna and her suitcase is more curious than hostile.
“Can I help you?”
Anna doesn’t know what to say.
In the end she just points to the red door that used to make her laugh with joy.
