Things that Fall from the Sky

by Selja Ahava

  I settled my debts and arranged my life exactly as I wanted. I did some travelling. I bought an old house. I had the perfect workshop built. I was happy! Everything had been sorted out! Do you understand, Mr MacKay? I had been short of money all my life, and now all those worries were gone. What a sense of freedom, and what a relief!

  But then I had another win. Again my numbers dropped into the tubes – different numbers from the first time. I did not know that was even possible, but there they were. And suddenly chance did not seem a good enough explanation. I was not happy and I did not rejoice. I did not feel anything at all. In some strange way, this second win took away the pleasure that the first one had granted.

  I was struck by a strange sense of guilt. As if I had been caught playing with something without permission. But I had not done anything wrong! I have always bought a lottery ticket; I did not want to stop. I like the excitement of the draw. I like the way the balls drop down. Very little else in life is so regular.

  I thought: life goes on. I live, I do my felting, I buy my lottery ticket, I get things when they are on special offer in the supermarket.

  But I feel now that this must be about something else. But what, exactly?

  Am I the butt of some kind of joke?

  What will happen next?

  Then I happened to see the documentary about you on television, and I thought, that man will surely understand my situation. That man had a brush with fate, just like me. Perhaps he can give me an answer.

  The BBC was not willing to give me your address but a kind production secretary has promised to forward this letter. I will put my contact details below.

  Best wishes,

  Annu Heiskanen

  Dear Mrs Heiskanen,

  I’m a fisherman by trade. I catch lobsters and crabs, and I live in a wee cottage with my wife. In our garden we grow runner beans, potatoes, three kinds of cabbage and pumpkins.

  You ask for an explanation but you’ll have to find one yourself, I’m afraid, because in my experience, what others say won’t help.

  Regards,

  Hamish MacKay

  PS my address is below.

  Dear Mr MacKay,

  Forgive me for writing again. I do understand that I have to solve this myself. But you seemed so calm in the documentary, and I was left wondering: are you not afraid, or annoyed? I am furious, myself! Or I would be, if I knew where to direct my fury.

  It is not very often a person can draw a line on a calendar to demonstrate the exact point at which her life changed. But you and I, Mr MacKay, we can. One could argue that I have been trapped by good fortune, and you by misfortune, but it is not that simple. Listen, the rug can be pulled out from under your feet with no suffering involved. That is why I wrote to you and why I write again. Forgive me. I am just so alone with this.

  Regards,

  Annu Heiskanen

  Dear Mrs Heiskanen,

  Believe me, I’ve also asked: is this a joke? What does it mean? But those questions don’t get me anywhere, and that’s why I’ve stopped asking.

  My wife Mary planted the runner-bean seedlings in the vegetable patch. A bean rises out of the soil all feisty and green and bursting with confidence. For a moment it sways by itself like a bairn learning to walk, but as soon as it touches something, it wraps itself round it with its hairy stalk, looking for support. It has such blind faith in strangers.

  And do you know, Mrs Heiskanen, we’re not completely on our own? I read in the Reader’s Digest that a forester living in the United States was struck by lightning seven times. After the seventh time he shot himself in the head with a shotgun. And I for one can’t judge him for it.

  Kind regards,

  Hamish MacKay

  Dear Mr MacKay,

  I nearly came to grief, though I did not grab a shotgun. I fell asleep. After the second lottery win, I slept for three and a half weeks, nearly forgetting to wake up.

  While asleep, I did not dream. I remember sinking into sleep; I fell into something deep and dark, and three and a half weeks later I surfaced again. My brother and his daughter claim that I ate and blinked, and in the first few days I even spoke a sentence or two – I have no memory of this myself.

  When I woke up, I felt heavy, rather like after a rainy night. I do not know about you, Mr MacKay, but my sleep is always very deep on rainy nights. Someone was reading aloud: horse-racing results. At first I did not understand where the voice was coming from, but then I saw that a radio had been brought into the room. My brother had decided to play the news, weather forecasts and lottery results for me every day. Maybe to make fun of me, I am not sure.

  I stood up and promptly fell against a chair. My head was spinning and my stomach was turning. I tottered down the stairs, barely able to support myself on the banister. My brother and his daughter heard my clattering, luckily, and came to meet me. Together they managed to lead me downstairs.

  I sat at the table and tried to work out what my brother and the girl were saying. I riffled through the mail and newspapers piled on the table and it was only then that I realized I really had slept non-stop for twenty-five days and nights.

  I had not washed for almost a month and the girl wrinkled her nose. But I was too weak to stand up in the shower, so my brother ordered me to sit on a plastic stool and the girl to be on standby at the door.

  After the shower, I began to eat. It seemed I would never cease. During the first twenty-four hours, I ate everything. The girl giggled when my stomach rumbled and purred like a herd of cats.

  That was five months ago.

  What was it that woke me up? Was it a thought, was it hunger or did I simply realize that I did not want to die, after all? Mr MacKay, have you been able to explain to yourself what has kept you alive?

  Regards,

  Annu Heiskanen

  Dear Mrs Heiskanen,

  Your letters have not gone unnoticed. Today the postman joked I was a famous TV star, what with getting fan mail now: from abroad, even. It’s given them something to talk about in the post office.

  I don’t get out much these days. The third lightning strike destroyed my hearing. I can’t say I’ve missed listening to people talk that much. I speak to Mary as I always have done, and I can lip-read, though that’s not easy in the boat. I’ve got to keep my eyes on the trap and my wife’s lips at the same time. Signing doesn’t always work, either, not with your fingers caught up in the string of a trap. But we understand a lot without the need for words.

  Sometimes I wish I could still hear the wind. I hadn’t realized how much I could tell about the weather with my hearing. Now I have to open the door and feel the direction of the wind on my face. In the boat, the blone complains when the engine gets too noisy. I must admit that when I’m at sea, I don’t miss my hearing. I never liked coves who talk while fishing. Never mind sing. And the waves, those you just feel. I just hope I don’t lose my sight.

  You wrote of a sleep so deep it had no dreams. For me, too, when the lightning strikes, there is an emptiness. For a moment I remember nothing; everything gets wiped away. Then, when the charge is gone, I remember again and the pain comes. But the emptiness, that’s dizzying.

  I don’t know why I haven’t died. The people here say it’s in punishment, but they don’t say that aloud, not any more. Not since Mary gave them a piece of her mind.

  Hamish MacK

  Hello Mr MacKay,

  I still haven’t claimed my second lottery win. I’m afraid if this gets out, someone will have the bright idea of contacting the papers and I’ll become a celebrity freak. I’m afraid the girl will tell people at school, or somebody will guess down at the shop, anything.

  I don’t dare do the lottery any more.

  You’ve just carried on as you always have, isn’t that right? Aren’t you scared?

  I’m totally listless, somehow; I just sit and mull things over. I feel there’s something I simply don’t understand. My whole life is split in two. Part of me functions as before
: wakes up, walks, eats. But in the shop I just stand there. The person next to me in the aisle probably won’t have any idea that the woman beside them has lost the plot. But as I stand there thinking, it feels as if the goods are falling off the shelves on top of me, or the floor is disappearing. Then I pay, gather my shopping into my bag and drive home like any ordinary person.

  My brother is having a hard time of it; I can’t talk to him. Yesterday, I tried to look up the contact details of the national lottery on the internet, but I ended up staring foolishly at the browser. I wrote: what help lotto. Then I had a sudden thought, which woke me up: I wish I were a sheep! I said to myself, ‘baa’, and it felt good, in a jolly sort of way. I typed baa into the browser. I felt like running outside to join the flock in the front garden.

  Annu

  Dear Mrs Heiskanen,

  A terrible storm has been raging for three days now: I’ve not been able to go out to sea. Three slates came off the roof and a piece of the guttering as well.

  The Silver Darling is a wee thing, and I don’t want to go out if the gale force is more than 15 m/s. When the wind tosses them around, the traps get covered in sludge.

  I went out on the bicycle yesterday, and the wind was so strong that I had to pedal even going downhill. Not enough that uphill was hard going! It’s always dreich here, and windy. There are no trees, nor anything else. Just rock. Rock in the sea, rock on land. But to have to pedal downhill!

  I went to the post office. There was a queue because people were waiting for a delivery from the bakery. As soon as I walked in, everyone stopped talking, as usual. They looked at me for a split second and then out the window at the clouds in the sky.

  A lot of people think I’m cursed. Or that God is testing me, like Job in the Old Testament. According to rumour, I ran home from the shore after the third lightning strike because a thundercloud was following me and I wanted to keep my new boat from being wrecked. They say I kept swerving, trying to trick the cloud, but it just kept on coming after me. Then, when it finally struck, the neighbour’s horse bolted, got injured and had to be shot.

  That isn’t true, of course. I didn’t think then (and I don’t think now) that clouds, the sky or God were chasing me or anybody else.

  I stopped going to church after the third time. I wasn’t that much of a churchgoer before then, but if lightning strikes me three times and leaves the kirk standing on top of the cliff, I’ve lost interest in anything the minister might have to say about it.

  For some, it’s easier to think that God is punishing a sinner. Och, well. Others believe in miracles. I’m not quite sure what’s meant by talk about miracles. People seem to think that if some mysterious event is a miracle, then there’s an explanation for it. That the event itself may be impossible to fathom but the fact that it happened means some kind of message is behind it.

  Perhaps the world needs shaking up from time to time, Mrs Heiskanen. I’ve certainly shaken up this village. When I go into the shop, one look at me reminds all the customers that at any moment, the sky can fall on top of us.

  Your friend Hamish MacKay

  Hello,

  Spring is round the corner where we are. The evenings are getting lighter, the snow is melting, and the sheep gambol wildly outside the house.

  You stated in your second letter that we are not alone, and you told me about the American forester. But you know what, Mr MacKay, there are others, too!

  Sometimes the sky falls; sometimes the earth sinks. Sometimes you are struck by such an incredible piece of luck that it is hard to carry on.

  Sometimes something happens – just that once – but for the rest of your life you have to wonder why. Sometimes nothing happens, and for the rest of your life you wonder why it didn’t. But now, stories. My brother told me about a shipwreck. He has been very interested in calculating probability lately, and that is how he came across this story. I wrote it down for you.

  A MOTHER’S LUCK

  In September 1940, the steamer SS Duchess of Kent left Liverpool for Canada. It was carrying 139 children. The English were afraid of a German landing, and many families sent their children abroad, to safety, including across the ocean to the United States and Canada. On 26 September, a German U-boat sank the Duchess of Kent with two torpedoes. When the cargo ship HMS Albert arrived at the scene, eight hours later, it found two surviving boys on a raft, and, a little later, a girl drifting on her own in a lifeboat.

  The children were taken back to England, where the whole country mourned the fate of the dead children. As a result of the disaster, the transport of children overseas was abandoned.

  But one mother was lucky. Because, of the three children who survived out of the 139 passengers on the ship, two were hers. Her son and daughter had both made it to their own life raft, unaware of the other’s fate. Seventy-six families sent their children to safety, and this mother was the only one who didn’t lose either of her children (the two sisters of the other surviving boy drowned).

  The family withdrew into isolation. After the war, they emigrated to the United States, and the mother never con-sented to talk to the media about what had happened.

  Mr MacKay, I am sure you can understand why the fate of this mother touches me. What a mightily disproportionate piece of luck! How could the mother explain to herself why it was that her children had made it? Well, perhaps she couldn’t, seeing that she moved to another continent. Did her children possess a special tenacity, a will to live? Or perhaps they were merely more ruthless than the others. Did the mother have to ask herself that question? Did my children make it because they pushed others out of the way?

  Unfortunately, the woman in question is dead now. But I wanted to share her story with you.

  I hope there are enough lobsters in the sea and the winds remain calm. I shall look for more stories and write to you again!

  Very best wishes

  Annu

  Hello Mrs Heiskanen,

  You asked me if I’m ever afraid. I’ve thought it over: a tricky one, that.

  My first thought was: if I let fear take over, what would I be left with? No work, no freedom, nothing. I’ve got to live as I always have done.

  But of course I’m afraid. Not so much for me as for Mary. Not that I can say that to her.

  When there’s thunder in the air, I leave home. I make up something I’ve got to do: on the shore, around the shed or somewhere else I can be alone. After Tim’s death, I don’t want to have another accident on my conscience.

  It’s not something I do knowingly. Last time there was a storm, I was tidying a pile of driftwood in the woodshed when suddenly, there was Mary, standing in front of me, shouting. She’d probably been shouting at me for a while, but, of course, I can’t hear. She tried to drag me indoors, and I fought her off. It became quite a scrap.

  That time neither of us came to any harm. We sat in the woodshed all evening, just cuddling.

  Hamish M.

  Dearest Mr MacKay,

  I watched a short film on the computer. It was made in 1978, in Puerto Rico, and shows Karl Wallenda, the famous tight-rope walker, falling and dying during a live television programme. The whole sequence lasts a mere twenty seconds but there is something so fascinating about it that I have watched it over and over again.

  Karl Wallenda belonged to a well-known circus family. These days, his great-grandson walks between skyscrapers and crosses the Niagara Falls. But in 1978, Karl Wallenda walked at an altitude of thirty-seven metres with the aim of getting from one ten-storey building to another. Then, all of a sudden, he was caught by a gust of wind and the cable began to swing. The film shows him trying to crouch down, grabbing hold of the cable with one hand. But his foot failed to hook on to the cable, missing it, and Karl Wallenda fell. So mundanely, so fumblingly, like any of us. And before the bystanders had time to take it in properly, Karl Wallenda had hit the street.

  There are people who defy danger for so long that I suppose you start believing in their immortality. S
ome who are so skilled that they must have magic powers or a super-natural ability. And children always have a guardian angel accompanying them. But in the end, all it takes is a single gust of wind, one stupid slip, and a person just dies.

  Annu

  Dearest Mrs Heiskanen,

  As a lad I went fishing with my uncle. My cousin Graham was younger than me and couldn’t manage all the things that needed doing – I was stronger and better with my hands. Once, we were at sea and the waves were coming thick and fast. We were heading out to the open sea, Uncle trying to press on, looking for a course that meant the waves wouldn’t hit the boat full on. But it was rocking wildly.

  I heard Uncle shouting he was going to turn around. He managed to bear off slightly when, out of nowhere, a wave washed right over the deck. My cousin Graham vanished; I saw it happening. Just one movement, just one moment. Graham didn’t utter a single sound. The sea rolled round twice, and it was all over. Graham had disappeared.

  We combed the surroundings for a long time. A couple of other boats came to help us. We were tossed by the waves and the wind pushed us towards the shore, but there was no sign of Graham. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to look at the sea when it’s rough; it’s impossible to see into all its pleats and folds.

  That’s when I understood, for the first time, how beyond our ken the sea is. It has no memory or conscience. Lightning bolts are somewhat like that as well. They are not pursuing me. They don’t remember where they’ve struck previously – they’re not interested, either.