we have a story for you

here is a story from issue 006, a poem between ireland and finland. we’re delighted to have another platform for our contributors’ work - incredible wide-ranging stories from everywhere that need to be heard. we genuinely love these pieces and can’t wait for you to read them too! here is the fifth of the series, from mnemotope issue 006.

lasse come home by gary jermyn

I was naked

I was alone

I was hot

I was sticky

I was sweating profusely

I was wasting away to nothing

I was burning up with a fever

I was sitting in a sauna

a smoky savusauna

in the small Finnish town of Myrskylä

these were desperate times and I was a desperate man

although it felt like hell

in Finland the sauna is a church

so here I sat

naked reverential and alone

thumbing through a red leather-bound bible

which had belonged to my mother

I was a desperate man in need of a miracle

the pages of the bible were hot and clammy like myself

the thin pages sticking together

blackened from the soot

dampened from the steam

I turned with difficulty to the Book of Psalms

and read aloud from Psalm 102

“I am like a pelican of the wilderness:

I am like an owl of the desert

for my days are consumed with smoke

and my bones are burned up as if I were a fire-brand”

over and over

I read and re-read the words

I sat on my perch alone

like an owl

like a pelican

like a broiled chicken in the oven

praying for an escape

suddenly the door opened

and a tall bearded man

in a blue athletic vest and white shorts

entered

I recognised him immediately

the vest had the number 228

it was my boyhood hero

the finnish runner Lasse Virén

it was not altogether unlikely that I would meet him

on this my first visit to Finland

he was a finn after all

and Myrskylä was his home town

this was Lasse Virén

here in the sauna

one of the great Olympians of the modern era

here in the sauna

I was in the presence of greatness

here in the sauna

it would have been churlish of me

to have pointed to the sign which said

“no clothing to be worn in the sauna”

deferentially I asked him

“will I pour some water on the rocks ?

will I make some löyly for us ?”

he stood up and said

“I am Lasse Virén

I was born in Myrskylä on July 22 1949

I ran for my country

Suoniaiti – Mother Finland

I won gold medals at 5,000 and 10,000 meters in the 1972 Munich

Olympics

I repeated this achievement in Montreal, Canada in 1976

and I came fifth in the marathon

in Moscow in 1980 I won nothing

I have tasted victory and defeat

come with me

do not be afraid”

and so that morning

I went with Lasse Virén

and we ran like the wind

through forests of pine birch and spruce

over flat expanses of granite rock

by hundreds and thousands of blue and shimmering lakes

we swam in the gulfs of Finland and Bothnia

we climbed to the top of Haltiatunturi

we could do anything

we could do anything

we ran like we were gods

on our sacred journey of discovery

that night

tired and exhausted after our endeavours

I asked him why he had chosen me ?

he replied slowly

“we are all just pelicans in the wilderness

we are all just owls in the desert

we all need someone to open the door for us

and take us away from the heat of our own psychological sauna

all I did was bring you running in the woods:

there the air is clear

and the tranquillity of nature

lets our minds fly free -

there the air is pure

and sprinkles the imagination of believers

with the dew of hope”

I shook his hand and thanked him

and told him if he was ever in Ireland

he was welcome to stay with me anytime

I watched him running

until his blue athletic vest disappeared into the Myrskylä twilight

it would have been

however what are the chances of Lasse Virén walking

into my savusauna

I was faced with a dilemma

Another rule of the sauna

Creating the lohlee

We are all naked in the eyes of god

Before entering the sauna

(Having been brought up in the Church of Ireland

When attending church I normally wear a jacket

and open-necked shirt casual trousers and a pair of stout shoes –

however the sauna was hot enough as it was without dressing

for an Irish winter - I applied this in spirit rather than literally –

Besides I am not overly modest about my body

And was happy to sit naked in the steam)

All the normal conventions of question & answer now did not apply

see you soon!

your bog bodies