Portrait of the author: Leena Krohn, watercolour by Marjatta Hanhijoki (1998, WSOY) – I wondered what had happened to you after you lost your shadow how did you manage to change into your own shadow yourself? More… This morning, as I was strolling up and down the park path as usual, I saw another shadow alongside my own. Though there is no wind and autumn is not yet here, they come loose as if of their own volition, as if they wanted to die. The leaves on the trees are full of bronze, sickly red and black spots. The moist warmth has dried into heat and the Flower Seller’s herb spirals have dried up into skeletons. Now the relentlessly blazing sun has awakened colours and extracted shadows from their hiding places. For all its flimsiness and perforations it was our protection, our shield against the sun’s fire and the stars’ stings. I would not have believed I could miss a fog bank, but that’s exactly what it’s like: its disappearance is making me uneasy.

I cannot see the sails or swells in its heights, nor the golden cathedrals or teetering towers. The fog banks have dissipated the sky is empty.

‘Kuin astuisitte aurinkoon’ (‘As if stepping into the sun’) is a chapter from the novel Hotel Sapiens ja muita irrationaalisia kertomuksia (‘Hotel Sapiens and other irrational tales’, Teos, 2012), where several narrators tell their stories A rapid synthetic evolution has taken humankind by surprise, and the world is now governed by inhuman entities called the Guardians. Hotel Sapiens is a place where people are made to take refuge from the world that no longer is habitable to them the world economy has fallen – like the House of Usher, in Edgar Allan Poe’s story – and with it, most of what is called a civilised society.

Tainaron leena krohn