By now, she’s most likely tucked away in some of the curtain folds by now. Past Lapland. No doubt she’s biking along Lake Samaai (home to a beautiful type of seal). A wild region—well over a thousand kilometers of forest, lakes, reindeer, and welcoming locals.
The world was born from a cosmic egg. The Milky Way is the route birds follow through the dark. Oh, the birds. At birth, they deliver the soul (fresh from space) to newborn babies; at death, they come to retrieve it. To keep the soulbird from returning ahead of time (people fear it might mistake a the sleeper for a dead person), the Finns place a wooden bird beside the bed. Hopefully, one of those welcoming locals will place one on Paulien’s nightstand.
Awakened and fresh, and beyond the thousand kilometers of forest, she’ll encounter the current reality: the route of the Iron Curtain veered right, around the Gulf of Finland toward Russia, but Paulien will have to turn left. Away from the curtain. She won’t pass Saint Petersburg, nor the mysterious nuclear site of Sosnovy Bor. Nor will she go via the Friendship Bridge that connects Estonia with Russia.
Paulien Otlheten returns on July 13.