Chapter 9: The End… Or is it?

18+ / Explicit content.

I’m walking down the streets of Töölö toward Café Regatta. I have the bottle with me. I’ve hidden this book inside a wine bottle. It even had room for a few extra pages. They’re waiting for you inside.

Fuck, I could still turn around and go home. But I’ll never be able to forgive myself if I give up now.

What if I printed a couple of copies and took them to a prison for the inmates to read? In my cocaine haze, I could have run someone over with my car. I’d still be sitting in a Los Angeles prison now. What if Tom hadn’t turned up at the gas station? One or two more days and I’d have been dead. The world owes me nothing – it was here first.

A mosquito bit me. I almost didn’t notice. If I met Matias today, he’d be like that mosquito. I’m no longer angry or bitter. But it’s easy to see which one of us is the stronger man today. I’m still kind of angry with myself, and sometimes I grieve my bad choices. But when this bottle sails over the sea, I know my soul will slowly become whole. There’s an old Indian proverb: “We all have a good wolf and a bad wolf inside us. The one you feed, wins.”

No, wait. There’s someone I’m still angry with. The dragon. You almost swallowed me whole. I can’t kill you, the dragon, the Devil, on my own. But I’ll stab you with a sharp sword straight in your black soul. I won’t be able to kill you, no matter how much I want to. But I’m convinced that some other reader will stab you again in the future. And maybe one day we’ll have your tail.

It’s probably obvious why I picked out a black leather jacket to wear this morning. For the first time in my life, I know where I stand. And I know what I stand for. Believe it or not, there’s a lot of black in my closet… Bear with me, humor is the best medicine after all.

To tell you the truth, it’s really fucking hard to stand here. Why did it take me so long to see… I don’t believe you truly understand how hard it is to be here. And I’m not expecting any sympathy from you. But it’s my scars, my bruises, all these tragic events that gave me the strength to stand here right now. Before we get a few final things straight, I am the man in black.

I’ve thrown the bottle out to sea. There’s no getting it back anymore. I can see it drifting on the waves. Will it run aground? Will it sink? Will it stop? You, my reader, are the publisher of this book now. Your efforts count as much as mine. There’s a job for you inside the bottle. I hope you can keep a promise. Let’s try together. Let’s not be naive enough to try and save the whole world. But let’s try and help one person – that’s a good start.

What do I dream of? Maybe one day I’ll hear someone say, “You helped me.” That will be the day the last piece of the puzzle falls into place. That will be the day I finally understand why this puzzle had to be assembled in the first place. That will be the day my pizza will have too many onions on it… That will be the day I can finally forgive myself.

I’m best friends with my dad now, by the way. He’s created jobs for a lot of people. Helped the economy. I’d lose my very last screw if my path was like his. But every path is equally valuable. 

I never would have guessed. I showed him this book. With the worst parts obviously censored… He paid for the translation. He said, “It’s definitely not made for the Finnish market.” I guess the businessman understood “art” better than I expected after all.

A summer evening at the Olympic Stadium, a good concert with friends, a cold long drink in my hand. Guess which artist I’d love to see live… And yes, I do drink alcohol once in a while.

In fact, I might just have a glass of wine on my way home from Töölö Bay. Why? Because I feel like it. I’ll stop at one though… Never in my life will I care what someone else thinks of me again. But I do try not to hurt others.

Because hope springs eternal. I know that there’s always a microscopic chance that the following scenario might happen one day:

It’s Saturday night. I’m sitting in a restaurant on Tehtaankatu. Basbas Kulma, at the bar counter. It’s snowing outside. A freezing cold evening is turning into night. I’m lost in thought. Actually, I’m not thinking about anything much. I’m listening to the background noise. Wait, I know this song.

Sometimes I enjoy eating alone. I’ve left my AirPods at home. I’m not even sure where they are anymore. Maybe in the same drawer where I found this text.

I ask the waitress for another drink. A wine bottle hits me in the shoulder. I do a double take. It’s the bottle I threw out to sea. There’s a woman standing next to me. I recognize her face. Dark brown hair, covered in snowflakes. I realize that you, my reader, have sent the bottle on. I swear I saw it drift toward Seurasaari Island. Who knows? Maybe you felt a twinge of sympathy for me despite everything. Maybe you’re carrying out the task you found in the bottle. Thank you, reader. I owe you one. 

I pick up a napkin from the bar. Wipe the corners of my eyes. In that moment, I realize that against all odds, you felt… I can’t find the words. Many people told me: “Don’t do it like that. Let’s do this, and edit that, and it’ll turn out great.” But I only listened to my own heart. No one else. You, my reader, haven’t just read this book. You’re the publisher who saw something in me. But, dear reader, do you believe I can handle the situation you’ve gotten me into now?

You’ve probably figured out that the person standing in front of me might just be real. Not just a figment of my imagination. The following dialogue is obviously hypothetical, but maybe it’ll become true one day. Sometimes life has to be a bit adventurous. How tedious to just wait for a Tinder match. Or not. I’ve heard Tinder dates are almost always boring. This is much more exciting… And there’s always the chance the bottle will end up smashed over the back of my head in the end.

I look down at my feet. I’m wearing my own shoes. I look the woman in the eye. She looks serious.

“I told you I wanna hear how it ends.”

I can’t find the words. I look around for the waitress. Where’s that wine? Chop chop, please.

“I told you I respect authors who…”

“Would you please sit down?”

She won’t sit down, even though the stool next to me is free.

“Will you throw the bottle into the Atlantic?”

“I don’t know.”

“I could help you with that. 175 euros per hour.”

“Your rates are pretty high.”

“I’m not cheap, am I?”

I can tell she means something else by that.

“I wasn’t gonna come, but my half-crazy friend told me to.”

“But we don’t really know each other very well.”

“No. But hey, at least I know you better than my Tinder date from last week.”

She can be funny. But I knew that.

“Hey, that’s not fair… And how do you know it’s not just my wild imagination? Maybe I was watching Netflix while I wrote this. There’s no way you can know. Anyway, maybe you should just go home.”

She interrupts me.

“You wanna pay me? I’ll help you. Let’s see if this bottle really can cross the ocean.”

“That’s the reason you came?”

I know it wasn’t the reason she came. Her star sign is inquisitive. She needs constant mental stimulation. Well, careful what you wish for…

I take the bottle out of her hand and look at it. How is it still intact? It looks almost shiny. Nice one, reader. You didn’t break the bottle. Now I’m losing my train of thought.

“I’m kinda tired. Trying to collect my thoughts.”

“Should I smash the bottle against the counter right here?”

I look her in the eye. I don’t answer. She continues.

“There’s a third option. I’ll sit down and order food.”

“I don’t know. The kitchen might be closed, it’s 11 p.m.”

The waitress comes over, smiling. “We’ll let it slide just this once.” She hands us a menu.

“Hey, how about I fill that glass with wine. Red or white?

The woman takes off her coat. Works through mathematical equations in her head. I need to stay in control, see into the future. She knows that if she sits in that chair, there’s no knowing where the wind might blow.

Crazy adventure, white doves.

She sits down. I take a sip of wine. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that this won’t be a boring dinner. She didn’t ask me about that one sentence. “Something ugly can still be beautiful.” I wonder if she’ll ask me later. How could she know I was talking about her specifically? It’s just one sentence. It’s not the hair that matters, it’s what’s underneath… Anyway, she guessed right. I open my mouth.

“I think the reason people always feed off your energy is because… Well, I won’t do that right now. We’re gonna focus on you.”

She probably likes what she’s hearing.

So what happens now? Dear reader, I can’t tell you, and don’t even want to. And I’m not a fortune teller. Do I have the answers she might be looking for? How could I? Maybe we’ll find them together one day. If I can make it through this “date”, I promise that you can make it through yours. Just remember to be yourself. Of course, I have one thing going for me. If this woman gets up from her chair, she knows I won’t ask her why she’s going. I’ll just wish her well. What do you think? Will she get up? 

I can tell you one thing, though. If she does stay, she’ll get impatient with me about thirteen minutes in.

“Can you be serious for one second?”

“Sorry, no, I cannot.”

And with about 99.9 percent certainty, that’ll be the answer she’s looking for.

Of course, she knows that the easiest thing to do would be to hand me the wine bottle at the end of the night. And walk home on her own.

These are the cards in my hand. They’re my own cards. I’d have given anything to be dealt them in Los Angeles. And here I had them in my pocket the whole time. Now that I’ve organized them, I don’t really know what to think of them.

Let’s pretend that the scene I’ve just played out comes true. It’s obvious that you gave me a few hearts from your own deck. I’d love to give you some of my own cards in return. 

We’re all missing a card or two. Maybe the secret is to show your hand to the other person openly. That way you can exchange cards. And if your cards are torn and kind of in a mess, believe me, those might be exactly the niche cards someone else is looking for.

Either way, you have to be OK with yourself before you can love somebody else. And I will never again stake my own happiness on another person.

For the woman who said, “Something ugly can still be beautiful.” 

This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. I would have thrown my whole laptop, this whole book, into the sea, for another chance. Now I can’t do that anymore. I can’t lose myself. Maybe it was fate. Fate didn’t allow the laptop to sink into the waves. Maybe I’d have drowned with it.

If you ever find this bottle, I hope you’re in a happy enough place to throw it back into the sea. But if you’re not, you can bring it to me. I won’t ask why. And I won’t tell a soul.

You were my catalyst. You helped me understand that fame and fortune won’t bring happiness. Your attention meant more to me than Eminem’s attention ever could.

Now my demons are getting KO’d for good. 

Wait, could things actually work out in the right order? I’m just considering that now. I guess not, though. Or who knows? But no… Or could they? 

Only one person knows in her soul if they can… Only she knows whether it’s too late to listen to her heart. 

Or is the path too twisty by now?

A bottle in the Atlantic Ocean. Me in Töölö, picking up a pizza at Zuhat’s. Sopranos close to my brother’s place is pretty good too. The reason I like their pizza is that they both have the nicest staff. Does the family-sized pizza still exist? I don’t know. I’ve never ordered it.

Sometimes I still worry that no one will connect with this book. That the bottle will rot at the bottom of the ocean. And I honestly don’t know which option would be better. 

But I’d have never broken out of my cage without Eminem. Thanks to him, I knew someone else had been down the same road. So here’s me trying to do the same for somebody else.

Dear Eminem, 

I’m finally reaching for your hand for real. Believe me, after this shitstorm it’s kiiiinda scary. I have a funny feeling this bottle might even end up in your hands… 

Maybe one day I’ll get the chance to thank you personally. I’ll buy you a case of Finlandia vodka to show my appreciation. Would love a “Not Afraid Vol 2” as well (wink).

I straight-up wouldn’t make it through that meeting without tearing up…

I thought a lot about how to end this with you here. But I trust my intuition, my instinct. I don’t have to say anything. I’m tearing up. Thank you.

I’m not afraid. Holla back!

Dear reader,

Thank you. You may not see how, but your investment in this book is as big as mine. This book is kind of our thing. And I made it through. Do I still have scars? Of course. We all do. I’m just not covering them up anymore. Maybe they were treasures this whole time.

In fact, even though I don’t know you, I sometimes feel like I’m talking to you specifically. I don’t know how to explain it. 

You can find the rest of the bottle on Facebook. I’ll tell you how in a minute. But I get that you might not be on there. One of the tasks hidden inside is this: try to see the value in every single person for the next eleven days. Even in the difficult moments. For the next eleven days, try to get through the difficult moments, the conflicts, with love instead of a sword. Maybe you could even forgive someone who’s hurt you. Smile at the barista, see how it feels. Eleven days. You can do it. Don’t bully anyone for eleven days. And after those eleven days, take a twenty-minute walk to reflect on how that made you feel.

And consider sticking with it for a few more days? Reach out. Touch faith. It’s pretty simple at the end of the day. 

We just keep making things so complicated. I speak from experience… If your feet don’t work and you can’t walk, don’t worry. What truly matters is between your ears. It’s just the way it is.

Someone might say, “Well, obviously every human being is valuable.” But I myself live in Töölö, Helsinki, and I don’t have to walk that far at all to see that it’s not a foregone conclusion for everybody.

So you see, we need to keep this bottle moving together. Let’s both be part of a better tomorrow.

I thought long and hard before adding the sentence at the end of this paragraph. But ultimately I wanted it here. I didn’t come up with it on my own. Every single one of us will lose someone we love one day. Some of us already have. I don’t know any more about things than you do. All I know is that I was wrong about some things. And like Kid Rock, somehow I know there’s more to life than this…

Once again, remember, you’re perfect just the way you are. If you listen to your heart, you can never go wrong in life. But if you scramble your head with drugs, alcohol… it’s kinda hard to listen to your heart.

I’ll have to walk a tightrope for the rest of my life. Just like everybody else. If the day comes when I cut people with my wine glass again, act like a jerk, this entire story will lose its worth. It’ll have zero value. Which is why I believe that the day will never come. Because I have agency over that decision. I know that love for others only begets more love. But if I treat others poorly, it means I think I’m worth more than the other person. And that’s a mistake I don’t ever want to make again. To look through a fellow human being rather than into their eyes is a sign of stupidity.

You don’t change the world with words. You change it with actions.

In the (almost) words of Rocky Balboa… If I can change. You can change. The world can change. 

I believe the secret to happiness is to be part of the change toward a better world. The smallest of actions can be the biggest of all.

And if you’re dreaming of a Hollywood ending, the perfect love story, find another man. I’m not one to settle down, at least not today.