I walked along the promenade, then through a park, and finally through downtown, about fifteen minutes in total, before reaching the Art Deco train station.
The station was as busy as always. I bought a ticket from a nearby machine, waited for the right train to arrive, and stepped on.
Looking out the window as the train started moving, I began thinking about my relationship with my father. Or lack thereof. My father had a constant habit of letting me down, you see, of never doing what he said he would. For instance, he had once bought a life insurance package for me, which he then quickly cancelled. He had told me he would give me a bunch of cash when I became an adult, but he never did. He had told me he would give me his old car, a stylish black Chrysler, when he bought a new one; he didn’t do that either.
The last time that he had let me down was not so long ago. We were supposed to go to a rock concert together in Helsinki. It was one of my favorite bands. As was usual for him, he said sure, no problem. But when the time for the concert came and I asked him about it, he said he wouldn’t be able to make it. This was a constant theme with him. Not to mention the biggest letdown of them all—that he had disappeared for most of my fucking life.
He was also extremely dismissive of my dreams. When I had told him once that I wanted to be a writer, he laughed in my face and told me that I would never write anything. He was as unmotivating as fathers got. Perhaps because he was just another cog in the wheel of life. A cog that never examined the mechanisms surrounding him. Never questioned them. How I was begot from such seed, I had no idea. But it seemed to confirm that nurture reigned supreme over nature.
Since I was deep in thought and it was dark outside, I missed my stop. I exited at the next station and went through a graffiti-covered tunnel to the other side of the train tracks. It was quiet. There was no one else there. I lit a Marlboro Red and began waiting for the train back.
A large group of Finnish teenagers soon walked onto the platform. They were loud and aggressive and drunk, passing a bottle of peppermint liqueur between them. I had the feeling they might try and harass me, but thankfully they left me alone and soon the train arrived.
When I got off the train, I walked to a shop near my father’s apartment. I bought a six-pack of beer and a small bottle of Jim Beam. The prices were twice as high as in Estonia. The whiskey was just in case I needed some help with falling asleep, for I often had trouble sleeping if I wasn’t in my own bed.
My father lived in a rather typical gray Finnish suburb with a bunch of identical apartment blocks.
I rang the doorbell. He opened the door. “Well look who it is!” he said in a gentle voice. It did seem as though he was genuinely happy to see me. Maybe surprised as well, considering how rarely I visited him.
I stepped inside. “Bought some beer,” I said.
“Oh, I’m afraid you’re gonna have to drink that all by yourself,” he said. “I’ve got work early tomorrow.”
I placed the beer down. “How early?”
“At six.”
“Ah… well, not a problem.” I took off my jacket and stepped out of my cowboy boots. “It’s not like I’m not used to drinking alone.” I wasn’t sure whether he had heard that last sentence. “By the way, if you’re leaving so early, could you perhaps drop me off at the harbor in the morning?”
“Sure, not a problem.”
We walked to the living room, which, as usual, was in a rather messy state. The TV was playing. As it had on every other occasion I had visited him. Good old television. The glue that held many a miserable life together. A TV and a job. You work, you go home, you watch TV, you go to sleep. Rinse and repeat. The life of the average Joe. Yet somehow they didn’t seem to mind.
“You hungry?” my father asked.
“Considering that I last ate in the morning, I am indeed.”
“Well, help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge. There’s some eggs, bacon, potatoes, and bread in there.”
“Thanks. Do you want any?”
“Nah, I’ve already eaten.” He sat down and continued watching TV.
I went to the kitchen, took one beer, opened it, put the others in the fridge, and began making myself some food whilst drinking the beer. So far so good.
After I had finished cooking, I walked to the living room with my plate and a new beer and sat down in a chair.
“So tell me,” he said. “How’s it going?”
I wanted to be honest for a change. “Not so good actually,” I said, taking a bite of the food.
“Oh? Why not?” he asked with seeming concern. Although the concern might have been solely due to hearing an answer he did not expect.
“Well, I hate my job. I don’t have any friends. And to top it all off, my girlfriend of three years just left me. Life just hasn’t turned out the way I expected it to.” I took a sip of beer. “None of my dreams have come true. In fact, it seems I don’t even have any dreams anymore. And life overall is just constant monotony. It feels as though I’m doing the same thing over and over again with no end goal in sight.”
He turned the volume down on the TV a bit. “Well, get a goal then! Have some children.”
I chuckled. Ah yes, children. The perfect antidote for my misery. How little the bastard knew me. I wouldn’t want to have children if I was the last man on earth. “There are just a few problems with that idea,” I said. “First, I don’t like children. They’re annoying, loud, and they have nothing interesting to say. Secondly, the world is already severely overpopulated. There’s no need to bring any more people here. And finally, I can barely take care of myself, not to mention that I don’t even like living in this world very much, so why on earth would I bring a child into it?”
“Yeah, we’ve all thought that once,” he said, a sage as always. “But when you have a child, you’ll change your mind.”
“Dad, I can tell you with a hundred percent certainty that I will never, ever bring a child into this horrible fucked up world. No matter what. It’s one of the few things I’m absolutely certain of. In fact, I’d rather kill myself than have a child.”
“Oh boy,” he said, giving a long sigh. “With that kind of attitude you’re gonna be awful cranky when you hit forty. You’ll be a cranky old man and nobody is gonna want to talk to you.”
“Well, guess what? I’m already cranky. And nobody already wants to talk to me.”
“My god,” he said, shaking his head. “What are we going to do with you…”
“Maybe a late abortion would be in order?”
“What?” he snapped, clearly not appreciating my dark humor.
“Well, it’s just that, you know, the reason I’m here is because of you. And I don’t mean in this apartment. I mean in this world. This world that I don’t like very much.”
“Oh I see,” he said. I already fucking knew where this was going. “You know, the problem with you is that you’re too negative. Yes, there are problems in this world, but unless you have a solution, don’t you dare criticize!”
I observed the vapid sitcom playing on the TV for a moment before saying, “But I do have a solution.”
“Oh you do, do you?”
“Yes. It’s simple. We’ve gotta stop reproducing.”
“Oh go away with that kind of nonsense,” he said, waving his hand dismissively.
“How is that nonsense? All of our problems exist because we exist. If there is no existence, then there are no problems.”
“But if there are no people, then there is no point to anything.”
“There already isn’t any.”
“Oh is that so?” he said with a mocking tone. “And how did you come to that conclusion?”
“By thinking. And by reading books.”