The Rabbit Back Literature Society by Pasi Ilmari Jaaskelainen

Author:Pasi Ilmari Jaaskelainen [Jaaskelainen, Pasi Ilmari]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Contemporary
ISBN: 9781782270775
Google: lvwUAgAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 19221404
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Published: 2006-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Ella followed Winter up the stairs. He was puffing like a steam engine.

“I assume I can keep the gift basket? Because if I can, I’ll be less upset. This style of challenge at least has the benefit of not requiring the challenger to crawl in a window or surprise you in bed or on the toilet.”

“Of course you can keep it,” Ella said.

There were a lot of stairs. On the second floor, Winter slumped onto a sofa, sweating hard.

“I haven’t played in a while,” he said between panting breaths. “I don’t think any of us older members have. In fact, I had started to think that The Game might have been played out for me.”

He wiped the sweat from his brow and pointed a finger at Ella. “By the way, did you know that Arne C. Ahlqvist was hunting for you? She called me a couple of days ago and asked whether I’d had a chance to play with you. Aura is eager to play again since you arrived. She needs some new material for her novel. I don’t know what the other members’ plans are, but I’m sure the fresh blood is tempting.”

“What’s to stop you from playing with each other?” Ella asked.

“Nothing really, except that our jam jars are fairly emptied out, for each other. They say you can never know another person completely. With The Game you can, if you play it by the letter and spirit of the rules.” He smiled sadly. “That’s what makes it such a useful, but at the same time dangerous tool. You see, people dress themselves in stories, but The Game strips us naked at the first handshake. That’s why we older members don’t really enjoy each other’s company. Elias Kangasniemi once described The Game as psychic strip poker around a glass table.”

When he was able to breathe again, they went up to the third floor. The walls were of dark hardwood. The hallway was dim, although there were small lights lit everywhere.

“Of course, we might still be of interest to each other if someone happens to have an experience that would be useful,” he said, glancing at Ella over his shoulder. “Four years ago, for instance, Helinä had some health problems. Breast cancer, in fact. She went through all the treatments—radiation, poison, surgery. Good material. Even I was on my way to challenge her a couple of days after she got out of the hospital. But it so happened that there were already two of my colleagues skulking around her house when I arrived—one of them sitting on the edge of the roof knocking on her window with a stick, and the other applying a screwdriver to the basement window. I left them to it and went home.”

The stairs creaked under his feet. He huffed, staggered, leaned on the wall for support. He was doubtless significantly overweight, but he nevertheless was a surprisingly stylish figure in his tailored trousers and expensive-looking morning jacket—at least when he wasn’t struggling, at the limits of his physical capacity.

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