We next encounter Little Grapefruit on a perfectly yellow beach. She is salty but otherwise unharmed after her trip from Badenoch, down the River Spey, across the North Sea, along the Baltic Sea, to Finland.
At first she was rather confused by the unfamiliar language that she heard from the people walking their dogs and children along the seafront near Helsinki. But she was a quick learner, and soon started to find her way around. It took her longer to lose her sea legs.
Later that morning, feeling zesty after the best cup of coffee that she had ever tasted, she visited Helsingin keskustakirjasto Oodi, which is a fantastic library – all curves, and spirals, painted in a flattering grapefruit yellow. She took a spin around a staircase, marbling out of control for the length of a central foyer, coming to a hard stop against a tall gentleman’s boots.
Little Grapefruit found herself in an auditorium. A presenter was talking in academic terms. But LG well understood what she was saying, and by the end of the lecture was feeling quite learned on the topic herself. It was about what we can pick up from fragments – artefacts, speech, writing, any data really. When archaeologists find a few bones, or part of a mosaic, they can start to build up a fuller picture of what life was like for these people.
After the audience had asked some questions Little Grapefruit slipped out of the hall with the man in boots. He sat in the library café, talking to the lecturer herself. She told him about a short story she had just read. It was about a man who at different points in life came across a green door that he knew from a childhood visit led to a wonderful place. Nobody believed him when he told them about it, and he had no control over when it would appear.
Concentrating on the difficult words Little Grapefruit was transported back to another story that she had heard, where a wardrobe led children to a magical kingdom. Little Grapefruit wondered if these things happened outside books.
Evening came and Little Grapefruit rolled through the streets looking at the doors. At the seafront there were colourful buildings, but nothing with a green portal. She’d had enough of the city for a while, so headed out to the fields and forests, hills and lakes of Uusimaa.
LITTLE GRAPEFRUIT
18 November 2023
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