The Strange Visitor

I had just stepped out of my house to begin my morning walk when I noted an old man standing on the corner. He appeared confused and I wondered if he was lost. 

He was in the opposite direction of where I’d intended to walk but I thought I should make sure he was okay. I walked towards him and was susprised to note that he looked very much like a friend of my father’s named Esko Koski, who hailed from the same small town in Finland as my dad.

I remembered him as one of the many Finns who worked construction. He seemed like an old fella when I was a kid, but then anyone over forty did. Now that I was in my forties, Esko was probably over eighty.

“Esko, mitas kulu?” I asked (what’s new?)

“Keta sei on?” he asked (who is that?).

“Riku Jarvinen, Eero’s son.”

“Oh yes, I remember when you was just a little guy. How’s your dad?” He’d switched to English.

“He’s doing well, but haven't you two been fishing recently?”

“Yeah, yeah that's right,” Esko responded but he was clearly distracted, looking around again appearing quite confused.

“Is everything okay, Esko?”

“No. I was just at a funeral and now I’m here many blocks away. I don’t understand.”

Esko sounded scared. It was unusual for a Finn to betray any kind of emotion to anyone, let alone a much younger person of casual acquaintance. He must really be freaked out, I thought.

At a loss for anything to say I asked, “who was the funeral for?”

“Me.” Esko said bluntly.

I reckoned that he’d misunderstand the question so I asked again, “whose funeral was it, who had passed away?”

“Me,” he said again matter of factly, this time adding, “I died last week.”

I felt a fear bordering on panic coursing through my veins it was like I was having an out-of-body experience. Rationally, I should have thought that old Esko had gone off his nut; but I believed him. I've always been a rational person, a man of science who had no interest in the supernatural. 

There was a coffee shop just up the street so I led Esko there. We found a booth and ordered coffee. 

“Do you remember the funeral?”

“Yes, I was laying in the coffin and Pastor Mekki was talking about me and there was people there sitting on folding chairs and in the corner there was a table with cheese and crackers and coffee and other stuff.”

“But how could you have seen this if you were dead?”

“Mina en tieda,” (I don’t know) and Esko looked ready to cry.

I decided to do a little investigating. I got out my cellphone and called my dad and asked him if he’d seen Esko Koski recently.

“Last time was at his funeral. You didn't know he died? I thought I told you."  I dropped my cellphone. Esko sipped his coffee. Now I was really scared.

“Are you sure?” I asked my father.

“Of course, I was a pallbearer. Miksi kysyt? (Why do you ask?)”

“I’m sitting right across from him in a coffee shop.”

“You been drinking, Riku?”

“No serious business. Here, you can talk to him.”

I handed Esko my phone. “Hello Eero. Miten sinulla on mennyt?” (How have you been doing?)

After a few seconds Esko said, “why you say nothing? Hello?”

Then, “yes, this is Esko. Miksi valehtelisin sinulle?” (Why would I lie to you?)

Finally Esko handed me the phone. “Your father doesn’t believe me. He thinks I’m someone joking.”

I took the phone from him and said to my father, “I’m absolutely certain that I’m sitting across from Esko Koski. I’ll take his picture and send it to you. Hold on.”

Esko sat up erect and gave a wan smile. I snapped a couple of shots with my camera phone. I looked at the pictures I’d just taken and was stunned to see that Esko was in none of them.

“He doesn't appear in any of  the pictures, Dad, it’s like he’s invisible.”

My father asked, “where you are?”

“The coffee shop near my house, we went there once.”

“I be there in less than fifteen minutes. “Alä mene minnekään. (Don’t go anywhere.)

I kept Esko there by chatting about the old days in Finland. He told me about working at the saw mill near his town starting when he was fourteen. He also told me about what it was like during the Winter War against the Soviet Union.

Twelve minutes after we hung up my father walked into the coffee shop.

He stood by the booth that Esko and I occupied and hands on hips and asked me, “where is Esko?”

I was stunned — yet again. “He’s right there — ”

But he was gone. Vanished into thin air.

“Is this some kind of crazy joke, Riku?”

“No joke, Dad, he was sitting right there a second ago, he’s disappeared. Look there’s the cup he was drinking out of.”

“Se ei todista mitään,” (that doesn’t prove anything) my father replied, clearly getting angry.

“Does this prove anything?” It was Esko, reappeared and standing directly behind my father.

I thought Dad was going to jump out of his skin.

“Mitä helvettiä?” (What the hell?) my father cried.

“Istu alas, Eero, ja jutellaan,” (sit down, Eero and we’ll talk).

Shaking, my father sat down across from me and Eero slid next to him.

It took awhile but my father eventually settled into the idea that his late friend Esko Koski was sitting next to him seemingly in the flesh and chatting about fishing trips the two had taken. 

They’d been gabbing for nearly half an hour when my father suggested that three of us go for a walk.

As we left the cafe my father finally posed the question. “How are you here now, Esko? Shouldn’t you be in heaven?”

“That’s what I thought too. I don’t remember nutting after I die, until I watching the funeral. Next thing I standing on the corner and you’re boy find me. I don’t know what the hell going on. “Olen hieman peloissani ja hämmentynyt,” (I’m a little bit scared and confused.)

"You should be in heaven now. "ei tämä on oikein." (This isn't right.)

“Yeah I wanna see, Kirsti, she must be waiting for me in heaven.” Kirsti was his wife who had died two years previously.

I had an idea. “Why don’t we go back to the corner where I found Esko and see what happens if we stand there for awhile.”

“Okay, we try it,” my dad agreed.

We stood on the corner for five minutes and nothing happened. “Maybe we too close to Esko,” my father suggested. So we moved a few feet away. We stood in silence for another minute when a beam of light appeared above Esko then engulfed him. 

“Hyvästi pojat,” Esko said (goodbye boys). And in the blink of an eye the beam of light and Esko were gone.

“Well, that was weird,” I said.

“Goddamn it!” My father exclaimed suddenly.

“What is it?”

“That son of a bitch owes me ten dollars. I had another chance to get it from him and forget all about.”

That was weird too.