Ice Road: Oulunsalo Fiction, Pt. 1

”Business as us’”. Tapani Kumavaara is a depressed freelancer-criminal in his early 40’s, and his story of battling with depression is reflective of a chapter in my past — one I’m on the mission of coming in terms with. The story takes place in his hometown of Oulunsalo, where his thoughts explore desperation by ambitiously wallowing in it, falling deeper into conflict about self, existential questions, destructive emotion, judgement. He and his friends get a job as corpse-disposers. One of those friends is Samuli — a younger man, who also faces crisis, but does so with grace, breaking loose like the phoenix becoming a pro at life. Other ones are the impulse-driven, irrational Miska, and Riku, who’s just been released. They join in on burying dark sins in the pristine nature of the neighboring island, Hailuoto. Meanwhile, at home, everything is at its horribly wrong place, everything is at stake, everything runs wild and everything is impossible to grab onto. Ice Road is the first addition in the ”Oulunsalo Fiction” trilogy.