|
Mirja Krause investigates Oulu’s paranormal goings-on and finds out about Oulu's Angelic visitor.
Last week, I went to the Market Hall to buy some elk for my family. When I passed the fruit-and-veg stall, a chubby man in a bright white apron smiled at me. I was irritated. When I came closer, he reached over and handed me a red apple. The man just smiled. I took the gleaming red apple, which seemed to come right out of Snow White. When I looked up again, the man was gone. Strange, I thought, biting into the amazingly delicious gift. Maybe there are angels in Oulu.
 They say a castle was burning when an angel came to Oulu. He walked through the castle; he even touched the hot walls, but didn’t burn himself. When he touched the stair railings, flames climbed up until they reached his shoulders, gleaming gold. He didn’t have a face like a little girl, or look like the statues of small angels you could see everywhere. This was an old angel, wearing the garments of the era. He wasn’t exactly beautiful, although he had wings; small ones compared to his figure. They were folded nicely on his back.
In those times, it was widely known that angels exist. Today this knowledge is almost extinct.
When the angel stepped out of the burning castle no one seemed to take notice of him: everyone was busy trying to put out the fire. Walking on to the village which also was in flames, he realized that help was needed, but wasn’t sure what to do. Where he came from, fire didn’t exist. Should he collect the dew with his hands to put out the fire or should he maybe blow out the fire with his strong breath? He was afraid he would make it worse. Quite close by, he saw a woman crying. Her little daughter was still inside a burning house. The angel found the girl in the kitchen, weeping. He took it outside to her mother who mumbled: “ I will never forget what you did for me!” But the angel didn’t really hear her. He was busy. He hurried from house to house, rescued children and livestock out of burning homesteads and stables. Being so busy, he hadn’t noticed that his wings were gone - burned by the fire. Men from Oulu started asking him who he was and where he came from, “You are form far away, aren’t you?” “Yes”, the angel answered. With daybreak it started raining. The rain put out the last embers of fire in the village and it was so heavy that the angel started thinking that the Flood had come to Oulu. But after two nights and two days the rain eased off. Houses and stables could be rebuilt. There was a lot of work to do, also for the angel. He was stronger and taller than anyone else from Oulu. During lunch breaks he would sit with the other men, but he wouldn’t eat anything. Where he came from no one ever desired any food. For him though, the bread looked fresh and the ham smelled delicious. That was new. A woman came holding the hand of her daughter. She approached the angel and he recognized her as the woman whose daughter he had rescued from the flames. She invited him to stay with her saying, “You must be very tired!” She was a widow and had some place to spare. The angel entered the tent the woman and her children were sleeping in and lay down on the reindeer fur the woman had laid out for him. Where he came from no one felt the need for sleep. There was the constant performance of music and every voice was needed. He thought of this when his eyelids became heavy. He felt exhausted and very very tired. The lines of the cloth of the tent he was looking at slowly became blurry and finally vanished. They say that he is still Oulu although the grandchildren of the girl he once rescued already have grandchildren by now. He works in the market hall, wearing a white apron and sells apples behind a counter. Oulu, the white city of the north, is made out of concrete and glass now. Almost no wooden buildings exist anymore – they catch fire too easily.
|
