ICE ROAD -- Chapter 1: The Cabinet Door, Pt. 1

The slightly hairy, tanned palm of a middle aged man ever-so-slightly missed its target and landed on a nightstand on the bedside. The resting man lifted his fist from the surface of the table, and got the job done with the next smack. Moments of a slow summer’s morning rolled on by. He was sleepy, with clouded instincts, staring at the brown, as-normal-as-can-be wall of his bedroom. Time dragged along and a tired hand fell down to the side of the bed, searched for a sec and picked up a pair of jeans.
After dressing up while half-conscious, the man started – fully dressed – to drag himself out. As he opened the door of his bedroom, there was the view of the living room, which he scrolled past, to get to the kitchen. His unsure, tired eyes struggled to stay on track. The coffee. Gotta get the coffee.
His old ways, rehearsed in all the routine-dulled mornings of the past, guided him to take the coffee bag from the cabinet. He barely even noticed himself digging up a spoon and drowning it in coffee grounds. He laid his eyes on the cabinet door while executing the morning routine. It was white and figure-less, stripped of the beauty it must’a possessed when it was just a tree somewhere. What do I give a fuck.
He got lost in thought again, this time more aggressive ones. For a stretched second he stared at that cabinet door because it was just, a comfortable layout. Am I gonna wake up this morning at all?
Something snapped and he tried to remember what was in his hands. In a hurry to make up time for some reason, he started pouring the grounds into the coffee maker. He was so familiar with that coffee maker that I could make coffee all day long without looking at it, even. The eyes still hadn’t left their sight from that cabinet door. This ain't funny anymore. He looked at that coffee maker again, and there was a pile of coffee grounds that laid on top of the unopened cap. This morning’s too long...
Approximately ten minutes later it was all done, he had finally got the goddamn coffee to boil. He stepped outside to greet the morning with a forced smile to the sky, which never responds anyway... Something reminded him to get back to his morning hurries.
As he got to the mailbox, he opened it up and saw the corner of the morning paper peaking out. He shoved his hand in the box, got the paper and started walking back. On his way he felt a small, quiet but unpleasant vibration next to his thigh and got the phone out of the pocket, answering:
— Tapani Kumavaara.
Tapani listened to restless complaint from the phone and tried to sneak a word in:
— Miska, hey... Miska! If you could... I can’t help you right now, I’m in the middle of some shit.
— This is real this time, asshole! I need your help ASAP.
Tapani stopped walking at his front door.
— Sorry, I gotta go now, the guy just arrived.
— What guy?
— I’m driving this guy to the city. Listen, I gotta go now. I’ll call you later.
Frustrated, he shoved the phone back in his pocket, opened the door and stepped in, made his way back to the kitchen and threw the morning paper to the table. The upper left corner of the paper met the surface of the table first, and Tapani watched the paper landing on its back.
• --I wonder if everyone leaves their paper on the table like this? What’s the traditional way people have of protecting their papers as they put them away for a little while to get a cup of coffee after a struggle like mine?
o What danger does this little reflex-initi--
 What am I doing?
In a daze, Tapani picked up the phone again and made a call... The phone tooted. Soon, the same voice that bothered him outside just a minute ago, responded.
— Hello?
— You mean you need help right now?
— Yeah, you wouldn’t even know how... Man, I’m not sure, but I think I just heard this guy breathing, and--
— Not on the phone. I’ll meet you there in a half an hour.
— Okay, sounds cool, but what if it--
— You already know.
≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
Business as us’
≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
He looked at the front page of the newspaper, which read something about some Soisalo-family and their ”life as a family — a renewed one.”
— ”I figured I could drive by your place after I drop the guy off”, Tapani squeezed some final words to the phone call that was still going on.
There was an answer on the phone he couldn’t make out, be-cause he was so concentrated on the paper – interested in the main story. ”OK”, he quickly said to the phone and hung up. There was a new fascination in his eyes as he scrolled the pages of the newspaper, turning to page 18 for some more information.