Soothed by this idea, he turned off the engine and surveyed the regularly mown grass. It looked lovely. He liked it.
The boy was swinging himself up to the sky as he pushed the mower into the shed.
‘Careful,’ called Pärssinen, but the boy didn’t seem to hear him, or simply didn’t want good advice.
He’s right, thought Pärssinen, he himself hated good advice, and now here he was beginning to hand it out. He really must be getting old.
He went over to the new flower bed at the side of the car park and moved the sprinkler from right to left. The plants were in bloom already.
When he went back to the building old Mrs Kononen called to say he’d done a good job. The swing wasn’t squealing any more.
‘Thanks,’ he called back. ‘Thanks.’
Then he went into the stairwell.
He looked at the time.
Six fifteen.
And thanks from old Mrs Kononen.
He smiled as he entered the darkness of his flat.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thanks to Niina and Venia, Georg and Wolfgang, Esther and my parents.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 2011 by Jan Costin Wagner
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This 2011 edition distributed by Open Road Integrated Media
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