Looking back

Salakka was in a bus.

The sunshine outside seemed in conflict with how cold she knew it was there. The snow was shining incredibly white under the sun. It was beautiful, but she closed her eyes.

Now she only felt the sunlight on her face, saw it through her eyelids. It made her feel good. Sun was sun. She imagined being in a trotro instead of this big, half-empty bus. Despite the men behind her babbling in Finnish, it was easy to picture.

The sunshine there with the heat. The sweatty t-shirt sticking to her skin. (For some reason, the thought of the shirt made her see the trousers, too: the ones with the half-length legs.) The car trembling on the dirt roads, people sitting close to each other, the hot air flowing in through the open window.

How she loved it. So much, that missing it was more a pleasure than it was painful.

She imagined being back there, going back again, and that's when she realized something.

Next time, it would be different. It would be the same, but the same time different. The times she had spent there were past now, something to look back to, something she'd always remember. All the visits she had made belonged to one era, and she could easily imagine her and the friends who had been there looking back to it all, years from now, with a wistful smile, "oh those were the days".

The times to come, being there in the future, would be something new. Not better or worse, just new.

She looked at the snowy scenery. She'd just have to wait a bit before finding out what was yet to come.