His Precious

       When his family had been rich… Emil would sigh every time he recollected the good old days—other than his parents, of course. That’s a scoff, not a sigh. But at least they could afford smuggled Old-World goods salvaged by Cleansers. And some technologies were truly lost. Cheap modern surrogates used by the commoners couldn’t match ancient masterpieces, and plastic wraps would preserve almost-hundred-year-old artefacts usable. But then Emil found himself among those sad-ass commoners, and the supplies ran low. He had suffered long until a recruitment poster lit his life. Sure, Emil loved to set things on fire or use explosives, but the second reason for joining Cleansers was definitely the longing for some of the antiquities. Yes, he got plenty of burning and bursting to do, but to his endless disappointment, only experienced Cleansers were allowed to plunder old settlements in the vanguard, and only in broad daylight, and only in houses recognised as safe by scouts and cats. Juniors were demolishing already-charred ruins. Bullying as it is. So close to the ancient treasures, Emil had to get by with the crude modern analogue. So, when Uncle Torbjörn invited him to an expedition to the Silent World, Emil squeaked inside and agreed in writing and with all dignity on the outside. Stacks and piles of his Precious Treasure rose and shone in his imagination. The reality didn’t shine. Now Emil saw firsthand why this resource was so rare on the market. It was not rare at all in the Old-World dwellings. Many ancient people had stacked and stored it in stockpiles. In heaps. In mounds and mountains, in masses out of any proportion. Even the food stocks (judging by the rotten remnants of the package) were not as big. It was clearly a large part of the archaic culture, and Emil could easily understand why. Other Cleansers had a couple of theories on that account too, but rather cheesy ones. The problem number one was that all those treasures were usually hoarded in bathrooms and pantries—that is, in small, well-walled spaces preferred by the trolls. Even if the trolls were not at home when Emil would barge in, their goo was. The trophy was not worth that abomination. Secondly, for something so revered, it was often packed outright poorly. Sometimes it was wrapped in mere paper, which of course rotted down into pulp over the decades. Plastic packages had more chances to survive and preserve their contents. But some sorts of that miraculous ancient material were susceptible to degradation. Under better conditions, they could last long enough for modern people to discern green symbols of leaves or seedlings and text reading “biodegradable”. It was another mystery of the Old World. Why would those people make such poor, flimsy plastic when they were able to make a really good one that would hold out for decades and centuries? Very inconsiderate of the next generations. Between the paper wraps and low-quality “biodegradable” or “compostable” package, little was left intact from those glorious piles. The old-time Danes seemed to be into “green” materials as much as the old-time Swedes, and Emil hated them for robbing him of one of the basic pleasures of life. Once he wondered aloud at dinner, coddling a hard-won six-pack of valuable assets, why the old-worlders had been such assholes. He hoped for an answer from Tuuri, as he was curious about what theories go around in the wild swamps of Finland. But Sigrun was the first to respond, that is, to laugh and tell that people back then were pansies, and a real proper Viking should not fret over such trifles as toilet paper. A real Viking should use whatever is at hand, up to rocks and icicles. Mikkel, without batting an eye, suggested sandpaper. So much for support and understanding. Emil suspected that only a language barrier did not allow Reynir and Lalli to join the fun. Well, Tuuri provided a very boring and unbelievable explanation that their ancestors had believed plastic to be harmful (what a nonsense! It’s useful!) and had been afraid to litter the whole world with it, and had made plastic that would disintegrate over a short time. Those Finns must be sitting for too long at their lake islets and in tiny corrals called villages, and do not realise the world is really huge. Sure, ancestors were more numerous, but they could not have possibly covered such a vast world in plastic. Emil decided to focus on the books so that he could get rich and buy whatever he wanted, including soft, comfy, dear old-world toilet paper. --- Tuuri must have told her cousin something, because the next morning, Emil woke up with a wad of wilted, large, roundish leaves of some perennial grass like burdock on the pillow next to his face. He shrieked at first (merely out of repulsion!) and then thought all day long whether it was a joke or a sincere gift and settled on thanking Lalli in the evening. Let the Finn be ashamed if it really was a joke.