IT WAS A TOWER. The Ikea Tower. Why it was called that was a mystery. No element of it was made by Ikea. Maybe some of the furniture in the conference room on the 80th floor. The tower was designed to move with the wind. To stand in its conference area was to feel as if one was flying. We were so high up in the air that I couldn’t see the ground down beneath the cloud cover. The movement of the clouds between the legs of the tower made it seem as if we were a ship upon white seas. When I rode the elevator to the conference, I always made sure to look at the buttons. You know how terrified I am of heights. I watched those red buttons.
Later, back at my hotel, I slept in. It had been a long week, and I woke up around noon. I knew I was going to be late for the press conference. Where even was this place? My mind said it was Helsinki, but it looked like Amsterdam, with some elements of Copenhagen stitched in. Of course, I wound up talking to the redhead at the front desk, with her silver earrings and silver brooch. She sparkled like a Celtic warrioress. That went on for far too long, and so I was doubly late. I ran to catch a departing gondola and rode it through the city. Its doors opened and I got out, but I was on a terrace. The furniture was certainly made by Ikea. Simple, white.
Young Scandinavian Arabs were seated around, playing chess.
I got back on the next gondola and was carried to the canal, where I got onto a crowded ferry. I could see the red-brick buildings of the town hall and the national treasury. I tried to take a photo of the town hall, with its golden steeple, which looked just like Pauluse kirik in Tartu, but also like the Københavns Rådhus. What even was this city? Certainly, it was still Helsinki. Or was it? Before I could get a good shot, the ferry arrived to port and we disembarked at last.
Everyone filed into the metro. I could watch their heads disappear as they rode the escalator down. I saw their shadows vanish. Somehow I found a tram that delivered me to the foot of that enormous tower. Up the tube-like elevator again, staring at the buttons. They needed the article immediately following the press conference. I could feel the tower move with the strong winds. There was a woman in the elevator who I knew from Estonia. She was dressed in business attire. She had one of those names that no one outside of Estonia could pronounce, like Õie, Ülle, or Krõõt. “How do you do it?” Õie asked. “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know.”
