Ken is sweeping the front yard when he hears Kaarna sobbing.
- What is it now?
- Everything feels meaningless and horrible. Even the good things in my life… I have no future, I can’t support myself, I can’t do anything, I can’t afford anything…. I hate my life. Why did I mess everything up? Why am I such a loser?
Ken makes meatballs and mashed potatoes for dinner. He doesn’t have extra money either, but still it’s more than what Kaarna has, so he invites her over.
- Do you know that Tupu has a very succesful advertising agency? You could ask her if she had a job for you…
When Kaarna hears this, she almost throws up!
- Ken!!! Stop it! I know you mean well and you’re trying to help, but seriously I can’t even think about asking, let alone actually working.
- I’m sorry… it was stupid of me. But still… I wish you could understand how talented you are.
- You don’t know that! I’m a fucking mediocre at my best!
Kaarna shouts and can’t stop the tears.
Ken tries to help Kaarna in a different way:
- Make a dream board! Here are magazines that you can work on. You cut out words, sentences, photos, drawings, whatever feels right for you and then you glue them on a big paper and put it on the wall so you can see it every day.
- Bloody hipp…
- And don’t say I’m a bloody hippie! This really worked when I made one for myself years ago. I eventually got eveything I dreamt of: a big house, a wonderful husband, an easy job, travelling…
- You also lost them all, didn’t you?!
- Um… true… Maybe I should make another one now.
Ken finishes his dream board, but Kaarna gets pissed off with hers:
- I don’t even have dreams! Not a single one! How can I dream of anything if I don’t even have a clue of what I want? Fuck this! Fuck you! Fuck everything! Fuck the fucking universe!
Ken decides it’s best to leave and let Kaarna calm down on her own.
Ken doesn’t understand how it can be this cold in August, but he appreciates the mushrooms he found in the woods.
While Ken is enjoying the fruit of the forest, Kaarna goes to her weekly therapy.
- I feel like I haven’t been getting any help from the therapy. I only come here because it’s my duty. I want to stop coming.
The therapist instantly replies:
- It’s very common for an unstable person like yourself to drop off the therapy. Maybe you have started to feel close to me and now you are afraid that I might abandon you? So you must do it yourself before I might?
- What? No… I’m not especially fond of you…
- Are you thinking of finding another therapist?
- No… I just want to stop this alltogether!
- That’s a relief to hear, the therapist mumbles and Kaarna feels appaled. She dosn’t even like this guy and yet he thinks she has feelings for him! Now she wonders even more than before if he’s not an especially good therapist.
When Kaarna comes back home she goes straight to bed. She’s cold and wet after walking in the rain.
- I’m so sick of myself, sick of being like this. I need a miracle. The therapist is useless, I feel worse than before. The medication is useless, too. All it does is make me fat.
Finally a sunny day! Kaarna is too tired to do anything, but at least she can sleep in the garden and get some fresh air! Oh how sweet the warmth feels on her face!
Ken is excited about his flea market find.
- It’s perfect for my bedroom! Can you help me to carry it inside?
The sun has made a big difference and in the evening Kaarna even has some energy to go for a walk.
She finds a bicycle at the lake shore. Someone has thrown it to the water. Kaarna takes the bike and places it on the ground.
Ken is also pleased about this summery day so he starts Herbert’s engine and goes vancamping for a night.
The evening is so much colder than he thought.
- I wish the summer would last forever… maybe if I… I wonder if we could leave Finland and live in Herbert… in the sunny Spain… Experience the hashtag vanlife!
A few fays later Kaarna notices that the bike is still where she left it.
Kaarna stays for awhile and watches the sunset, before she says:
- Hello, bike. You’re coming home with me. Finders keepers!
- I need to buy a pedal and a saddle and put some air in the tyres and it’ll be a good bike, Kaarna thinks.
Ken is making calculations about the vanlife.
- This is an impossible combination… being a dressmaker and wanting to travel. I don’t have this kind of savings…
Kaarna buys the cheapest pedals and a saddle that she can find and manages to do all the work by herself.
The maiden voyage! Kaarna soon realizes the benefits of cycling. Compared to walking, the sceneries change faster. And compared to riding a moped, now her body is doing all the work. She has been having a lot of pain because of spending too much time in bed.
She finds an apple garden. The trees are full of fruit. Whoever owns these trees, couldn’t need that much apples, she thinks.
Ken is just coming from the mailbox when Kaarna arrives at home.
- Wow! Where did you get this much apples?!
- Ummm… I found them…
- So you stole them?
- If you want to put it that way…
- Haha! Come inside! Let’s make a pie!
Kaarna tells Ken that while riding her bike she actually forgot that her life sucks and that she hasn’t got a future. For a while she actually had a light heart.
