Ken and Kaarna: Easter

Kaarna is moping on her bed and listening to Ken’s unusually light steps on the staircase.

Turns out, it’s not Ken at all, but Mari of all people!
- Hey babe! Why are you in bed in the middle of a daylight?!
- Mari!? Finally!

She's surprised to see Mari being this cheerful:
- No more Miss Asshole MacRudeness?
- I’m happy as can be! I was shopping!!!
- Come here you… I’ve missed you…what did you buy?

- Jewellery! Look! Now nobody can guess my wrist is repaired with a wire.
- Cool! Can we finally have sex now?!

- We can have sex, but we can’t show it on Instagram anymore. The cencorship is getting worse and worse. They even have deleted romantic scenes about dolls although they were wearing underwear.
- Fuck this system. But let’s not take that risk. Ken would die if this account got deleted.

Kaarna takes Mari downstairs to say hello to Ken.
- Heyyyyyy, nice to see you, Mari. It’s been a while! How are you? Would you like to use my hair brush?

- Haha! No need, thank you. What are you up to?

Ken tells that he just signed in as an unemployed person.
- I haven’t had the energy for my sewing business for a long time and since I got fired from the Post, I need the get the unemployment benefit until my retirement.

- Retirement! You’re not even 50 yet!
- I feel like a 70-year-old. I need to rest.

Kaarna giggles:
- I’m the provider of this family now.
- Excuse me? Wow, things have sure changed while I’ve been antisocialising.
- I’ve been doing some illustration work now. Think about it: Ken earned about 10 euros per hour sewing or delivering post. I just doodle and make about 50 euros per hour. It’s horribly unfair. All work should be equally valued.

It’s the Palm Sunday and the village children walk from door to door wishing Happy Easter and begging for sweets. Ken and Kaarna are preparing lunch, when they hear a soft knock on the door.

Ken is about to get the door, when Kaarna attacks him!
- Don’t do it!!!! Don’t open the door for them!!!
- What on earth, Kaarna?

- I ate all the Easter eggs last night. Kids didn’t came last year, so I thought this year would be the same!

They hide on the floor and hope the kids didn’t see them through the window already. The poor little ones keep knocking for a pretty long time and Ken and Kaarna have trouble to keep themselves quiet.

What a glorious day! After weeks of rain and icy roads and dark gray skies, a new snow is a welcome change!

Ken hasn’t been out of the house in many days, but now the sun is calling him for a walk.

At the harbour he sees a familiar duo. It’s Veli and Ritva - and of course the urn of Kultu. Ken is surprised to see them here and hollers.

When he runs to them, he notices that Veli’s eyes are wet.

Veli is unable to say anything, but Ritva explains that they just scattered Kultu’s ashes in the lake Saimaa. Ken thinks it was about time, but he doesn’t want to make Veli feel any worse than he already does.

- Oh, little brother, everything’s going to be allright… it was the right thing to do. Kultu loved lakes so much.

- But the urn is empty now, Veli stutters.

All three of them sit down on the pier in silence. Farewell, Kultu. You were deeply loved.

Ken invites Veli and Ritva over to enjoy some mämmi and they start to think back to their childhood Easters.

The Easter tradition is to dress up as witches and knock on people’s doors to give out decorated willow branches in exhange of sweets.

As a kid Ken loved the dressing up part and getting amazing loads of candy and sometimes coins too.

Ken’s mother used to drive the kids to every house in the village. Having to say the traditional jingle to strangers was scary for Ken.

But after this unpleasant round, the rest of the day was spent in a blissful state of sugar high.

When Ken grew older, he found it too embarrasing to go to the witch round.

He tried to force Veli give him half of his haul. Instead of agreeing to Ken’s friendly begging, the little brat ran to mommy.

Mother was mercyless:
- Don’t be stupid, Ken! You should’ve gone with Veli if you eanted sweets. Now you’ll just have to watch him enjoy his reward.

Ken sighs:
- Oh, boy. You really were mother’s favorite. Remember how you didn’t even have to eat liver?

- She loves the both of us equally. And she misses you! You really should visit her sometimes! Or even give her a call. She doesn’t understand why you’re so mad at her.

- I am not mad. And I’m not going to call her or see her. I’ve explained a hundred times that it’s better to not keep in touch. She brings out the worst in me and I bring out the worst in her.

Ritva understands Ken. Just because a person happens to have given birth to you, doesn’t make her a nice person.

The first sneaker day this year! The best feeling!

Kaarna hopes there’s some mämmi left for her.

But no! The greedy family has eaten it all.

At least they had left her an Easter egg.

Of course the winter returns immediately during the night. Waiting for the spring number two then.

The porch provides a nice shelter from the north wind.

Kaarna sighs:
- I have no work now, I’ve done all I had. We’ll starve to death now.
- You need new customers.
- I hate marketing.

Ken says:
- The unemployment agency forces me to educate myself. I could take a marketing course and use your company as my practice case.
- Ok, sounds good.