Rosa LIKSOM

Rosa Liksom (pseudonym of Anni Ylävaara) is an internationally acclaimed writer and artist. Born in 1958 in Ylitornio in Finnish Lapland, she studied anthropology at the universities of Helsinki and Copenhagen and social sciences in Moscow. She has lived in Denmark and Russia for extensive periods of time and resides now in Helsinki. She has published twelve books -- mainly short fiction but also two novels -- as well as comic books and her works have been translated into at least fourteen languages. Liksom has gained renown not only as a writer but also as an absurdist visual artist. For a brief curriculum vitae and a list of her works, see Rosa Liksom  <http://www.rovaniemi.fi/lapinkirjailijat/rosa/erosa.htm>.

"We Got Married"

1. (We got married on the fourteenth of November and it was all over before the end of the month. As far as I'm concerned, it was a marriage that was exactly two weeks too long.) I met him at the Pam Pam where I'd dropped in for a beer with the girls after work. He walked in the door and I just knew that this was the guy for me. Later in the evening I went to his table and told him hey, man, let's get it on. We went to my place, but then it turned out there was no way I could get the creep to leave again. The fucker velcroed himself to me on the basis of that one night. He glued himself to my bed, snored on while I went to work, and when I came home, the asshole was still flat on his face. He didn't go to work, didn't go shopping, didn't even take out the fucking garbage. I put up with all that because I sort of liked him, at least in bed, when he happened to be awake. He proposed to me a week after we'd met and I said yes because it was fucking freezing November with nothing doing, not even at the Pam Pam. So I figured that my co-workers and I would have a nice excuse to party, who cared who the guy was, I'd get married and that was that. We had the wedding at the Savoy, I wore white, we got a few presents, we got shit-faced, and everybody thought it was a blast. Then it was back to reality and the same old shit, the guy just sat around and worked on crossword puzzles and farted. I could have put up with that, too, but after we'd been married for a week the fucker started whining about his miserable childhood and his really horrible adolescence and claimed that no one cared about him and that he had no reason to go on living. I listened to that for a week, every goddamn night, always the same bullshit. And I had thought I'd gotten myself a real man. So, OK, after that first week of marriage I was a nervous wreck, and I asked myself, what am I going to do with this creep who just keeps oozing on like liquid snot? The second week he got worse, started blubbering about the death of some grandma, twenty years ago. I told him this is it, man, time to pack your bags. He pointed at his ring. I took mine off and tossed it out the window. He still wouldn't leave. I tried to drag him out into the stairwell, but the guy was so sick that I couldn't get him to move. I called the cops and told them to take him away. The cops took a look at me, then they took a look at the guy, and then they left, and I grabbed a filleting knife and stuck him a couple of times. Shit, the jerk didn't even try to defend himself, he just up and died in the only bed I have. I called Hesperia hospital and told them that my husband had committed suicide by stabbing himself in the chest, and then I went to stay with a girl I knew from work. She calmed me down and told me these things happen. We drank some coffee and went to work the next morning. That day the cops called me and asked for details. I told them everything, I said I had gone to the john to read the paper, and when I came out, the guy had killed himself. They believed every word, and the girls at work said that I had done the right thing, it was the little shit's own fault, he'd asked for it by clinging to me and whining like that. Shit, I need a real guy who takes care of things, helps pay off the mortgage, puts stuff in the refrigerator. Hell, if a guy wants to live with you he's got to take on some responsibilities.

Source: Rosa Liksom, "We Got Married" [untitled short story]. One Night Stands. By Rosa Liksom. Trans. Anselm Hollo. London & New York: Serpent’s Tail, 1993. 80-81.