Under the seams runs the pain

Ex-Club Online is a recurring exhibition of works by students and alumni of The University of the Arts Helsinki.

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// a piece of text with ceramic fingers //
The virus had a layer of fat, a coat. Just like us, human-like.

It was stuck in my toothbrush.

I think of ikaaria warioitia, worm-like, the size of a rice grain, our great ancestor.

Someone found traces of them in a solid rock yesterday, and from those traces created an illustration of how the worms would have possibly looked.

Soft and round.

Kind of armpit-skin like soft probably, someone decided how they felt in human hands. For such a long time I had lived with no idea of those worms at all, but now their image was stuck in my head all day long. I have the drawing taped in my bathroom wall and I watch it while brushing my teeth.

The virus had a layer of fat, just like me and the ancestors in the drawing as well.

Them viruses.


Still assumed hell of a lot like only humans could, but now we shared something that I could understand.

I watched a video about connections in virus structure and felt satisfied. Before I sort of thought the virus being something from me like other bacteria and viruses. But now I had something else, a vivid mind.

I imagined the virus, slowly crawling and leaving sticky pieces of fat behind. Fingerprint kind of. As I touched all the door handles and accidentally licked jam from my fingertip.

And what exactly did they feel when they ‘did the job’ and got stuck in someone's lunges, were their goals somehow fulfilled?

Or maybe this is just human-thinking, goals and everything.

Just like the virus, I was also trying to get attached to anything,

The CD of sounds of waves and birds that I had listened for years to relax and sleep, the soft ground in the tennis yard that smelled so fucking great (I never played tennis but I love Serena) and was melting in front of sun's eyes, porridge in the morning to feel fit and have control over things that were not yet definied to anyone. With blueberries and sticky seeds.

My layer of fat left spreading around as I opened my laptop and thought of lunch. And the virus followed

rushed behind me.

-- But

Sometimes I stop working and think of her.

I often stop working and think of her.

Now, I must say that I hope she thought of me as much as I thought of the virus and her. During these long days and too much time between things x and y

Time passing so slowly I wanna push it

I missed her a lot. Even though we never really were together, I still missed her. Even though she never even touched me I guess (?).

In my head she was my missing lover, something from my past life, but still part of my recent one, in a deep, unremovable way. Like a muscle memory, or such a thing.

I imagined us in a park, walking around and then doing groceries together, in cosy soft trousers that become so soft after years of use you know?

Making decisions over apple or orange juice.

I even imagined situations like me not wanting to go for a party where she would have wanted to go. I imagined us having different tastes of coffee and other western middle class things between cappuccino and latte mocha and I promise I’m ashamed that’s why I write it here now.

I thought if she would be annoyed by my hobbies taking too much time from our weekly life. But maybe I would just cook for her? Read a book for her? Brush her hair or something. I can do a great face massage?

Anything really.

I imagined the sex, from - its been amazingly wild, breathing too much and so hot and just being the best possible thing to excist - to something only couples been years together would know about - with a curve around it being a normal thing, but still very good, like we knew what we wanted.

I imagined us being married for years with so many shared habits.
I imagined so much stuff that I started to doubt that maybe she’d want to get a divorce? All the houseplants and books.


Then one day she suddenly called me, and I answered like we’d have shared my memories of her, us.

Like we was a thing with its own world.
I told her all stupid stuff, I was too nervous to be cool and the worms and viruses bounced

around in my head and my belly.

I wanted to tell her to come here.

I was a traveller, in the virus, thinking of her, someone who barely even touched me.

In real life, I just thought of kissing her for 5 long hours in a party and sent her a voice message where my english sounded really weird.

After the call I had a dream of the worms. In the dream the walls had started to move again and the wallpaper drained down like mucus. I tried to move my mouth and all the empty words dropped out like legos without echoing it all.

My tongue was too big to fit my own mouth.

The worms took my body and carried it away. They buried me under the sand that sleeps in the bottom of the rivers.

What kind of things have worlds with not being necessarily absolute?