16.7.2006
The Biting Northwind
The Biting Northwind
The chilly gust crawled into every hiding place in his ramschackled tiny house, where it was standing as by an old habit close to the town's oldest peer at Hafnargata, the town's oldest street, bearing an appropriate name; harbour's street. http://www.netsaga.is/media/files/l.a.g.-g.mp3
In his old bed cuddled in threadbare sheets an old and decrepit man was sitting, while his mind went slowly to and fro in his simplicit memory bank, in and out.
He stretched his right hand from under his old and dirty woolen-sheets and tried to turn up the heat on the only oven, that had given him any warmth for a long time.
Silently he cursed the district's Heating Plant, when the knob didn't go any further in the arrow's direction and himself for not renewing any ovens the year, when the burning of oil went out, but into every house came hot water from drilled holes in Svartsengi.
That year he was at a turning-point in his own life, becoming a pensioner, but owned a considerable amount of money "under his pillow" (he didn't trust the banks), which he'd saved up for using in his pension years, e.g. before Christmas (he didn't understand all this fush on Christmas, why the saviour's birthday'd been decided to have taken place during the coldest and shortest day on the northern hemisphere.
He recollected dimly, that sometime he'd read about the reason in some Icelandic magazine (he wasn't able to read any foreign languages) the first and only time he'd visited a dentist, because of his terrible tooth-ache, then just to get rid of what had once been beautiful teeth.
-My parents never cleaned their chaps, still having all their teeth the day they died, he used to tell his late wife, when she was trying to make him use the brush and paste, whenever he was fondling with her under the bed-sheats, but he always had kept on, until she'd given in.
-But there'll be no kissing, she´d always say concluding her case, but he'd always sneaked one in, when she got most excited.
But he wasn't sure of whether he'd manage to give a passionate kiss any more, because of the great number of years, since his last practise.
He recalled, when they'd been young and newly-wed. Then they were always kissing and making out, even in his lunch-time.
His eyebrows went up for a second, while the memory was still in his mind, but went down as soon as they had appeared, when he remembered when this loveliest period in his life had come to an end.
It was on the day, when his wife had arrived home with the two tooth-brushes in her hands, one yellow and the other blue and the tooth-paste with something blueish inside.
She'd immediately started her brushing and requested him to do the same, but because of his persuasion (or shall I say stubborness) he'd never done so.
Then began the wet-kissing ban.
His wife had died in her seventieth year, and still she had all her original teeth and was very proud of it, so very proud that she'd given the instruction, that she'd have an open mouth in her cascade.
At the same time, as he'd been squirming painfully in his own conviction.
What had he discovered that day at the dentist's he tried to recall.
When he eventually remembered his eyebrows went sky high again:
"The reason why the Christmas-Holidays takes plays in the middle of winter can be descended back to ancient Rome.
The Romans' greatest festival took place, when daytime stopped getting shorter and the people began hoping for a good and fertile summer and growing of corn.
When the Romans became Christians they were promised, that they could keep their greatest feast, just having different reasons.
For the glory of our Saviour, instead of Ra, the sun-king. Having received a promise the Romans became Christians, without much struggle."
The cold northwind had found its way between the boards, which he'd been compelled to nail over the window with its single broken window-pane. Now his eyebrows are raised again.
What might this lonely man be thinking about, we ask ourselves.
Let's go inside and take a look at his thoughts.
Yes, of course.
He's thinking of his weekly cleanster, whose two hour-visit he enjoys incredibly, being so very thankful to the mayor for doing him this favour.
He realized that he'd never be able to pay the helping-woman with his pension for his money from under his pillow had just burned up in the inflation bonfire.
The old man stood up and walked slowly towards the window, looked out between the boards and saw that the growing pile of snow had already reached the middle of the window.
This narrow sight reminded him of a real narrow-minded man from Akureyri, a town in the north of Iceland.
They had been working camrades for a short while in a fish-factory named Jokull (glacier) a long time ago.
That winter turned out to be very hard with a lot of snow on a scale that people in the south of Iceland weren´t used to.
One morning, when all streets in town were hardly passable after the snowy night all the staff kept on complaining about having to walk to work.
Then suddenly they were able to hear scoffing laughter coming from one corner of the building, from where they kept the salted fish.
Men and women turned their heads just to see where this pompous ass from the north country, who kept on bragging about his pure northlandish, pronouncing his homestead Akkureyri, but not Agureyri, which we in the south-west believe to be the right way, because we have been developing our pronunciation, while they have been standing still, because of their isolation.
The North-lander was even so very insolent to state, that our pronunciation was some kind of drawling.
Still he kept on laughing, now hilariously, trying to escape from his angry work-mates, whose tolerance had reached its top and would have beaten the hell out of this poor, but unpopular fellow.
Suddenly he stopped raised his hands and turned around to face his followers, standing up on bacalao-bags.
Stop and hear and just listen to my case, he yelled in his high-pitched voice using his special exaggerated version of Northlandish.
Did you know why I was laughing wholeheartedly (satirically).
No, not to be expected,but the truth is that I couldn't help it, when you went on complaining of this tiny puny snow.
You should've seen how it snows back north, where we just speak of great snowing, when it tops three men, he concluded his case in his prudish Northlandish, which cut straight through our bones.
After the heavy beating the poor man disappeared and hasn't been seen since.
Various thoughts went through the old man´s mind, where he tried to warm himself by the old steel-oven, or walked slowly towards the refrigerator to take a bite of the old rye-bread and to take a lick from the frozen milk,which in last week was just regular fresh milk.
But as the old American refrigerator was out of order he'd tried to keep the running milk in a window sill, but as the frost was the same outside and inside the milk happened to freeze over night.
Two nights before Christmas on the Mass of Bishop Thorlak, on which all real Icelanders eat a fish called skate, the old man was sitting on his only chair in the dark, because the last bulb blew up yesterday.
Cuddled in his bed-clothes by the window, through which a small streak of light coming from the street-light post , being the only light that the old timer had.
He was thinking about his lovely house-help, who'd be visiting him tomorrow;bringing him brightness and warmth with her fresh attitude.
He was in love with the woman, but of course she had to be married to another bloke.
Having gone through his last thought, he finally stood up on his weak legs, took a few steps towards his bed where his wife had once been waiting for him being so wonderfully fat and warm-like.
Shivering when he went under his bed-clothes.
-My god, she yelled, when she arrived in the morning for her weekly visit.
The boards on the window had broken off in the night's tempest opening up for the snow, which had piled up inside.
In his bed the old man was frozen stiff.
-What was he dreaming of, she wondered looking at his frozen smile.
Having notified his son, who was living in the other side of town with his wife and three children, the two of them were standing together looking at the old man, while waiting for an ambulance.
The son had put up a sad and concernful face.
-Had I only known I would've assisted the old timer, but you know how it is.
There's no time for our loved ones.
Olafur Thor Eiriksson