Stúdentablaðið - 01.03.2008, Blaðsíða 31

THE BEGINNING
I remember New Year’s eve -the wind was tossing me
around like a feather, juggling my camera, shaking
my tripod while I was desperately trying to capture
the mutilated shapes ofdying fireworks before being
nervously erased from the blackboard of the Arctic
sky... When you have the wind roaring around you
with about 100 km/h it's hard to forget.
Despite all the preparations and money thrown away
to secure the nation’s jolly welcoming of a new and
hopefully better year, the wind kept on blowing the
thoughts and moods of everyone. The weather doesn’t
care about human festivities.
This year was doomed to be as windy as it’s first day,
and so it proved - there came storms and snow, and
never ending rain, and sleet, again and again until
the cars turned into boats and floated along the
streets and mice came down from the hills to look for
shelter.
The sun was gone. Its last faint rays melted into
the grayish darkness of winter, froze at night and
remained like this - petrified in the distance. Wet
darkness dripped down the trees, into the ground,
and slowly into the hearts of men.
And then light was born again - a new era of brightness
and light air began. On the first day of light I went to
check on the birds in the pond, I was curious how they
were doing after all the storms and ice on this land.
It was a great day - bright sunrise, mild sunset, not
a cloud in the sky. The snow was glittering under the
humble, cold sun rays, three ravens were fighting for
a piece of bread and there was no sign of any seagulls
whatsoever.
The pond was frozen but there they were - walking
cautiously, one step at a time, slipping but never
falling. They hadn’t left their pond although it had
turned cold towards them. It was their home. They
couldn’t swim in it but they could pretend they do
and after hours and days of pretending they knew the
would finally be able to swim again. Birds know how
to create reality.
Now they were sitting on the ice and from the
distance you could tell that they were gliding in non-
frozen water. The cunning birds. The ducks looked
joyful and carefree as always, the geese were set on
an expedition to the City Hall’s wall - a distance of 5
meters which took them more than 30 minutes. They
were like Arctic explorers roaming the pack ice on a
sledge. After they had reached their destination the
brave explorers disappointedly turned round - what
had attracted them to the wall was the yellow cap the
wind had blown off a boy’s head the day before, but it
wasn’t good for eating on a lovely winter’s day.
The swans, the biggest residents of Reykjavik pond,
the ones that set tone for anything that happened in
the water were sad and slow. No light could make them
cheer up because they knew that there were months
to pass before the real light and warmth to come. So
they were just sitting there, crunching ice, trying to
make holes in the ice with their heavy legs, not even
pretending to be casual, just sad but keeping an eye on
the smaller birds.
In spite of their winter hunger the birds didn’t care
about the passers by, they were all too deep in their
frozen world, each of them was set on a mission to
stay alive - they couldn’t waste energy on begging for
food, they had to find it themselves. They had put
their hearts into it because they knew there was no
other way out. You cannot go against nature.
The three fighting ravens landed on the City hall’s
roof. They had another plunder, glossy and tempting;
its golden wrap was glittering to the sun. The sound
of the ravens’ shrieks made me wonder about how
precious the contents of the package was and the fierce
pecking into one another reminded me of how cruel
nature could be. The spoil was constantly changing
its owner but whoever had it wasn’t able to fly away
from the roof because the other two went on stabbing
with embittered and growing strength until feathers
and glistening gold went down before the stares of
the stunned inhabitants of the pond. But the big black
ravens didn’t notice the missing treasure, drops of
blood and missing eyes made their attacks even more
vicious.
The geese set out on a new expedition, this time to the
golden shining package that fell from the black beaks
far above. Slowly but steadily they neared the treasure
but oh, what disappointment for the gray explorers to
find out plain tissue paper stuffed inside the glossy
wrap. For the second time today the brave geese’s
expedition turned out to be a disaster but I couldn’t
find even a trace of despair in their steady walk back,
they were bound to find food some day.
The birds lost interest in the fight going on top of
the City hall and tired by the croaking retired to the
other end of the pond - let the strong ones finish their
fight uninterrupted. And it was quite on time because
a sudden gust of wind grabbed the golden pack and
threw it away at the black things on the rooftop, they
saw it and were off to follow its sparkle again when a
second, even stronger gust blew them away from the
eyes of the quiet spectators, who were set, once again
to their everyday activities of flying and landing,
exploring the ice and looking for food.
It was going to be a windy year. And this was just the
beginning. ■

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002. Reykjavík City Hall and The Pond