Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.05.2010, Page 32
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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 05 — 2010 This is the first section of a four part short story by former Grapevine editor Valur Gunnarsson.
We have read the entire thing, and we can tell you right off the bat that it is a pretty damn awe-
some read. So stay tuned for God's return next issue.
FJÖREGG
Barnamenning
í Norræna húsinu
Admittance to the park is free. Registration + 354 551 7030.
Come, try, experience!
Soap bubbles table | Ice princess | Water blow | Sun radiator | Ball bench | Trembling well | Wave cradle
Science World
Experimental nature park at The Nordic House
April 9 - September 30, 2010
The Lord looked at the world he had created and
saw it was—largely—good. Each continent,
though different, had its own charm, and when
it came to Europe, it was Italy that stirred the
greatest pride. Its golden coasts complemented
the Apennine mountain range, the Po valley a
perfect contrast to the hills of Sicily. It some-
times seemed to him that the rest of the conti-
nent was merely an appendix, an afterthought
to this finely crafted piece. The thin strip, a
prosciutto of meticulously designed landscape,
was cut off from the more vulgar lands to the
north by the Alps, shielding his piece-de-resis-
tance from works in progress.
When the man-monkeys, with their un-
predictable yet God given free will started set-
tling the area, it came as a pleasant surprise
to the Creator of All Things that the fruits of
their imagination were almost a match for his
own. It was at times like these that he did not
regret having allowed the monkey men to crawl
over his creation, even though he himself had
been partial to giant lizards for a while. He
took pleasure in watching the rise and fall and
renaissance resurrection of the inhabitants
of his favourite peninsula. If lately they took
their pleasure in bad television rather than Mi-
chaelangelo, they could easily be forgiven. They
had done their part, left something behind for
others to admire and, like him, they deserved a
rest.
His attention spanned the globe. To the
north of the Alps there was, at first sight, less
to please the eye. Still, he felt he had done quite
well with the Norwegian fjords, but this had in-
spired their inhabitants to no such feats as the
Apennines had the Italians. Perhaps the fjords
were beautiful enough that no more aesthetics
were needed in that part of the world. It was im-
possible for mere apes to compete with him at
his best, or so he liked to believe.
Celestial eyes drifted to the left of his fa-
mous fjords. There, sticking out of the sea, was
a barren rock that looked like none of the other
places he beheld. His peers, had he any, might
remark that its appearance seemed somewhat
unfinished, an interesting idea but sorely in
need of a finishing touch. In fact he had been
meaning to do something with it for quite a
while, but there were always more pressing
concerns. Now and again he returned to it, and
wondered what use could be made of it.
Perhaps it could be used to fill up the Baltic,
but he had to admit he had gotten quite used to
the Baltic as it was. It served its purpose in any
case, there had to be some way to tell Swedes
and Danes apart. Somewhere between Britain
and the mainland, he thought, would probably
be a good place for it. It might even keep the
sea from chipping away at the Low Countries,
which, he had to admit, were something of a
f law in the overall design. The
Dutch where an
industrious people, they would no doubt find
some use for it. The British, however, who sang
so loyally of him saving their Queen, would no
doubt complain if they suddenly found them-
selves a part of the continent.
He had been meaning to do something with
that barren and useless island that he had
placed temporarily somewhere north of Scot-
land. But the Mediterranean had occupied him
for so long that when he finally turned his at-
tention back north, he saw that the island had
already been settled. This was not part of the
plan, and he prided himself on having a plan
for everything. Even if some decisions were a
bit more spontaneous than he would like to ad-
mit.
Now, tribes he had intended should move to
America from the West, to see how they would
interact with those who had moved there from
the East, had stopped halfway. Instead of dis-
covering a New World, they had taken to divid-
ing up and quarrelling over tiny fragments of
land on this island they now called Iceland.
These deathly pale northern monkeys never
ceased to amaze him. Why call something
Iceland and then fight over it. In any case, he
found the name quite fitting, so he let them be
for awhile.
He blinked his eye and centuries passed. It
was not, of course, the Icelanders who finally
got a foothold in America but the Mediterrane-
ans, followed by other tribes: French, British.
The man-monkeys of the West had failed to cre-
ate a golden civilisation by intermingling with
the natives. Instead, they exterminated them.
In retrospect, this was obvious. For
someone all-knowing, he could some-
times be remarkably naive when it
came to bringing people together.
Nevertheless, the Americans
now claimed to have created
a new kind of country. The
Lord looked on with inter-
est and even, dare we say
it, a glimmer. It was only
when events there were
at a lull that his gaze
again caught its ref lec-
tion in the glaciers of
Iceland. He started
counting on his fin-
gers, a hundred on
each hand, and found
it had been almost a
thousand years since
the land had been set-
tled. Rome rose and fell
in only a slightly longer times-
pan and still the northern ice
monkeys had not created anything
that passed for a decent civilization. In-
stead of building walls to hold out their en-
emies or coliseums for their amusement, they
had simply dug themselves into the ground.
Even the English, who at this point seemed so
intent on colonizing everything, ignored it.
God initially considered making improvements
on this icy land, but decided instead to start
over. The island of Iceland was to be drowned
in an ocean of fire. Somewhere up above, the
stars rearranged themselves into a smile. Per-
haps he had learned something from his chil-
dren after all. Was this not what they liked to re-
fer to, when they encountered something they
did not understand, as irony?
Fire erupted from the mountains; the sun
was blocked from the sky for those standing
down below. It reminded him of Pompeii, and
he wondered why he didn’t do this more often.
A dash of lava here, a pinch of smog there. Just
as he was getting ready for the final touch,
something started to stir down below. It was
the French. They were having a revolution.
They were saying there was no god. This he had
to see.
He blinked and then blinked again. The
world turned brief ly pink, and then, red, white
and blue. The American experiment, and the
French, had turned out just like all the others.
Who was next? God gave the ball a twirl. From
here it all seemed a foregone conclusion; you
only had to know how to count on all your fin-
gers. When he played dice, as he did from time
to time, he knew that the Chinese were now the
ones to bet on.
But a game of dice is not just about calculat-
ing the odds, and history is not just about the
numbers. For it was not the crafty Chinese who
were planting their f lag all over Christendom.
It was those unpredictable Icelanders. This, he
thought, cannot be good.
As he had done when Atlantis had its day
and when Eldorado outshone all others, he de-
cided to sit back and watch how this would play
out. Even if the outcome seemed obvious. God
looked down from the heavens and decided to
bet against the króna.
And yet, as he saw the expected events
unfold, he was nevertheless stunned. More
stunned than perhaps he had ever been in the
long and at times amusing history of human
folly. Sure, the sensible Germans had been out
of their minds for a while, but that was after a
world war lost and in the midst of a great de-
pression. The Americans had their Civil War,
the Chinese their Cultural Revolution, but
never before had a country that had it so good
decided to so utterly destroy itself.
That was it. This tiny speck was an insult
to all creation. The Lord knew that it was time
to finish what he had started so many seasons
ago. It was time to return to Iceland, and not
since the last days of Gomorrah had he been in
quite such a mood.
Next issue: God Returns.
God Returns To Iceland
Literature | Short story
VALuR GuNNARSSON
ILLuSTRATION BY LóA HJÁLMTÝSDóTTIR