Iceland review - 2019, Qupperneq 125

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Iceland Review
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IcelandReview_May_2019_TheEnglishPub.indd 1 5/13/2019 2:45:51 PM
Júlía Margrét is an author and director who also works as a cultural journalist for RÚV,
the Icelandic National Broadcastin Service. She holds a BA in philosophy and a MA in
creative writing, as well as an MFA in screenwriting, which she earned at the New York Film
Academy in Los Angeles. Most recently, she directed a miniseries called NORMS, and has
also published three books – the poetry collection Jarðaberjatungl (Strawberry Moon,
from which this story is taken), the novella Grandagallerí (Grandi Gallery), and the novel
Drottningin á Júpíter (The Queen of Jupiter), which came out last fall. In her spare time,
Júlía is also a lover of cheap beer, cats, far-fetched metaphors, and magic realism.
BIO
Afterwards, I was alone again, as I’d been the
whole time. I snuck off to have a cigarette, sitting next
to a porthole after everyone had fallen asleep. The
German snored, a smile on his face. Unafraid. But I felt
nauseous.
Nauseous from the crocodile and the red wine binge,
nauseous from the caresses of a strange man whose
cold wedding ring stroked my stomach. From what I saw
out the window, from the letter from you I kept in my
pocket. The piercing howl from the sea, ripping through
the silence. Nauseous from what I knew.
When I saw the strawberry moon finally break
through the cloud bank in the storm, I knew our journey
had come to an end. It was over for most of the passen-
gers on the boat, the red moon shows no mercy. Only
a few of them would ever regain consciousness. The
mountain kept trembling as the wilderness snarled in
its wake.
But still today when I start missing you, I think about
the buffet on the boat I sailed down the Tumida, on my
few days’ journey around Makastar.