it.Thank Jesus—”There by the fire,Eirik rebukes him. “Bullshit,” he says.“Close your mouth.” He climbs the porch,Raises his hands. Red are the doorposts,The frame behind him, hot with sparks.“God,” he repeats, “God be thanked.You know Johan, for Jesus’ sake,Took for his houseHallgrimskirkja,On the hill. He thought JesusCould sustain him, could preserve him,Save his daughter—don’t you see?I also, Eirik the African,Sank my faith in something empty—Thomas’s gun, the Glock Nine,Chrome barreled,Bone grip.But look now. Neither JesusNor my Glock is good enough.The rich hide behind their wallsIn Hvolsvollur. Who comes to help?But I will hike to Hekla’s top,Hurl my gun, heave it downInto the steam,And the steel bulletsAfter it. In the afternoonI’ll wreck this wall, winch it apart.Safety is good, grain in the fields,Green-house vegetables; vengeance is better.This I tell you: Time was,We were happy, here in Iceland.Cod in the sea,Snow on the mountain,Hot water in every house,Cash in our pockets, planes and cars,The world outside, waiting and close.Old men remember, mumble and mutter—That time’s gone, turned forever.The pools are drained, dams breached,Turbines wrecked,Ruined enginesStarved for oil. The sea risesBeyond Selfoss. You have seenThousands die, tens of thousands—The mind rebels, breaks or bends.Days ahead, the dim past,Forward, back ward, both the same,Wound together.At the world’s end,Jormungand, the great worm,Holds his tail between his jaws.Ragnarok rages around usHere, tonight, now, forever,Or long ago. Good friends,Remember it: men and skraelingsFought togetherAges past.So—tomorrow we’ll march westTo Keflavik. Jacobus waits.We’ll scour the coast, search for fighters,Heroes to help us, guide us home.Left behind, you’ll learn of us,Tell our legend, teach the truthOr invent itThe old way.Parse our lines upon the page:Two beats, then pause.Two more. Thumping heart,Chopping axe, and again.Not like the skraelings, with their long linesOf clap-trap, closing rhymes—Not for us.No more.Johanna’s alive. How I know,I don’t know. Don’t ask.But I swear I’ll bring her here,Avenge this.” Then he’s silent,Standing near the spitting fire,Under Hekla, in the rain.
Six Months, Three Days
CHARLIE JANE ANDERS
The man who can see the future has a date with the woman who can see many possible futures.
Judy is nervous but excited, keeps looking at things she’s spotted out of the corner of her eye. She’s wearing a floral Laura Ashley style dress with an Ankh necklace and her legs are rambunctious, her calves moving under the table. It’s distracting because Doug knows that in two and a half weeks, those cucumber-smooth ankles will be hooked on his shoulders, and that curly reddish-brown hair will spill everywhere onto her lemon-floral pillows; this image of their future coitus has been in Doug’s head for years, with varying degrees of clarity, and now it’s almost here. The knowledge makes Doug almost giggle at the wrong moment, but then it hits him: she’s seen this future too—or she may have, anyway.
Doug has his sandy hair cut in a neat fringe that was almost fashionable a couple years ago. You might think he cuts his own hair, but Judy knows he doesn’t, because he’ll tell her otherwise in a few weeks. He’s much, much better looking than she thought he would be, and this comes as a huge relief. He has rude, pouty lips and an upper lip that darkens no matter how often he shaves it, with Elvis Costello glasses. And he’s almost a foot taller than her, six foot four. Now that Judy’s seen Doug for real, she’s re-imagining all the conversations they might be having in the coming weeks and months, all of the drama and all of the sweetness. The fact that Judy can be attracted to him, knowing everything that could lay ahead, consoles her tremendously.
Judy is nattering about some Chinese novelist she’s been reading in translation, one of those cruel satirists from the days after the May Fourth Movement, from back when writers were so conflicted they had to rename themselves things like “Contra Diction.” Doug is just staring at her, not saying anything, until it creeps her out a little.
“What?” Doug says at last, because Judy has stopped talking and they’re both just staring at each other.
“You were staring at me,” Judy says.
“I was …” Doug hesitates, then just comes out and says it. “I was savoring the moment. You know, you can know something’s coming from a long way off, you know for years ahead of time the exact day and the very hour when it’ll arrive. And then it arrives, and when it arrives, all you can think about is how soon it’ll be gone.”
“Well, I didn’t know the hour and the day when you and I would meet,” Judy puts a hand on his. “I saw many different hours and days. In one timeline, we would have met two years ago. In another, we’d meet a few months from now. There are plenty of timelines where we never meet at all.”
Doug laughs, then waves a hand to show that he’s not laughing at her, although the gesture doesn’t really clarify whom or what he’s actually laughing at.
Judy is drinking a cocktail called the Coalminer’s Daughter, made out of ten kinds of darkness. It overwhelms her senses with sugary pungency, and leaves her lips black for a moment. Doug is drinking a wheaty Pilsner from a tapered glass, in gulps. After one of them, Doug cuts to the chase. “So this is the part where I ask. I mean, I know what happens next between you and me. But here’s where I ask what you think happens next.”
“Well,” Judy says. “There are a million tracks, you know. It’s like raindrops falling into a cistern, they’re separate until they hit the surface, and then they become the past: all undifferentiated. But there are an awful lot of futures where you and I date for about six months.”
“Six months and three days,” Doug says. “Not that I’ve counted or anything.”
“And it ends badly.”
“I break my leg.”
“You break your leg ruining my bicycle. I like that bike. It’s a noble five-speed in a sea of fixies.”
“So you agree with me.” Doug has been leaning forward, staring at Judy like a psycho again. He leans back so that the amber light spilling out of the Radish Saloon’s tiny lampshades turn him the same color as his beer. “You see the same future I do.” Like she’s passed some kind of test.
“You didn’t know what I was going to say in advance?” Judy says.
“It doesn’t work like that—not for me, anyway. Remembering the future is just like remembering the past. I don’t have perfect recall, I don’t hang on to every detail, the transition from short-term memory to long-term memory is not always graceful.”
“I guess it’s like memory for me too,” Judy says.
Doug feels an unfamiliar sensation, and he realizes after a while it’s comfort. He’s never felt this at home with another human being, especially after such a short time. Doug is accustomed to meeting people and knowing bits and pieces of their futures, from stuff he’ll learn later. Or if Doug meets you and doesn’t know anything about your future, that means he’ll never give a crap about you, at any point down the line. This makes for awkward social interactions, either way.
They get another round of drinks. Doug gets the same beer again, Judy gets a red concoction called a Bloody Mutiny.
“So there’s one thing I don’t get,” Doug says. “You believe you have a choice among futures—and I think you’re wrong, you’re seeing one true future and a bunch of false ones.”
“You’re probably going to spend the next six months trying to convince yourself of that,” Judy says.
