Finals took longer than I thought. But here we are. (: I don't know if you'll still want this a year after your original post, but hey. Here's an early Christmas present.
Notes for this part: the eldmessa, or fire sermon, was a sermon delivered by Jón Steingrímsson, a priest living near Kirkjubæjarklaustur, during the eruption while the lava was approaching the town. The sermon supposedly stopped the lava flow and saved the townspeople from certain death.
It's quiet in the room but loud in his head: he can hear the rumblings of his land in his brittle bones, beneath his ashen skin. Another bead of sweat rolls down the back of his neck, but the cool moisture hardly alleviates the fire he feels inching closer and closer, an inexorable fate.
He would kill for a drink of water right now.
He drifts in and out of sleep, slipping into imaginary lava flows one moment and waking to real ones burning in his spine the next. The wind begins to howl. He kicks this way and that, flailing his bony arms around, trying to free himself from his smothering sweat-soaked blankets, but he's too weak to escape.
He wonders how many days have gone past now—how many nights, how many weeks, how many months. He feels as though he's been in bed without food, without water, for years now, but feverish dreams and ash-clouded skies are poor clocks.
He folds his hands, chipped yellow fingernails meeting knotted knuckles, and tries to pray. The eldmessa saved Kirkjubæjarklaustur; maybe he can muster an Our Father. He can't make it past the first three words: his head swims too much and the asthmatic voices of his people echoing in his mind are too loud for him to think.
He smiles in spite of himself. He's not sure what he's waiting for anymore, or even if he is waiting. Waiting means he expects something to change, and right now, it feels as though everything will remain the same, neither improving nor worsening.
Laki [1/7]
Notes for this part: the eldmessa, or fire sermon, was a sermon delivered by Jón Steingrímsson, a priest living near Kirkjubæjarklaustur, during the eruption while the lava was approaching the town. The sermon supposedly stopped the lava flow and saved the townspeople from certain death.
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It's quiet in the room but loud in his head: he can hear the rumblings of his land in his brittle bones, beneath his ashen skin. Another bead of sweat rolls down the back of his neck, but the cool moisture hardly alleviates the fire he feels inching closer and closer, an inexorable fate.
He would kill for a drink of water right now.
He drifts in and out of sleep, slipping into imaginary lava flows one moment and waking to real ones burning in his spine the next. The wind begins to howl. He kicks this way and that, flailing his bony arms around, trying to free himself from his smothering sweat-soaked blankets, but he's too weak to escape.
He wonders how many days have gone past now—how many nights, how many weeks, how many months. He feels as though he's been in bed without food, without water, for years now, but feverish dreams and ash-clouded skies are poor clocks.
He folds his hands, chipped yellow fingernails meeting knotted knuckles, and tries to pray. The eldmessa saved Kirkjubæjarklaustur; maybe he can muster an Our Father. He can't make it past the first three words: his head swims too much and the asthmatic voices of his people echoing in his mind are too loud for him to think.
He smiles in spite of himself. He's not sure what he's waiting for anymore, or even if he is waiting. Waiting means he expects something to change, and right now, it feels as though everything will remain the same, neither improving nor worsening.
He is Iceland.
He is dying.