The advent of new plastic pots from Reykjalundur Rehabilitation Center was honestly a welcome delight, although it meant I had no choice but to dispose of a loyal friend for a new partner, which has in turn become the true friendship. I loved my chamber pot. I wrapped my erstwhile acquaintance in the Morning News, tied rocks to its ears, and drowned him in the sea by the harbor wall in the early hours of October 30, 1954. On the plastic chamber pot, I sewed a patch to its ears to streamline things for my penis. Plastic can be plenty cold to the touch, too, though no way near as much as enamel. The patch, which is really a small cushion, gets washed using a green alkali soap and dries on the oven during the day, while I’m out at work. This patch is made from sponge taken from old car seats, which Sveinn keeps in the storage closet. He can go ahead and call me a thief but I warrant he has larger concerns. The plastic pot is bright and more colorful than the clinically white enamel one. Far and wide in iceland, boys amuse themselves throwing their old night pots against fence poles and listening to the enamel explode away from the iron with an oddly piercing crack resounding long after the stone has smashed it. These splinters are dangerous to the eyes, though from the modern child’s perspective plastic pots are no less an opportunity when they are set on fire and born aloft, a brand burning out the old year from up on a high pole.
—hauled myself back into bed, shivering with frostbite, because I was wearing practically nothing. While I was on my feet I did not honor my bodily health enough to buy it pajamas, even though no one survives without their body, as the ancient saying goes, and this sleep I reckon worth little, indeed it is tasteless to sit without underwear, since there’re more emissions from the body during sleep than waking.
I continue where things fell off the thread broke I use to mark straight lines on the notebook’s blank page I could barely make out the faint lines along the page’s surface today I started foraging and came across a whole pile of old Snotru-brand composition books from the time when I tutored private students between six and seven in the evening until the incident with the washing machine while parents were trusting me with their children while I was healthy and before the time of oxygen cylinders beside the headboard and a mask hanging on a loop by my bedside and I realized that I was soon going to die so nothing better to do with my time than writing books scrawling in them insignificant things in this tome ass too much chit-chat when it broke for the time being after the mask’s thread ripped on the nail I got from a catalogue and used to mark lines on the page I have never gotten comfortable with the distinction between voluntary and involuntary events now I have reached the time when I fidget with the book its lines having broken back her spine
It is an act of friendship when the puss, Títa, wets me
Due to the nature of my work, I wear a sleeveless undershirt and short underwear during the day.
yes: according to the terms of the lease it is Anna’s duty to come three times per day at a minimum and change me though she does not come when needed most so it dries on me all by itself and what does Anna do then but turn her nose up and fuss over the strong odor in the room wanting my district administrative officer dead Títa you’re the cat who found favor with the district administrative officer
The office is well heated—the state pays our heating costs. I travel there on foot. I can walk briskly in snowstorms, frost, any weather; nothing stings Tómas. Outdoor under the bare sky where it’s often cold and snowy, in wet or dry weather. Nature is a stereotype, is boring, she never thinks up anything new. In strong wind, when I turn at a street corner, the cold wind breezes up my pants legs. I should wear bicycle clips on my legs. There’s no warmth to be had except in thought. What thoughts? Petrarch thinks about Laura: Rime in vita di madonna Laura. My thoughts then were otherwise, which I nudriva ’l core in su ’l mio giovenile errore, quand’era in parte altr’uom da quel ch’i sonoyes yes che debb io farche mi consigli ellitempo e ben di moriremadonna Katrín e morta et ha seco l mio core e volendo seguire interromper conven quest anni rei nonono everything’s forgotten and dead and vanished from the leaky scrawl of memory blind as a post and nowhere any warmth in thought she is aged bedridden and dead and scattered in the wind the field, the cut, and Rut picks up the ax a faint light seen occasionally and afterward one’s hearing is turned off, sight too, so each lives exclusively within the body’s meat I begin clutching the material for sustenance then I remember an oxygen mask sharpens one’s thoughtfor example, I recall the old buses. I never went anywhere in a bus. Quite the opposite: I saved my money, it went in the envelope carefully marked General Thrift. And from this envelope can be heard the following subtext: Money saved out of contempt for buses, which foster strikes and increase chaos, mass hysteria and colds, the fluin the office I would be too hot in long underwearI keep the envelope in the bottom drawer. Sigurður wears long underwear. Often you can see his bulging underwear spill from his socks as he sits at his desk and draws his pants up by the crease. He is always the same as ever, knees in pants. Well, how would I react if a sudden announcement came on the radio saying people had been ordered to wear woolen underwear? For forty years I had worn long woolen underwear. I’d say shedding them seemed a step in the direction of culture. First, World War II divided households into two enemy camps—for or against woolen underwear, grandparents versus grandchildren—and mothers tried to make peace with normal undergarments. From this time a foreign influence has placed the nation’s mental health in jeopardy. At the war’s end a loud dispute erupted over nylon socks, chewing gum, Coca-Cola, and blush and lipstick, though occasionally Stalin hijacked these disputes from Hitler, and now and again people asked, Is Stalin worse than Hitler or Hitler better than Stalin? so as to achieve an intellectual variety in their discussions. What breaches our national unity now? Ten-year-olds no longer understand their parents’ language and customsen morale et langage sont des sciences particulieres mais universellesthey are not above considering teaching positions in the university accompanied by examination and study books in their pockets, those who prefer to continue in this heroic deed of noting everything down my whole biography continues just the same as anyone and anything and everything yes well at leastthe other day someone approached me, talking and speaking about his understanding, his knowledge of some underwear, just come on the market, knit from so-called “nylon wool,” which keeps the body at a constant temperature no matter whether the wearer is outside or inside, working hard or hardly, in winter or summer. These synthetics have great ventilation, he said.Ólaf and Sigurður earnestly debate whether the icelandic landscape is more beautiful, magnificent and ever-changing than corresponding foreign landscapes we Icelanders cannot indefinitely survive the terrain we cannot eat the mountains we cannot drink the beautiful blue glaciersKnit clothes require the right setting, like a manger on a hillock, a farmhouse with deathly blue women and children who have meadow-green mucus in their noses, men with itinerant, suspicious gazes. A reversion to this time would be like going back to doing it in your pants. We have to find a new material for our underwear . . . Anna struck my paw I said I had not became bedridden while I thought about clothes you cannot shit yourself any more I shall remember Pearl Harbor always and forever what has become of my books burned sold destroyed lost and forgotten as if my life is only according to others’ grace come you understand now your father when he said he would prefer to lie in the earth than in comfort and you pull back your head when this aged figure slowly drew a creased life insurance envelope from beneath his pillow handed it to his own son and yawned wearily like when he came home from the sea he took snuff to keep awake but gave up the ghost having previously carefully studied the price of a coffin, he wanted a black coffin no angels no flowers no gold bronze handles no grave with a stone before his short spell in his deathbed he was frugal because as his last days approached he solely ate water wished to die debtless in his sleep satisfied with the world he expired and expired on a fasting stomach you children failed to make him dependent upon you she said in the en
velope there is enough for a sheet and pillowcases we have plenty of hay then Björg flung herself on the bed and cried she had forgotten to ask her father forgiveness but now it was too late for her to say that she had always loved him deep down behind her heart in the silence behind the wheedling but I turned on my heel hardened in my contempt for this which fed me living or dead and said I did not want to see them again the two could handle the funeral it would not be onerous for two robustly sprightly women though they busied themselves baking a funeral feast
The refectory has not been deprived of quarrels because we quarrel spiritedly and inspired by whatever the talk of the town is.
Here follows a short list of the main risks that beset the small population of the icelandic nation from 1939 up until the Marshall Plan:
a) Gymnastics softens the bellies of young men and makes them workshy; b) bicycle saddles destroy young virgins—“the priority being that every husband enjoys his wife on their wedding night; for girls, bicycles are no different than promiscuity”; c) the extension of school-going nourishes debility in people and hardens the mouths of adolescents (Enemy No. 1, Brynjólf Bjarnason, K. fl.); d) Contraceptives, “which are nothing but the assassination of fine upstanding citizens who are alive and fertile in the seed of those who desire nothing more than to see the creation of The One” in the fullness of time (Enemy No. 1, Katrín Thoroddsen, K. fl.); away with sheaths from the breast pockets of all men’s jackets! A prophylactic-free land! All such new products in the stores amount to the end of the world, the plucking and eradication of the icelandic family. Merchants and shady dealers contribute to this I) with brilliantine, which renders Icelanders as bald as foreigners; II) burning people’s stomachs with mustard and ketchup; III) increasing everyone’s belching and wind by means of vegetables; IV) killing tourists in tents with canned poison in canned food; V) hollowing out the insides of people’s heads via radio; VI) importing sexually transmitted diseases and sexual promiscuity with open foreign underwear, “which must be carefully boiled in a high strength alkali soap before wear;” VII) increasing appendicitis by importing overpriced raisins with pits in them; destroying women’s brains with imports of high heels (2000000 blows daily to the spinal cord and cerebellum); all this that makes one’s wife indifferent to housework and child-rearing.
And then came the nylon, which stuck to women’s legs in the frost, blocked their pores, and “did not allow the normal bodily expulsions by which people void their innate germs.” Women were not safe to be photographed in nylon underwear; they came out naked in the picture.
Against all these threats to the contemporary moment the nation found consolation in Q) the American army based at Keflavík Airport, “the largest and most advanced airport in the world and even further afield”; Z) iceland’s geographical position, the most remarkable geographical location in the world, “the plan that will result for mankind in the upcoming war-game, the superpowers’ child’s play, the game of the atomic bomb (the first target of an atomic war: Keflavík; W) the highest antenna in Europe at Lóran Station on Snaefellsnes (all nations, hidden or visible, admire the largest Lóran antenna in the world during peacetime).
I have been forced to take ignorant people into my property’s square footagebut are there any laws against lawlessnesswho makes laws dictating that apartments cannot stand empty and unoccupied in the struggle over housingam I bound to be a sacrifice to the homeless and improvident, me who is almost blind, deaf, enfeebledcan I argue with myselfif you don’t house Peter then Páll forces himself insideaccording to the law no apartment can stand empty in this competition for apartmentsI believe P no more than P but I do not house P and I defend myself therefore with him against P, then P comes with kids and his missus and demands an apartment and demands I let him fend off Pthe nucleus of the problem from my standpoint is that both Peter and Páll live according to preferences that justify them taking possession of my floor area and in plain sightmy mistake from the start consists in being frugal, from deciding to own whyever I did so and Sveinn and Katrín gave notice and left the apartment standing empty for a whilethe option was to welcome Magnús and Anna following their relationship with Katrín and Sveinn and Anna is a distant relative of mine, both on the side of the great Bergsætts, the chief family of this country, descended from the kings of Norway at the time of the Settlement, all the kings and queens and princes and princesses on the way to inherit a country a family with joint ownerships it is split into entrepreneurs and intellectualsso it’s reasonable that Magnús and Anna get to walk the floor here rather than some loose rabble from Skagaströnd who rip toilets out of houses and sell themalthough the point always remains the same, snatching the apartment from him in due course once I am sufficiently senile, old and weakened from cohabitating this fragile-witted man cannot keep the entire apartment up by himself he must accept loans or donations break the tip of his hubris lose his healthy pride and now I force myself upon myself all by myself doodling on paperI cannot think of anything that lets toxins into the blood through the nervous system but something that brings peace and quiet and balance and beauty ABOVE ALL BEAUTY while I pray to the reaper to come or else the messenger with the guide dog and bell collarthey reckon they can teach me to place all my faith in a dog and later care for my belongings with kind intentions they are planning to save those who will never be saved forever improvident who know nothing but foul language and create so much trouble that everything must revolve around the invalids or else the whole community will become invalids and then how will money be taken from Tómas Jónsson
You’ll be one hundred percent safe, the dog won’t lead you into any danger, they say; this dog is an expert in leading the blind in the streets. He could go with you in any direction, walking, in a coach, by ship, even in an airplane, and still find the way back home with you. It is about making blind people accept the same normality as if they were not blind. People are blind all over the world. You have no need to be ashamed of your blindness.
I could punch the friendliness of these voices right in the mouth
Remember, from now on your dog day is Wednesday. You’re registered with the Blind Association, and we expect cooperation. The Blind Association doesn’t leave any of its members up a creek. We have on our agenda a friendly relationship with all blind people, our desire to make the darkness tolerable.
Every Wednesday they bring me a treat from the Dog Bank, the loyal dog Trygg.
what do you do for recreational activities on your dog day.I’m so awfully pleased with mine.he’s called Argos.Everyone has a duty to be grateful to his therapy dog.I take all my trips: in shops and on buses and public toilets.I am no longer left wanting when any human whims come.I do everything myself I can bake and cook and take out the garbage. sometimes I even forget I am blind from birth.I visit blind Jón his dog day is on Mondays and mine on Tuesdays.we do everything with the help of the dog and our dog days play their part.cooperation is everything.why don’t you get together with blind Siggi you are on Wednesdays he on Thursdays this is ideal. The dogs and you can get betrothed!
He strolled, me in tow, around the area in front of my building from the trash cans to the gate and from there directly to the swing set and back to the trash cans I hung on to the leash for dear life afraid the dog would run after a cat or leave me out in the middle of the road
i know what you’re afraid ofbut they do not run after cats.you know, we should all form a coalition a blind union and demand from the government one dog per person and three dogs as backup.
Were we tougher, we would demand guide dogs in the government. Blind Jón is embittered. He pauses, and all at once we’re paired up, being led, six of us together, we start off like a ray of light from a christmas tree, singing hymns. We are organized into seven beams with dogs at the end closest to the burning tree, so no one runs into the candles. Don’t pull the collar too much, let the dogs be in control, and sing, Tómas, you’re not singing with us: In the dark shines the sun of life, sun of life. god
give us a happy christmas. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Now the blind hope the christmas elves bring them each a guide dog. But there the blind don’t lead the blind; instead, they’re equals among others.
Blind Jón makes an implausible Santa Claus.you’d recognize his voice immediately. you do not even have to close your eyes to recognize him as soon as he says: well, I got terrible weather up on Hólsfjalla but the dog coped.I heard that Jón and blind Inga who you talked to earlier locked themselves in the toilets at the last blind ball.we called a meeting and agreed to censure people who disrupt the social harmony.tonight blind Bagga and blind Víkingur are making sure no one locks themselves in the toilets.
Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller Page 2