From Iceland — Ten Short New Year’s Speeches Into The Future:

Ten Short New Year’s Speeches Into The Future:

Published January 17, 2011

00.00 01.01. 2011
I’ll probably be in the taxi once The New Year arrives, it never comes as was planned for. From the edge of the city you can hear the noise from fireworks, but you just see them vanish up into reddish clouds.
01.00 01.01 2012
The crystal dissolves in the palm of the hand. I can’t decide which party to attend and suddenly everyone is gone. Hallgrímskirkja looks like a Japanese ghost slowly expanding its jaw. I regret having eaten what I ate. 02.00 01.01 2013 No matter how I drink I stay the same, made from spirits but might as well be sober. It’s the holiday season. This evening is always supposed to be so great but it sucks as much each time. The bombs are the same. I should have bought fireworks. My hands are useless and it’s dangerous.
03.00 01.01 2014
The sheets are clean. I haven’t stayed up this late since 1993. The woman at the dinner spoke so much about the lack of vitamin-D. She wore a beautiful necklace and the floors were covered with mottled paper strings from crackers but I can’t recall any fireworks. Rickets, depression, bowed limbs, fatigue and skeletal deformities.
04.00 01.01 2015
The teenagers know nothing of the last century. They breathe like lap dogs, with their sleepy eyes and always sincere; they mean everything they say. We’ll take irony with us to the grave. Forgotten like some obsolete technology. They are just not interested in objectivity.
05.00 01.01 2016
Photo of Earth projected on the moon, no need for mirrors anymore, if you know what I mean. Where do they get all this information? Did anyone else notice a tiny shadow that ran across there just now? Just disappeared into the soot, and there is another one. Once there was a pond right where you are standing now, lead-grey from pike and the bridge across collapsed.
06.00 01.01 2017
Children are the future, have you looked into a tub of herring? Some still wiggling in the pile but it’s just spasm. Or movements arriving here from the next life. What do we know? The more the less, if you ask me. I always meditate death at midnight. Grab your mouth or you’ll come out. So many futures, one per crown and you can barely catch a glint of pavement.
07.00 01.01 2018
I have never had so much fun as right now. Now is great, now can always stay, just now, this is great. Nothing can take my attention away from this,
now, this is wonderful. Costumes? What a mistake. No one told me this was a costume party. Hopefully nobody is alone tonight, or dying. Hopefully everyone is just being born. Now is great.
08.00 01.01 2019
Birds can keep the Island. This thing that came from under the glacier can keep me. Family trees with small
bird houses and mutated cats fill the fox holes. You get used to the changes before you notice them. Like that through the centuries, may they keep on coming. Cheers to the dinosaur. Faith in science is a clown.
09.00 01.01 2020
I can’t believe I’m still up. Why do I always start the New Year in total chaos? Every time I’m afraid to miss something my life goes to the trash. Eyes filled with logs. Oxygen comes through the tiny holes, I’d ask for gills on my shoulder blades much rather than wings. I’m so wasted. Tomorrow I’ll ask forgiveness. Tomorrow is already here. I’ll never get to bed. Now was just then, God, existence can be so confusing. Cheers.

Support The Reykjavík Grapevine!
Buy subscriptions, t-shirts and more from our shop right here!

Next:
Previous:



Show Me More!