And this finishes the Year 0 prologues.
It's your own fault: you asked me to share them.
Day 9Snaking hill roads, snowbound, lonely;
Västerström kin their vehicle fuel
Where dumped papers deal the tidings
Of the doom sickness, death world-spreading
To Stig, husband, stern about money.
Yet it reaches not Ulrika, wife,
Their bairn Mia and Bosse, dog,
Huddling cosy in their car boot.
Ulf and Elvira, awful gamblers,
Childish parents, choke conversation
With stupid demands till Stig, boiling,
Threatens to stop, throw them snow-wards
And leave them to walk to the lonely cabin
Where the Västerströms, avoiding the rash,
Are planning to share a short holiday
Till sickness ends and all is normal.
Month 3Sea-guards limit the Icelandic risk
Of the rash sickness. The seas they ward
With a strong hand and a strict rule.
Thor, wave-warden, thorough defender,
Sails the boatroads with sight unbleared.
Árni Reynisson, unready guard,
Sees on the radar a restless blip
That signifies a sea wanderer,
Little, unarmoured, looking for haven.
Thor signals the sloop, Icelandic to know
But the only answer's an outlander wave
So Thor hammers the hapless boat,
Her guns shatter the gulls’ companion,
By death destroys the death sickness.
But Reynir's son dissents the ravage,
Nightmare his days, his nights haunted
By unsated slaughter, the sinless blood
Staining the sea. Stay he can not.
He quits, accepts his quarantine
And vows to forget, to garth his sheep,
With all Icelanders the lore to erase
Of the centuries past, of the silent world,
That one far day all will be well again.
