Nils is standing to my right. I see our hotel just beyond his shoulders, a bland flattened building of no interest with balconies built into the corridors to get from room to room. We left Morty some time ago on the beach, but he now sits in a tidal pool created by the black decking. On closer inspection I see that the deck consists of planks blackened in creosote arranged radially around a circle opening into the fjord. I wander over to talk to Morty. He's kicking around some rocks and tossing bits of seaweed and seashells. His swimming trunks are white. I also notice two white objects of the same color not too far from him.
He says something of greeting which I don't understand. I stand on a nearby rock to get a better vantage of the white objects in the pool. They're stingrays, a large one perhaps 3 feet across and a smaller on, it's baby?, only a foot long. They flutter their wings and swim around the pool, always staying away from Morty and his white swimming trunks. Morty now has an ice pick in his hand and is picking at a rock. Pieces of rock and barnacles fall into the water creating circular waves that blend in with the raindrops.
'They're two stingrays in the pool. They're white.'
'Oh, really?' He seems uninterested. I think that someone could use them as inspiration for a new religion . . didn't someone already? . . a white animal . . ? .
Nils has left. I return to the hotel. I run into him while climbing the stairs to our room. He's standing on a balcony. The door behind him is open, and the room appears to be full of people. Someone asks me something in Norwegian which I don't fully understand.
'Gruntill i gor net stav..'
'Jag forstall inte du.. Hur star det till?' I don't understand.. what's going on?
They say something else which I don't follow, then go back inside the room. Nils has a wistful look on his face as he gazes into the sound.
'Whacha thinkin''
'Oh, the Sugarcubes. I miss those days.'
'What days?'
'I used to play for them.'
'What?'
'Hah! I bet you didn't know that. I played guitar. I was also the business manager.'
'Really?' I'm not sure that I believe him. 'And you knew Bjork?'
'Oh yes, sure.' He senses that I don't believe him and turns to a machine near the end of the corridor. He turns it on and projects a table onto the wall. Icons similar to coat-of arms, though some of the are square or hexagonal, lie in the right-most column. Numbers and short bits of text fall in the other columns. The icons are simple but filled with brilliant colors, some have a lions head in them, others swords or just abstract designs. A small paragraph is written along the bottom in a scandanavian language I don't understand.
'Here. You see? I'm listed as the guitarist.'
'But that's not your name. I only see "Nils Aldersson" towards the bottom.'
'Yes. I played under one name and managed under my real name.'
'There's more than 20 people listed. The band doesn't have 20 people in it..'
'This is all the people who went through the band. You see? Here's Enrique, the guy from Spain. You can tell by his coat-of arms.' The coat of arms has four stripes, two yellow and two red like the spanish flag plus one. Three red balls sit in a large yellow stripe under a thin red one at the top. 'He only lasted a few weeks . . then Dalman from the Netherlands. Everyone else was from around Keflavic.. The top 6 people are still with the band.. As you can see I'm 8th on the list.'
I nod my head in belief. I always thought he looked like a drummer, wearing those oval glasses and with his short-cropped hair, but when I think about it I realize he's from Sweden, not Iceland.
lynn@pharmdec.wustl.edu ÿ