Translation: Julie Summers

“When I saw your amma for the first time, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen,” said Afi in the kitchen on Brekkubraut as he recalled working in the herring fisheries in Siglufjörður. “I followed her here to Akranes with nothing but the clothes on my back, and there was no work to be found that first week,” he said, furrowing his brow and looking at the cards in his hand. “But I was sure lucky to find work at the cement factory, because it paid well. In my forty-year career, I only missed ten days of work, even though I had three kids, worked other jobs on the side, and built a house during that time! – Olsen,” he said, smiling. With three cards left in my hand, I had no choice but to play the king of spades. “King of hearts – Olsen, Olsen. Losers win and winners lose,” said Afi, handing me a hundred krónur. I smiled at him with warmth in my heart. Although his hair had turned white and his back was slightly bent, and although I had just turned twenty and thought I was a grown-up, the same rules still applied. The younger generation always won.

Graphics / Margrét Aðalheiður Önnu Þorgeirsdóttir

It’s been ten years since that conversation with Afi and almost five years since he passed away. Our interactions were marked by respect and good cheer, and he was always ready to share his wisdom. By his example, he taught me so much about gratitude and humility toward my environment and the diligence needed to reach one’s goals. His work ethic was evident in everything he did. Because of his job at the State Cement Factory, he was able to put a roof over his family’s heads and give them a good life. The factory was an oasis in the worker’s desert, and the cement produced there was poured into developing the country. Icelandic cement is hiding in many a house, though the factory, the former workplace of so many Akranes residents, has been leveled. These days, we don’t want to have something so environmentally destructive right in front of our eyes, in the middle of the community; we prefer to have a lovely residential area with green space there instead.

In the same way that Afi’s house became the family’s home, the earth is mankind’s home. And just like in the case of the cement factory, we’ve learned to relegate our secrets – factories, trash, and scrap iron – to the attic and the cellar. We hide our impact on the environment in rooms that we take care to keep closed, rooms where we store pollution, climbing temperatures, rising seas, extreme weather, and forest fires. Natural disasters turn into human tragedies, constantly repeating themselves and growing in size and strength – like zombies in a horror film. The earth is transforming from our home into a house of horrors.

Humanity is a character in this powerful house. We deplete its resources and shirk our responsibility to maintain it. The sinks are leaking, the structure is failing, and dirt is piling up. Worn and neglected, the house is crumbling and doing whatever it can to evict its inhabitants. The beauty of nature is turning against us.

When it came time to name my children, I thought drawing on natural phenomena was the most obvious way to convey their beauty. Ísarr Myrkvi conjures images of glittering glaciers and solar eclipses that cannot be glimpsed with the naked eye. Eldey Rán communicates the powerful forces shaping the earth beneath our feet and the sea that surrounds us. When I look into their eyes, I simultaneously feel a deep love and a sense of guilt. The world I’m leaving behind for them and their children is not the same world into which I was born – and certainly not the same world into which their great-grandfather was born. In their lifetimes, ice that once seemed invincible will disappear, becoming one with the powerful sea, which will wreak havoc on the earth as it swells. Islands will sink into the sea and homes will be lost while the planets continue in their orbit, observing the catastrophe from afar.

These zombies of the natural world will continue to roam and terrorize humanity as long as we remain unprepared to face them head-on. To put them to rest, we must learn to regard our home with a spirit of gratitude and humility. If we want to work through the trauma, we must work diligently to stop the leak, reinforce the structural framework, and clean up the mess. Let’s use the experience of previous generations to give the next generation the victory. As long as we remain in denial, the zombies have the upper hand, and everyone loses.

Hotel Earth