Something we have here

We drove out through the tunnel to catch the return of the prodigal sun, which had come back to the place where it never stops shining.

We were up on the mountain at midnight, and for several hours after that.

We were there to catch the sunset, but it was more of a kiss or a touchdown, or some kind of yellow rubber ball falling slowly through fluid and then bouncing up gently off the horizon, which was the North Pole.

There were forty of us walking the lunatic lines, with 500-foot drop offs on either side of the path, which was not even a path but more of a sliding stream of gravel. There were rivers, too, and many summits, and up on top of one of them a red-haired woman passed around a bottle of vodka. On another one a man rustled into his backpack and pulled out a sheep's foot, hoof and all, which he then passed around, and everyone tore off a chunk. On another, you could finally see Siglufjörður again. From up there, it looked like a toy town.

"Strange country. Strange people," said Hálfdán. "And it is a privilege to be strange."

It was time to go down, but it was hard to leave that kind of place. I asked if we could wait a moment more, to stare at the sea for a while.

"I have told you many times," he said. "Time is something we have here."