THE BOY

The six year old boy stepped out of the mail truck on the crossroads and put down the small old suitcase containing all the things that he had in this world: two shirts, two sweaters, two trousers, two underpants, two pairs of socks and a toothbrush. His mother had put these things into the suitcase in Reykjavik. When she kissed him goodbye next to the big truck that transported goods to the northern part of the country she said she would pay him a visit soon in the countryside. But the boy didn’t believe her.

Of all the things she promised to do for him, she never did a single one. All she did was take him with her to visit the women she knew in Reykjavik and let him play on the floor in the living room while she smoked with the women in the kitchen and told them bad things about his father, who was a worker by the harbor. And when he came home from work in the evening she usually stood by the living room window with chewing gum in her mouth, dreaming about a better life.

The boy went to the grocery store on the corner almost every day to buy food for his small family. His mother gave him a piece of paper with a list of the food he should buy. But it was always the same list and therefore he always got the same food, except when he didn't get any food at all because his parents hadn't paid for the food from the previous month. The boy was never given any money to pay for the food and as he couldn't read and write - he just made a cross by the names of his parent in a book on the counter. Then he put the food in a bag made of green nylon net and headed home.

His mother had lost him downtown twice. In the first case she finally found him at a police station listening to a policeman telling him a nice story. In the second case he was a little bit older, so he snuck into an open bus without paying the fare and took it home.

            "Please give this mail to the people at Slope and to the people at Hill," said the truck driver to the boy. "I won't go any farther and if you were not here I would just put it all into these mailboxes here. Hill is the next farm and when you see it you will also see Slope. I believe Slope is where you are going to stay this summer?"

When the truck had disappeared in a big cloud of smoke down the narrow gravel road the boy picked up his small brown suitcase and the mail, two letters and two newspapers. As the boy couldn't read he didn't know who should receive what, but for him it seemed to be a reasonable conclusion that he should hand over one letter and one newspaper to the people at Hill and do the same when he came to Slope.

The boy hoped that these strangers, living at these two farms, would not be angry with him for giving them these two letters. His father didn't like to receive any letters and once he asked the postman what happened to those who lived in some country with a strange name and brought bad news to people. He answered the question himself: "They kill the postman on the spot!" That night two very big policemen came to their home, but they went away laughing because his father knew them from his political party.

For three months, the boy threw all their mail away, but then some man wearing a uniform came and said that if they wouldn't pay for the electricity right away, they wouldn't have any the day after. "Well, we haven't got any bills from you lately," his father answered. "That is no excuse," the man replied, and went away with his giant nose in the air.

Two girls, a brunette and a blonde, were sitting in front of Hill when the boy arrived there, his entire property in one hand and the mail in the other one. "We knew that you were coming and we have been waiting for you to play with us," the brunette said.

"How did you know that I was coming?" the boy asked.

"We know everything," the blonde answered, and the girls giggled.

            "Well, I don't want to play with you," the boy said, although he wanted very much to play with them. "My father says that those who claim they know everything are really very stupid and it rains into their noses because they put them in the air all the time!" The girls laughed and it made the boy smile for the first time since he left Reykjavik.

The boy handed one letter and one newspaper to the girls. "This letter is not for our family," said the blonde. "Don't you know how to read and write?" she asked. The boy didn't reply. These girls really seemed to know everything.

"We are eight years old and we learned to read and write two years ago," said the brunette.

            "How come you both are eight years old? I thought you were sisters," said the boy. The girls looked at each other and then shouted together: "He has never heard of twins!" as they burst into laughter.

            The boy was angry. "My father calls stupid people like you besserwissers, or something like that! Of course I have seen twins! I saw twins on the TV with my father. They were in Bonanza and looked exactly the same!"

The girls giggled. "Well, people don't have to look alike, although they are twins," said the blonde. "But, what is Bonanza?” she asked.

The boy had never heard such a strange question before. "And you say that you know everything! Bonanza is a cowboy show and I watch it on TV every Sunday with my father!"

            "Well, we don't have any TV here. And we don't have any electricity," said the brunette.

This is not happening to me, the boy thought in despair. "Then you don't have any electricity bills here. My father would like that, but he would definitely not like that he couldn't see Bonanza and neither do I," said the boy after some serious thinking.

            "We have many interesting things here in the valley which you don't have in Reykjavik, for example elves, trolls and dwarfs," said the blonde.

"All the guys in Bonanza have shining guns and beautiful horses," said the boy with a dreamy face.

"Well, we have guns and horses here too," claimed the blonde. "And many cows! I am quite sure that you will become a cowboy at Slope," added the brunette. The girls giggled.  

            "Really?!" the boy said happily.

            "In a big cave in Chair Mountain on the other side of the river lives a very evil giant and he eats all the sheep which come close to his cave," said the brunette and pointed. "And where you can see the bend in the road between Hill and Slope a family of elves lives. Our father says that progress demands straight roads and therefore some stupid men came and wanted to blow up the elfstone with dynamite. But, of course they couldn't," added the blonde.

            "Well, I think it would be best for you to go to Slope now, before it gets dark and the ghosts will scare you on they way," said the brunette. The boy walked towards Slope and the girls waved to him. "Come back tomorrow and play with us!" The boy agreed.

            He was a little bit scared when he passed the elfstone, but he didn't see anyone there. When he arrived at Slope he was asked by a very big woman why it took him so long to walk from the crossroads. "I was talking to the girls at Hill," the boy answered. "Can I play with them tomorrow and become a cowboy here at Slope?" A very small and thin man was standing beside the big woman, and she looked at him in a strange way when she answered that, yes, the boy surely could become a cowboy there, but he couldn't play with the twins. They had drowned when playing by the river two years earlier.

Athugasemdir

[Greta Björg Úlfsdóttir, 18.4.2008 kl. 16:05]

[Óskar Þorkelsson, 18.4.2008 kl. 16:38]

merkileg saga :)

[Þorsteinn Briem, 18.4.2008 kl. 16:46]

Skari. Kannski smá.

[Ómar Ingi, 18.4.2008 kl. 18:33]

hehe

[Ía Jóhannsdóttir, 18.4.2008 kl. 22:01]

Góð frásögn Steini.  Ertu nokkuð skygn sjálfur? 

Njóttu helgarinnar sem best. 

[Þorsteinn Briem, 18.4.2008 kl. 23:42]

Sælar stelpur og tack detsamma! Nja, ég veit ekki, skyggn og ekki skyggn. Eitt sinn sá ég að Ælín Hörst var með viðtal í Sjónvarpinu við konu, sem sagðist aldrei vita hvort fólkið sem hún sæi og heilsaði, til dæmis í bönkum, væri dautt eða lifandi. Hún væri svo rosalega skyggn. Svo fór ég að spá. Af hverju nefndi hún banka sérstaklega í þessu sambandi og hvernig vissi ég hvort téð kona var sjálf dauð eða lifandi? Kannski var þetta svona "I see dead people"-dæmi.

Og ég mundi eftir þessu atriði næst þegar ég ætlaði að leggja inn pening í banka, sagði því si svona við gjaldkerastelpuna áður en ég afhenti henni peninginn: "Dettur þér í hug að ég fari að láta þig hafa peninga án þess að hafa einhverja sönnun fyrir því hvort þú ert dauð eða lifandi!" Og er ekki að orðlengja það að stelpan heldur að ég sé brjálaður bankaræningi, hallar sér fram og hvíslar: "Hvað viltu mikinn pening og viltu fá allt í fimm þúsund köllum?"

[Jóna Kolbrún Garðarsdóttir, 19.4.2008 kl. 00:10]

Góð saga  

[Þorsteinn Briem, 19.4.2008 kl. 10:14]

Takk fyrir það, Jóna mín Kolbrún. Endirinn er nú dáldið svakalegur en hjá því var ekki komist, úr því sem komið var.

[Þorkell Sigurjónsson, 19.4.2008 kl. 12:48]

SAGAN HM.  Takk fyrir veittan heiður drengur góður.  Kveðja.

[Ásthildur Cesil Þórðardóttir, 19.4.2008 kl. 12:53]

Já þetta var skemmtileg saga, og raunsönn að mínu mati.  Takk fyrir hana.

[Þorsteinn Briem, 19.4.2008 kl. 13:09]

Sömuleiðis, Þorkell minn. Sjálfur ertu drengur góður. Og takk fyrir það, Ásthildur mín Cesil. Já, það gæti verið eitthvað til í þessari sögu. Ég á eftir að kanna það betur.