Tip of the Iceberg
Odin
As you may be aware, the theme of this months Symposium is Spring Cleaning. That is to say, we have asked our roster of writers to dig into their archives and dust of something old that has yet to see the light of day.
In my experience most writers have scores of Works in Progress, half formed ideas that have yet to be fleshed out and pieces that are almost done that they have not yet published out of either fear or embarrassment squirrelled away in the deepest recesses of their computers.
Spring Cleaning is all about bringing such works to the surface and lightening the load.
’s submission here- originally written way back in 2001- is a perfect example of the good that Spring Cleaning does. Because I strongly believe that this story of Norse Gods is too good to remain unpublished and unseen. I hope you will feel the same way.Enjoy.
TJB.
A thick fog blended with the early morning light and erased all points of reference and dulled sensations. No sound was heard except the rhythmic and slow sound of the diesel motors of the two cargo ships that had almost come to a stop. Everyone felt an increasing sensation of unease.
Captain Ragnar had not slept for the last few days and was developing dark circles around his wrinkled eyes. His weather-bitten and bearded face was dry as parchment and his clothes seemed to be the only part of him that was in order. Ragnar gave orders to the crew that had stayed back on Sigyn to come to a complete stop and to double check the radars for any sign of movements or unusual phenomena.
Everyone worked in silence and now Freya had also stopped moving. Ragnar stood on the deck of Freya with a cup of steaming coffee in one hand and an unlit cigarette in the other. He was nervously glaring to both right and left, out toward the water and the icebergs.
Immediately to the left, about 500 ft. away from the cargo ships floated a giant iceberg, and slightly to the right a little further up another iceberg waited. The water was metal blue and the light that streamed in through some sort of awkward meteorological phenomenon gave an impression of heat rising from the surface of the sea and swirling up in the air in a multitude of spirals until they rose above the still impenetrable mist.
Even the Faroese seamen who had stayed through everything with an almost heroic attitude, drank their coffee with shaky hands, and it took them a while to light the first cigarette for the day - but still no one swore or even muttered a silent curse when the matches lit out too soon... it was quiet. Even the enormous two masses of steel they all stood on had quieted and not even a creek from expanding or shrinking metal could be heard.
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Captain Hansen woke up. Sabina was standing by the bed and as soon as he opened his mouth she signaled to him not to speak. Let's go up on deck, she signaled, pointing upwards to the ceiling. Hansen had slept for almost ten straight hours and felt stiff and uncomfortable, his muscles ached and it was with painful effort that he finally sat up. She handed him his boots, saw that he couldn't bend over due to the pain, and bent down herself to tie the shoelaces for him.
He was obviously embarrassed and almost tipped over the bottle of water he stretched over to grab while letting her help him. She stood up, looked at her clock and remembered that it had stopped functioning a long time ago, held out her hand at Hansen and looked at his growing beard.
Battling with the sea, she thought to herself. This man almost seems to be fighting with the gods. Look at his beard - it has almost crept out of his chin as seagrass from the sea onto a shore, and his eyes - isolated from the rest of the face like two lighthouses pulsating out a deep-blue stream of light...
Hansen accepted her hand and they took the staircase up to the deck.
The crew on board the deck of Sigyn could be seen from the deck of Freya as standing either still or walking very slowly. Many of them aimed binoculars in various directions. Sabina was also peering through a pair of binoculars she had found in the cabin below.
The fog and the light was getting more and more intense by the minute. The source of light was now focusing towards one direction though it was not yet as strong as sunlight. Someone coughed, matches were lit, others rubbed cold hands together.
Hansen stood absolutely still and stared off into the direction of the light. His eyes felt like sandpaper. He blinked and two black dots appeared in his sight. He wondered if his eye muscles had gotten injured by the icy cold water, maybe he had kept his eyes open too long under the water? He closed his eyes and opened them again.
The two black dots were now moving slightly up and down with a steady pace. Hansen didn't stop staring but grabbed the binoculars out of Sabina's hand and adjusted them until he saw the two black dots much closer, and saw that these were not two black dots at all, but instead two black ravens heading right towards the two cargo ships!
Hansen muttered:
"He never sleeps, he can see in the darkness of night, and he can hear grass growing."
With untamable speed, through the partly frozen world of water and ice, he continued. Straight forward he advanced, ignoring the biting cold wind tearing on a face that was lit up by an ignoring pale sun. The sky was cloudless. Towering in all directions blue and pastel colored ice bergs floated with their massive bodies half buried in the porridge-like icy water.
He totally ignored or lacked respect for the fortresses of unpredictable ice and steered the small boat fast and steadily away from the next iceberg that met him. Half his face was lit up by the sun and half was shadowed blue by the reflection of an iceberg so near that its bottomless abyss could be seen beneath the water as something dark and unfathomable. Above each of his shoulders flew two large ravens. The feathers fluttering in the wind as did the man's hair, for he wore no hat...
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