the dip

When my fingers started falling off, it became harder and harder to put my shoes on and take them off. After I lost the first two, I switched from laces to Velcro. I used to wear them all the time as a kid, and I’ve always been fascinated by the technical innovation behind them. I read somewhere that the idea was based on the way flower seeds latch on to animal fur. And that ripping sound when you peel them off is oddly pleasing. Although it’s almost impossible for a grown person to wear Velcro shoes without being labelled a simpleton, I’m trying to do my best not to let that affect me.

As I put my shoes on the metal rack of the communal swimming pool, right between a pair of biker boots and someone’s orthopaedic shoes, I notice that the coin is gone. It was bound to happen. I never knew where it came from, and I still don’t know why I was convinced that it was a lucky charm to have a coin in my shoe. But for the whole week that it had been dancing around in there, I hadn’t lost a single part of me — not even a toe. I still have a lucky seven of them left. Deep down, I know it’s not because of the coin, but at least it’s a good omen.

It’s good to think while you pee. Flowing water gets the thoughts going. It’s like daydreaming by a bustling stream. But why do people put chewing gum in the urinal? What’s left of my body shivers as the yellow stream hits the greyish glob of once-tasteless poison. Yes, I really do dislike gum.

I look up at a poster that has been hung over the hand dryer and reads like this: People who are struggling with the loss of limbs should be able to enjoy a trip to the swimming pool just like everyone else. This is about people like me. Limb loss is not a transmittable disease and carries no risk of infection. Let’s help this rapidly growing part of society enjoy a swim with dignity. There’s a picture of an athletic-looking woman wearing a swimsuit, but her left arm is missing. She smiles directly at me, and I find it comforting. It’s good to know that people still care about us.

A friend of mine only has his torso and head left, which of course is still plenty. We need to remember to be thankful for what we have. He isn’t exactly a friend of mine, but I used to go to school with him. I haven’t seen him for at least 20 or 30 years, and I heard he doesn’t leave the house anymore. He sits around watching reality TV shows about people who clean large office spaces with toothbrushes and women who kill their pets while his mother feeds him with a spoon. That’s what I’ve heard at least. Or that’s what I imagine. And I can understand why he doesn’t leave the house.

Water falls from the showerhead. Being naked gives me a sense of freedom — I had forgotten what that felt like. As thousands of tiny drops each kiss a separate part of my pale skin, for a few seconds, I bloom, like a flower in a nature documentary that has been sped up for effect. I’ve been hunched and clamped up like a fist.

I need to remember to shower carefully though; I can’t rub anything too hard. Water will do most of the work. I’m a bit worried about drying off with a towel, but that’s a problem for a later time.

“Long time no see, buddy!” My friend, the lifeguard, shouts at me from across the pool as I come out of the locker rooms. He’s lifting weights. He’s lifting the heaviest weights. I think his name might be Anton. He’s worked here for ages, but I can’t remember if it’s Anton or Alexander. He’s wearing flip-flops, and his feet are perfectly pedicured. I smile back, but as I raise my hand to wave at him, I remember that it looks misshapen and repulsive so I hastily hide it behind my back. The smile will have to do for now. I hope it looks real. It feels real.

Most people have a steady pool routine. Swim, hot tub, sauna, hot tub, that sort of thing. Mine isn’t that rigid. Some days, I’ll do tub, swim, sauna, tub, but when I’m feeling especially good — when I’m feeling healthy and energetic — I’ll do swim, tub, sauna, tub. Today is one of those days. I lower myself into the pool like a teabag. I’m submerged. The strokes are slow and heavy but pick up the pace. They find rhythm. My hair is a forest of seaweed at the bottom of the ocean. Photosynthetic antennae. Breathing does not concern me.

As I walk over to the hot tubs, I’m a new man — whole. I have no idea if anybody’s staring at me, as my eyes are only half open. I saw a video recently of a newborn, hairless kitten. It looked otherworldly, but also pure and innocent. With its eyes only half open. For a few seconds, I am that kitten in the video. Pink, blind, and slimy.

Sometimes, the hot tub can be a good place to break the isolation and chat with people. Today, I plant myself in the farthest corner and avoid eye contact. The other old men usually don’t need a lot of encouragement to start chewing your ear off. One look and you’re in their web. Sometimes, they’ll talk about sports or the weather, which is fine. I like talking about sports. I’m not very knowledgeable, but I’m good at nodding along. Most of the time, they want to talk about what they dislike — the government, women, young people, limb losers (sometimes we’re called droppers or 3/4 folk), or immigrants. I don’t dislike many things, except maybe chewing gum, and I can’t see any reason to talk about gum.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see one of them is about to say something to me, so I close my eyes. “The hot tub always reminds me of my house in Thailand,” he says. “Do you want to know why?” I don’t, but I’m too sleepy to decline. “It’s because of fish soup.” He laughs. “I keep a pot of soup on the stove, and every evening, I boil a piece of fish in it. Everyday. Same soup, different fish.” He probably could have said something much worse.

As I drift off, I think about the smell of boiled hot dogs. I could smell them when I was at the grocery store. Of course, they don’t sell groceries anymore; the only food they sell there now is boiled hot dogs. Also soda, cigarettes, candy, and lottery tickets. But since they used to sell groceries, that’s what I will keep calling it even though I was just there for the lottery tickets.

“You want all the bonus numbers?” the lady behind the counter had asked with a smile. It was the kind of smile that uses all the teeth without being overbearing or scary. I remember thinking that her hair probably smelled of boiled hot dogs, which is fine; they smell nice, and I’m sure her hair smells of boiled hot dogs in a nice way. I know her. Her name is Jóhanna or Jósefína or something similar. I had carefully counted out the coins for the ticket with all the bonus numbers before I left the apartment so I didn’t have to think about it. I just nodded and smiled back using way fewer teeth.

The printer in the lottery machine buzzed as I piled the coins on the glass, and she counted them. Most people would have been annoyed, but we know each other, so she just smiled again as she picked up one coin after the other and put them in the cash register. She peeled the lottery ticket out of the machine with a nice ripping sound and put it on the counter.

And that’s when it happened. I picked up the ticket, or I thought I did. As I was about to put it in my inside pocket, I noticed my hand was empty. I looked at the counter and there it was— the lottery ticket and on top of it was a finger. My left index finger. No blood, no gore. It had just fallen off. And as I looked back up at Jóhanna or Jósefína, I couldn’t see her teeth anymore.

When I open my eyes again, all the old men are gone. Maybe they all went somewhere together. There is a small barber shop next door where they could get their hair cut for pretty cheap. If they had any. Instead, they sit around there all day and carry on with their loud and empty conversations. At least I still have hair.

On the other side of the hot tub, a child who looks way too large for his age — probably four or five years old — hits his mother on the head with a plastic toy boat, and they both laugh. Some people might call this child fat, but I wouldn’t. To some people, he might seem like an unpleasant child, but I hope he is going to be ok. That he’ll grow and blossom. He hits his mother with the plastic boat again. And they laugh.

I look up at the sky above. The clouds decide to spare us a bit of sun, letting a handful of rays through. The water is very close to a boil, but the air is cold and crisp. It feels like alchemy.

I can’t stay in the steam bath for long, but as a rule of thumb, I force myself to stay until at least one person who was there before me leaves. Luckily, there is only one woman in there when I enter, and she leaves about half a minute after I sit down. For a moment, I think she may have left after seeing my hands or feet, but it’s so dark and steamy in here that I’m pretty sure she didn’t notice.

The benches in the sauna are tiered — the highest one being the warmest and the lowest one the least warm. I usually sit on the middle bench. There’s no point in being in the steam bath if I’m not sweating, but still, I don’t want to overdo it. The middle ground is my home.

I place my elbows on my knees and my head between my hands and watch drops of sweat fall from my forehead onto my feet. I start counting the drops: one, two, three, four, five. But then, I realize something terrible and start counting my toes. One, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three, four, five, six! There are only three toes on each foot. I’ve lost another one.

In a flurry, I’m on all fours like an animal on the floor of the murky steam room. I hope nobody comes in and sees me like this, but I need to find the toe before someone else does. Before Anton or Alexander finds it by the side of the pool. Before someone pees on it in the urinal. Before the fat kid eats it or the old man finds it swimming in his eternity soup. Before the lady who just left the sauna finds it in her bathing suit as she takes it off and gets sick all over the women’s locker room, crying and cursing people who can’t control where their limbs fall.

As I walk back over to the hot tub, I can feel that my balance is a bit off. For each toe I lose, I become a bit wobblier. I stretch out my hands for balance like a penguin with its awkward, stunted wings.

There is a group of teenagers in the hot tub now. They’re laughing but luckily not at me. They are laughing with each other. And they don’t notice me as I stumble around in the water and stare down at the bottom. The blue tiles are like an unsolved crossword puzzle. I don’t understand physics. How come my face doesn’t reflect on the surface of the hot tub, but characters in myths and fairy tales are always using puddles as mirrors? Maybe that has nothing to do with physics. There are just so many things I don’t understand. And I can’t find my toe.

“What’s the difference between a bagel and a donut?” At first, I think one of the teenagers is talking to me. I look up and he’s not. I guess he’s just telling his friends a joke, but there’s no punchline. They’ve stopped laughing. It’s a genuine question, and his friends just shrug. I notice both his legs are missing, and through his long, blond hair, I can see a little pink stub where his left ear used to be. He’s a handsome young man and healthy looking. His teeth are so white that it’s hard to look directly at him. They’re luminous. He doesn’t care about anything in the world. Except maybe knowing the difference between a bagel and a donut. Which seems obvious to me, and I envy him.

“Excuse me? Have you seen a toe floating around here?” Of course, I don’t

SMÁRASON

say it out loud, but I want to. I want to talk to them and laugh with them. I want their youth to be contagious.

Instead, I waddle out of the hot tub, my eyes dancing about in their sockets as they try to locate my lost toe. I make my way to the main pool area where Anton or Alexander is reading a book on old tractors and doesn’t notice me. The book looks heavy, with lots of pictures of cumbersome Fords and Fergusons and other extinct metal elephants. But Anton or Alexander is a muscular man, who holds the huge book easily with one hand while he licks the index finger on the other and turns the page. More elephants.

At the very bottom of the pool, I can see something shiny. I imagine that it’s the sun reflecting off my toenail through the prism of water. This time, I don’t lower myself in slowly, I let myself fall. There is a splash, and for a moment, I think of Anton or Alexander’s book. I hope it didn’t get wet. But elephants do not concern me; my eyes are fixed on the glistening object at the bottom. Is it emitting light or reflecting it? I dive deeper and reach out with my mangled hand. As my fingertips catch what I thought was my toenail, I realize it’s the coin from my shoe. A sign. It is definitely possible that I might be crying, but it’s hard to tell underwater.

Örvar Smárason is a writer and poet. His latest book, a short story collection titled Svefngríman, was published by Angústúra in 2022. Previous works have been translated into Italian and Japanese.

He is also a musician and composer, a founding member of múm, long term member of FM Belfast and Icelandic übergroup Team Dreams. Along with his solo work, Örvar has released countless albums through these collaborations, as well as film scores, theatre music, and other projects.

He also writes lyrics for different artists including Hjaltalín, Benni Hemm Hemm, Ásgeir Trausti and Retro Stefson. Örvar also tinkers with visual art, having shown his artwork at countless exhibitions and published two books of drawings. His education includes studying scriptwriting at FAMU in Prague and an MA degree in Creative Writing from the University of Iceland.

Celebrating 60 Years of Iceland Review

The first issue of Iceland Review came out in August 1963. Its ambitious editorial team aimed to grant travellers, businesspeople, and the general public abroad insight into life in Iceland: the country, the history, the people, and the value they created.

Since then, Iceland Review has continued telling stories of Iceland’s community, culture, and nature in both words and pictures. Eruptions, earthquakes, economic ups and downs, the first steps of musicians like Björk and Sigur Rós, and five of the republic’s presidents have all graced the pages of the magazine through the years. The magazine’s photographers have captured the force of Iceland’s waterfalls, the heat of its lava, the vast expanse of the highland, and the faces of the nation.

Each issue in 2023, our 60th anniversary year, will feature excerpts from our archives showcasing notable events and topics from years gone by. Although it has been six decades, we continue to see new dimensions of the country and its people.

There’s something enticing about a road that goes ever on and on. You know where your starting point is but you never know where you might end up. Will you take the road less travelled by and will it make a difference? Where you’re going, will you even need roads? While on the road, what sort of people will you meet? Will it be the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing? After all, they say it’s not the destination but the journey.