We Know So Little About Iceland

I sat next to a stranger at The Octopus Bar. She had long grey hair, a freakishly young face, a body as lithe as a yoga teacher. The fingertips of her right hand were blackened. She caught me staring. She confessed it was from the second to last lover. “He was too hot for me. The last one was too kind.” She later spoke about her stepmother’s country—Iceland. “What’s the interior like? The northernmost edge? Can polar bears commit suicide? Why?” At a diner, I sat between two empty stools, ordered black coffee. It burnt my lips.

Photo credit: Beret Olsen