LoveStar by Andri Snaer Magnason Read Free Book Online Page B

confidential), a strutting and magnificent bird with a rainbow-colored beak. It was utterly delicious, laid brown-splotched eggs, and sang: “Eat me, eat me!”
    Every day Indridi walked round the Puffin Factory grounds with a wheelbarrow and rake. He planted cinquefoil and forget-me-nots along the paths, combed out the heather, laid paving stones, and watered the cotton grass in the wetland. He pruned trees, pulled up chickweed, and cut the grass with a scythe. In late summer he picked crowberries and blueberries, took them home, and stirred them into Sigrid’s skyr.
    On sunny days the inhabitants of the neighborhood strolled through the factory grounds, lay down in the heather, looked up at the clouds, and listened to the song: “Eat me! Eat me!” It was all thanks to LoveStar’s ideas and vision.
    Indridi and Sigrid’s lives had been a dance on honeyed roses for over five years. But suddenly everything had gone to the dogs, and Indridi didn’t know whether Sigrid would be waiting for him when he got home. It was a long time since they had stroked their middle fingers together, and it was with heavy steps that he plodded up the stairs. His heart pounded in his chest as he opened the door and called:
    â€œSigrid? Are you home?”

LOVEDEATH
    LoveDeath was inextricably linked to love in Indridi and Sigrid’s minds. On starlit winter evenings they often drove up to the Blafjoll ski resort just before closing time. When the floodlighting on the slopes was switched off, the most distant stars twinkled. They made themselves comfortable on a mountaintop not far from an iced-over hut half-buried in a snowdrift. On the roof was a billboard:

    Indridi and Sigrid stared up into the darkness in silence or amid whispers, listening to their breathing and watching the steam rise from their lips as if from hot springs which sometimes gushed forth. Indridi and Sigrid gushed a lot about life and love as they lay on their backs up in the mountains, watching the twinkling stars and the yellow dome of light in the distance that eternally shielded the city dwellers from darkness and stars.
    â€œThere’s Orion,” said Indridi.
    â€œThere’s Capricorn,” said Sigrid.
    â€œWhere?” asked Indridi.
    â€œJust below LoveStar,” said Sigrid, pointing to the star that twinkled brightest of all in the sky.
    At regular intervals they saw shooting stars. “Someone’s just died,” they whispered, watching the flash streak and burn up in the atmosphere, and they were quite right. If they looked it up in the morning paper, they would be able to see who had died and read the obituaries by their loved ones.
    When the solar wind was favorable, the Northern Lights would appear, first as thin as an oily film, then dancing and fluttering as if someone had drawn a blue-green brain scan in the sky. The Northern Lights never lasted long. LoveDeath needed the energy. As soon as the lights appeared, there was a bumping and stirring in the hut, a light went on and an old man clambered out. He wore a fur coat and had a big mustache.
    â€œEinar’s awake,” whispered Sigrid.
    Einar said nothing as a rule. The snow crunched as he walked over to a mast, which stood on the mountaintop, and filled an orange balloon with helium. On it stood written in clear letters:
    LOVEDEATH
    CLEAN ENERGY
    CLEAN DEATH
    He tied the balloon to an endless roll of copper wire fastened to the mast, which was in turn connected to a power line that ran directly north to LoveDeath.
    â€œDon’t get in the way,” grunted Einar, taking out a knife and cutting the cord that held the balloon.
    The wire rattled off the drum at high speed and the balloon shot up into the black night. The Northern Lights had magnified in the meantime. They were like a greeny-white glacial torrent roaring over black sand, while the balloon resembled a float on a line. The old man was fishing, but before Indridi and Sigrid