It’s two o’clock in the morning, and our exhausted, ash-caked band of adventurers are trying our best not to fall immediately to sleep in the back of the stolen car you’re driving down Route 41. Although it’s so late, the Arctic summer holds back the darkness of the night from claiming Iceland as its victim, bathing us all in the ethereal blue of twilight. The lights of the capital twinkle across the still waters of the bay; the lights of the highway snaking through the endless wasteland twinkle in your eyes.
From the back of the car, the friendly one asks you a question, a question aimed at everyone, but pointed at you, as you’re the one who has to keep her eyes on the road.
― What would you say is your national identity? ― he asks, half out of curiosity and half out of interest.
You take a moment to think about this, and your thoughts are only broken by the rumbling of a truck passing by on the other side of the highway. It’s the only vehicle we’ve seen in the past half hour.
― I’d say I’m Dutch, ― you begin ― but my mother, you know, she’s Icelandic, and my father is Luxembourgish, but I spent most of my time in the Netherlands, and now we live in Belgium… really, I just consider myself to be European.
The car falls into silence for a second as our tired minds try to think of our own situations. It’s funny, being in cosmopolitan groups like this. Where you’re from, and what you would identify as, if asked, aren’t necessarily the same thing. They’re just some kind of cultural shorthand, a way to categorise each person’s knowledge of the world, to get a foothold in trying to share experiences and tell stories.
Some of us, like you, had such an international upbringing that you can’t find yourself attached to just one place. It doesn’t make any sense in your head, it’s like trying to fit yourself in on the map like a square peg in a round hole. The friendly one and the gentle one express their envy at you having such a varied childhood, and yet something about that envy feels hollow to me.
Growing up in one place, I think to myself, gives you stability and comfort, and yet takes away your understanding of the world around you. You’re less of a bird, catching updrafts from place to place, constantly in search of something more, but are instead the tree, standing tall and strong at the centre of the forest, home and witness to hundreds of transient birds, ever watching yet never moving.
There is always an active and a passive participant in the act of leaving someone behind. If you’re the tree, you’re the passive one. And the tree can never move; even if its branches are blown by the wind, leaning back and forth with every gale, it always returns to the same position, watching the world pass it by.
― I’m the tree, ― I say, feigning a delirium from sleep so as to not have to explain myself.
― The tree? ― you ask.
― No matter how far I try and stretch, to see a new horizon, to break free of the chains that tie me down to the place I grew up, I always find some excuse to head right back home as soon as I possibly can, even if I hate the place. Why am I heading home on Sunday? I’d stay here if I could. I’d stay anywhere if I could. But I’ve seen my home change and become something I hate, something I can’t in good faith say I want anything to do with. All my friends have finally left, so why can’t I?
― Why don’t you stay here? ― asks the friendly one.
― I can’t.
― Why not?
― I have things to do. ― I lie.
I have nothing to do. There’s no reason I have to return anywhere to do anything. Out of education, out of work, with nothing else to do but head home and resign myself to the rat race. And despite there being absolutely no obligation to do so, I can’t envision any future that doesn’t involve me getting on that plane at Keflavík at the weekend.
I look through the wing mirror and see a sign for the airport receding into the distance. If only that were my future, with the airport receding into the distance. Something catches my eye, and I can’t help but try and change the mood in the car.
― Look at that, guys.
Everyone turns around (except you, for you have to keep your eyes on the road), and looks at the great ash cloud of Fagradalsfjall hovering above the horizon, glowing a deep orange by the fires at its summit, fires which to me are burning away any hope of the future of the receding airport. In minutes, the lights of the first town of the Capital Region will be upon us, and we will no longer be able to see the volcano.
I pull out my phone and take a picture of the distant maelstrom, and close my eyes tightly shut lest the others see the tears threatening to cascade down my face.
