In Isolation We Are All Parasites

and long limbs do not look like they belong together. At first I cannot quite see his face, for he hides it beneath the shadows, and yet then when he finally looks up I rudely gasp.

  He isn’t a man.

  He is merely a pubescent boy.

  “Good morning,” I grumble in English. “May I ask why you are here?”

  He replies in blunt Norwegian. “I have come from the town of Ny-Ålesund, up north. I need directions to the civilization of Longyearbyen.” His expressionless face almost draws my attention away from his thick, deep tonne of a voice.

  “Longyearbyen, eh? That isn’t too far from here.” I reply. “I’ll give you directions but I can’t quite help my curiosity. Why do you need to go there?”

  He lips purse. “You do know of the eruption in Iceland.”

  “Of course.”

  “I just need to go there. Maybe there is some last ships, I don’t know. I’d rather die there than out here in this emptiness.” I notice that his leg is jumping erratically with fear. He embraces his shoulders to increase warmth. “I’ve been alone for so long. I want to be comforted by others before I die.”

  I grin sickly. “Why not just kill yourself? It would be far easier?”

  He frowns and his skin becomes feverish and discoloured. The veins grow beneath his skin and I know that I have hit a tender subject. “What is the point of suicide if you are already going to die?”

  I nod, somewhat satisfied, and extend my hand. “My name is Florin Natvig. I’m sorry I through such darkness upon you. Suicide seems so pleasant today. Well, maybe not. We are going to die anyway.”

  He clasps my palm. “It’s okay. I am Øyvind Suicide.”

  I pause, disturbed.

  “Pardon.”

  “My name is Øyvind Sundfør.”

  I shake away the devils crouching on my back and force a smile. “Any chance you are related to Susanne Sundfør, the musician. She was a large influence on my own work.”

  He shakes his head. “No, I am not. Are you are musician yourself?”

  “Yeah, I was. Not anymore. My wife and I formed a band forty years or so ago – Athene. Maybe you have heard of us? We were popular for a few years, but then we became a bit more alternative and people lost interest. Svalbard always loved us though.” I smile. In the distance the Seedbank grumbles and I feel its presence and angry tones beneath my feet.

  It is livid that I have not tended to it today.

  Øyvind clicks his fingers. “Yes I remember you know. You were quite the talk in Norway before I left. You have to be mad to come and live in Svalbard, they say, let alone in the middle of nowhere. But you were the most curious, an old musician and his wife living alone amongst the Aster’s, maintaining the largest global seed vault on Earth.” He pauses. “You’re a bit an inspiration.”

  I shake my head. “I am no inspiration. I am like they say – a crazy old man estranged by his wife’s death, obsessed with a hunk of metal filled with frozen fucking tree embryos.” My voice is flat.

  “They also say you swear a lot.”

  “I don’t believe in such things as swear words.”

  He seems comforted. For the first time in many years I also feel grounded, solid, like I have a place in this world. Beneath my feet, the Seedbank’s harsh tones subside, and I realise that in the last two days I have made two friends, people who, if not for the circumstance, I would like to communicate with again.

  “I should go tend to the Seedbank. If you follow the road to your left you should eventually come to a y shaped road. Take the right and follow for about ten kilometres. You should start to the sea the coast, and eventually you will reach Longyearbyen.”

  He nods thankfully and then stops, eyes dark.

  “Why bother?” He questions.

  My fists clench. “Why bother what?”

  Øyvind shrugs his shoulder. “Why bother tending to the Seedbank. You’re going to die anyway. Sure maybe someone will look after it once you are gone, but why now? You should do something exciting, something to make light of the dark. You could record a final song, an emblem, a symbol. Send it to the mainland. Leave it behind for the survivors.” He grins beneath light eyes. “You won’t die peacefully if you don’t let go of it all.”

  My mind becomes clouded with rage, my eyes excreting blood red liquid down my face. “The Seedbank is worth more than any life, it must be protected.”

  “But why? Why waste you last days looking after a piece of junk. You said it yourself – the Seedbank is nothing but a hunk of metal filled with frozen seeds. Do something exciting?”

  I am disgusted. “What, like kill myself?”

  He grimaces.

  “You don’t think I can sense it. I know you’re going to kill yourself once you reach the town. Longyearbyen is the only civic in Svalbard that has access to a pharmacy, such a creation that sells strong drugs. Why you could easily overdose and drop like a daisy.” My memory writes a novel. “Asters are purple and poppies are pink. Drugs you shall take, death you shall brink.”

  He shakes his head. “How dare you accuse me of wanting to kill myself? I would never and if so, I would have appropriate motives.”

  Laughter escapes my lips and slithers across the ground like the cold Svalbard air. “Go on then, admit it, you coward, and actually confess that you are planning on killing yourself.”

  He starts to cry, blood dripping from his eyes also. “You don’t understand.” Pleading.

  “Yes I do.” My sobs echo. I scream – “I am going to die too. All my work, the Seedbank, my music – everything will crumble because of a fucking volcano.”

  “At least you will be with your wife.”

  Shattered.

  I fall to the ground.

  “She would understand.”

  He shake his head in pity. “No she wouldn’t. She would want you to let go. Embrace your death with happiness. Don’t spend your last day looking after something that will probably waste away.”

  “But the Seedbank is far too important. It is critical to the world’s survival. It is too essential to just give up on!”

  “Important to who – the world, or yourself?”

  He paces backwards and opens the metal wing of his car, spitting at me. I remain on the floor, my head beneath my hands, trying to block out all the voices, claiming me as a coward and a parasite and a monster.

  The engine starts and in a matter of minutes he is gone, his only remanent a deep bass drum, parked beneath the grass and the gravel and the dirt. I crawl over to it, inspecting it with my hands. Upon the top is a note, addressed to myself.

  Neither of us are cowards.

  -

  I follow his words.

  The old back room of the house, soundproofed and all, hasn’t been opened in almost 13 years. I have refused to open it after her death, refused to touch an instrument, to write to song.

  All I thought about was protecting the Seedbank.

  I find a melody, unfinished. A fast tempo, simple tune.

  The lyrics come naturally.

  I slip the guitar into my palm and my senses awaken.

  Breathe.

  -

  Aster and I park the car against the coast, a bright silicone mess of coral and driftwood that reminds me of the artificial island all those years ago. The defining moment of which Aster and I became friends, musical partners and – more.

  Aster turns to me and I gently touch her strawberry hair, feeling its smoothness between my fingertips. We have been travelling for months now, over forty different countries, busking and performing, selling EP’s and albums.

  We are here to celebrate.

  After all these years of practise we have finally landed a record contract. Athene has finally been discovered by a small indie label.

  We are overjoyed.

  “We should probably tell our families,” Aster explains. “They will be overjoyed.”

  I nod. “Yeah. We should probably go and visit them soon too, we’ve been away for quite a wh
ile now. As much as I love Australia I will never truly forget my love of the cold. Norway is home. We should probably stop by one of the islands on the way. I’d like to see Svalbard.

  Aster agrees. “Yes, Svalbard, we’d be damned to hell if we never visited. It’s supposed to be amazing.”

  She touches my shoulder.

  “Hey Natvig,” she says slowly.

  “Yeah.” I reply smoothly, giving her my most attractive face.

  “You have an erection.”

  I pause, face crumbling, and cover my pants, red with embarrassment. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what came over me. I was thinking about something while you were talking and oh my…”

  She laughs and leans forward.

  “I don’t mind.”

  We kiss, just a small peck, for a few short seconds.

  I shake my head, my body urging for more. “That was absolutely disgusting Aster. I expect much better.”

  She gives me a look which is halfway between amusement and anger. Outside the sun is beginning to set and the sun reflects golden light across the water, exposing the reef beneath the shallow waves.

  I stutter for words. “Maybe we should tongue kiss?”

  “That wasn’t subtle or anything.”

  She drags me to her lips and we passionately embrace, our bodies inseparable. She latches onto my shirt and begins to remove it, stroking the skin of my back with her fingertips. I moan, excited and she kisses my neck, hands creeping downwards, towards – the area that shall not be named.

  And then I look outside the window.

  In the distance I see an enormous snake, as aquamarine as Aster’s eyes, slithering across the rocky plateaus above. I pull away from her body, and tilt her head to its direction.

  “The snakes, Morelia Viridis. I thought you got rid of them?” I