Summer Light, and Then Comes the Night

Few things in this world can equal driving a truck. Jakob has been the village's number one truck driver since 1980, and even if it's exciting, and maybe much more than that, driving a big truck to and from Reykjavik, it was even better when it took just over four hours to reach the capital; today, family cars can do the same in around two hours, a truck in nearly three, such has the world shrunk, though distances between people haven't diminished. But you should have seen us when the new road over Brekkan Bluff was opened three years ago, straight and wide, instead of the old, narrow one that wound up and down, even looped back on itself, seemingly unbothered about getting to its destination and in the winters disappeared beneath the snow- how we celebrated! A dance was held at the Community Center, We got sloshed, the women had red lips, and the grass was fragrant. Jakob was the only one who didn't celebrate, a string in his heart even broke when he drove the new road for the first time, getting over the bluff in fifteen instead of fifty minutes, and the old road winding for nothing high above the new one, halfway to the sky. But Jakob isn't the type who lets sorrow darken his days, he just drives a little slower, because, we repeat: few things in the world can equal driving a truck, which is why it would be utter stupidity to hurry.

Quoted on January 25, 2022