F Trope: elves, gnomes and Halflings
Current Event: http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2011/07/02/icelandic-town-hopes-angry-elves-have-been-soothed-by-songs/
As I am born, my mother dies.
My father is driving too fast with Mom and an unborn me when he loses. He’s never clear on what it is he loses control of. He is an anthropologist and is analytical about Mom’s death when speaking to other people. After Mom dies, he keeps me and is raising me as well as he can alone. He is not a nurturer but a scientist. A scientist in the worst sort of way, not a mixture of scientist and father, nor of compassionate parent and scientist. He is a scientist alone.
I am certain he is loving only half of me because he hates himself. When I am a child, there are times he hits me. Then he helps me put on make up to cover the bruises. I’m older now and can put on my own makeup when he sees me and thinks too much of Mom. Usually though, I hold my breath, cover my kidneys, and curl my legs to protect my scrotum and I’m fine the next day. I limp some days, but never a lot.
Dad travels since six months after my birth. Together, we see a lot, but we rarely speak because he is often angry at others. I am the way he controls his temper when his feelings are hurt in public.
I regularly hack Dad’s computer and know he is obsessed with the origins of the legends that became root metaphors in European society. He skypes other friends all the time and has contacts all over the world. He has other interests as well, but after discovering those, I follow only his LORD OF THE RINGS searches.
He reads lots of fantasy and likes LORD OF THE RINGS and can even read the Icelandic translation (which his few friends think is weird). One of his heroes is “Snorri Sturluson, a descendant of Egil’s Saga’s hero, but this remains uncertain. The standard modern edition of Icelandic sagas is known as Íslenzk Fornrit.” His online name is “Snorri”.
I wouldn’t care about Egil’s Saga except that it has given me a clue what I can do to stop Dad. See, Egil's Saga is a family saga. It’s about the lives of the clan of Egill Skallagrímsson. He is an Icelandic farmer, viking and skald. The skald is an Icelandic poet, usually one who writes many poems. Its oldest piece of a manuscript over six hundred years old to 1240 AD, and comprises the sole source of information on the exploits of Egil. Most people think Egil and Snorri Sturluson, who is a real figure of Viking history, are the same person.
Dad is certain that they are two people and that he is descended from Egil and thus a hero. We are at a conference in Minnesota. Without Dad knowing, I am going to a fantasy and science fiction bookstore called “Uncle Hugo’s”. I don’t know anything about this city, but what do I need to know that would be any different from when he go to Oslo for Dad and my school?
I am following my inertial map and am almost to the store. I turn my had and see a banner reading International Marketplace. A gust of wind blows the scent of meat to me. Dad is not a meat eater, so I am not a meat eater. I will be shortly.
I am crossing the street – it’s just like any street in Oslo. I dodge cars and as I jump up the curb, a fight starts in the parking lot. Four white teenagers yell obscenities and racial epithets at a black man and an Hispanic woman. The man shouts back. The women turns and she runs toward me, looking at me, without saying a word, she is begging me to help her. The teenagers knock down the man and kick him, and punch him, and spit on him. One of the teenagers, a boy who looks like me, leaves them and runs after her. She stops in front of me then throws her arms around me. He knocks both of us over, grabs her and pulls her off of me even though I try to hold on to her.
I don’t see it but I hear a gun go off. The boy jumps to his feet, kicks the girl in the head. She doesn’t move. He runs across the parking lot. All of them disappear over a wall. The girl is bleeding from her head. I should do something, but I don’t know how to call 911 in the US.
Her eyes suddenly open. She pulls paper from her pocket. She pulls something out, wipes her bloody face with it then presses a folded sheet of paper into my hand as she dies and says…
Names: ♀ Iceland
Image:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg
Dad travels since six months after my birth. Together, we see a lot, but we rarely speak because he is often angry at others. I am the way he controls his temper when his feelings are hurt in public.
I regularly hack Dad’s computer and know he is obsessed with the origins of the legends that became root metaphors in European society. He skypes other friends all the time and has contacts all over the world. He has other interests as well, but after discovering those, I follow only his LORD OF THE RINGS searches.
He reads lots of fantasy and likes LORD OF THE RINGS and can even read the Icelandic translation (which his few friends think is weird). One of his heroes is “Snorri Sturluson, a descendant of Egil’s Saga’s hero, but this remains uncertain. The standard modern edition of Icelandic sagas is known as Íslenzk Fornrit.” His online name is “Snorri”.
I wouldn’t care about Egil’s Saga except that it has given me a clue what I can do to stop Dad. See, Egil's Saga is a family saga. It’s about the lives of the clan of Egill Skallagrímsson. He is an Icelandic farmer, viking and skald. The skald is an Icelandic poet, usually one who writes many poems. Its oldest piece of a manuscript over six hundred years old to 1240 AD, and comprises the sole source of information on the exploits of Egil. Most people think Egil and Snorri Sturluson, who is a real figure of Viking history, are the same person.
Dad is certain that they are two people and that he is descended from Egil and thus a hero. We are at a conference in Minnesota. Without Dad knowing, I am going to a fantasy and science fiction bookstore called “Uncle Hugo’s”. I don’t know anything about this city, but what do I need to know that would be any different from when he go to Oslo for Dad and my school?
I am following my inertial map and am almost to the store. I turn my had and see a banner reading International Marketplace. A gust of wind blows the scent of meat to me. Dad is not a meat eater, so I am not a meat eater. I will be shortly.
I am crossing the street – it’s just like any street in Oslo. I dodge cars and as I jump up the curb, a fight starts in the parking lot. Four white teenagers yell obscenities and racial epithets at a black man and an Hispanic woman. The man shouts back. The women turns and she runs toward me, looking at me, without saying a word, she is begging me to help her. The teenagers knock down the man and kick him, and punch him, and spit on him. One of the teenagers, a boy who looks like me, leaves them and runs after her. She stops in front of me then throws her arms around me. He knocks both of us over, grabs her and pulls her off of me even though I try to hold on to her.
I don’t see it but I hear a gun go off. The boy jumps to his feet, kicks the girl in the head. She doesn’t move. He runs across the parking lot. All of them disappear over a wall. The girl is bleeding from her head. I should do something, but I don’t know how to call 911 in the US.
Her eyes suddenly open. She pulls paper from her pocket. She pulls something out, wipes her bloody face with it then presses a folded sheet of paper into my hand as she dies and says…
Names: ♀ Iceland
Image:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg
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