New Foundland (from Colonial Mud)
The sky is full of sagas. While the sea is inky, I’ll write them down; while there’s whale meat and bottles of saké, and Japanese anime, I’ll keep writing my name, Leif Erikson.
*
The colony is frozen in my beard, grey and red like thunder. When it defrosts, it's a cartoon colony, populated by Disney characters. The Inuit are mildly embarrassed, and keep to themselves. No wonder! For all they know, I'm Yosemite Sam; always fuming and sputtering nonsense. I can't help but admire their serenity though, and the calm totems guarding their huts - blue whale, salmon, polar bear, sea lion. I'll include them in my sagas, cryptically, of course, to confuse future generations obsessed with policing the past. The shore is frozen solid; there are ice floes packed with sagas, floating into space, and astral avenues like runways, where Viking identity dissolves in water and ceasesless sky. I'm still Leif Erikson though, and gender fluid these days.
*
The whole of the north is quickly melting; there are floods and reindeer meat that needs eaten by tomorrow. The island is green; we didn't find it but we'll say we did. Water pours into the cold, blue sea from mountains where ancestors fry fish in heavenly fires. The cartoon colony expands, then collapses, and everyone becomes a silver trout on a hook, ready to be gutted for the frying pan. We're setting up safe spaces and becoming more trauma informed. The Inuit are impressed. Let's face it, the humpbacks are sick of being hunted, and polar bears are raiding bins in Michigan now. My sagas have taken a decidedly apocalyptic turn.
*
I finish the saké, and eat the last of the hard, black cake, full of brandy and fruit. The Inuit adopt me and teach me their stories, some of which merge with the sagas. I write magical runes on the ice and poetry for humpbacks, which animate my tattoos, and create a restroom for celestial beings trying to get a heat in their bones. There are bones on the land which will find their way into high school History texts; bones which are musical, but will only ever play Beethoven xylophone sonatas. My old bones turn to dust; I'm sprinkled in the icey mouth of the harbour, eventually finding my way to Greenland, where my dad, Erik the Red, has set up an anime studio. I'm just far too proud to ask for a job, and no one likes a nepotistic colonialist.
*
The sky is full of sagas. While the sea is pink, I'll write them down; while there's blubber and bottles of vintage brandy, and Disney princesses, I'll keep writing my name, Leif Erikson, Viking.
