At the back of the book, everyone had a photo with a caption underneath predicting what that person might be doing in 10 years time. It was mainly a chance for the editor's to joke and poke fun at people by suggesting things like "Joe Bloggs: Secret agent on her majesty's service" or "Jim Jones: International fashion icon".
In my case, the caption read: "Abducted by Aliens".
I have a terrible fear of predictions, even those ones that are made as jokes. No matter how un-serious they are, somehow they seem to hang around our necks and lurk in dusty hard-to-reach corners of our sub-conscious. Although I have never wished for, or actively sought out to fulfill this abduction prophecy, walking around in Iceland's wilderness makes me think it has never been closer to coming true.
This land is beautifully alien. It feels like walking over the surface of Mars, but with air you can breathe and water that's sweet to drink. The only thing that's missing are the bright lights and the little green men, but maybe that's why there is all this talk about auroras and Huldufólk.
I came Iceland hoping to meet Jonathan Harris. He often talks about aliens and even his past desire to be abducted, a strange coincidence which makes me even more unsettled. But high-school prophecy and foreign landscape fears aside, I think there is another reason why I'm feeling a constantly present tingle of anxiety.
Here I am, travelled to the edge of the known world and seemingly one step away from doing what I set out to do, yet I'm besieged by an endless list of doubts, fears and apprehensions which make my stomach churn.
What if I don't meet him?
What if I do meet him?
What will I say to him?
What will happen afterward?
This last one is the strangest. Having come so far, its as if I'm in mortal fear that the story might actually be coming to end.
But I guess all stories have to end somehow. For my sake, I hope its not going to be an ending as dramatic as this extra-terrestrial Icelandic landscape could so easily support, and yet I also hope its not going to be a ending that's bland and completely devoid of meaning.
So maybe there shouldn't be an ending?
This possibility seems even more nightmarish to contemplate - what if I get to Siglufjörđur and its like a rainbow, whose end keeps moving to be forever just out of reach?
But how dare I speculate about endings when I still have so many more miles to travel and so many choices to make!
Until its time, I guess I'll have to just keep quiet, stay humble and have faith that if-ever and whatever kind of ending tomorrow brings, I can accept it with grace.
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