Words by

Jón Örn Loðmfjörð

Photo by

Art Bicnick

I missed the last bus home on a Saturday night and unconsciously decided to stay until closing time in a well-know bar in downtown Reykjavik. A few seconds before I was thrown out I managed to buy beers and then agreed to follow a pack of strangers to a small apartment in Vesturbær.

We sat down, and I chained-smoked while the homeowner started to play cheesy 90s dance music. One of his friends bought an account on Tinder so he could super-like every girl there and ask them to join us. No response.

Then someone else showed up at the apartment. He wore a t-shirt, had dry-mouth and a clenched jaw. Asked where all the girls where. Told us he had been practising the last twelve months an easy way to pick up girls.

“The last twelve months I was in prison”—which could have been a metaphor, since he then spent a lot of time discussing how everything was fucked. How the repetitiveness of downtown partying was like a prison, how working was like a prison, how normal life was like a prison, how much prison was like a prison.

“… but the last twelve months I managed to learn to paint. I am really good now. It will blow everyone’s mind.”

He then walked around the apartment and asked everyone a few times if they could get him an easel so he could show off his skills. One person said he could maybe get him one but he lived far away. They discussed for a while who would pay the taxi and how much he would pay it, but they reached no agreement.

The guy then decided to walk around the apartment to try to find any loose object he could use to make an easel. He had a loud argument with the homeowner about the speaker cabinet, which he was convinced he could easily use to build himself one right there and then. The homeowner did not want to part with his cabinet even though the ex-con’s art would probably have blown his mind.

I sat down and decided to enjoy the scenario. I had already ruined the day by drinking and smoking too much. But alas, he never managed to show off his skills before I left home with the first bus in the morning.