Hubris

I am the one woman they want, the one they hate, the one they would like to strangle, marry, impregnate with their filthy seed; the one they dream of, fantasise about, write songs and poems to; the one they desire but cannot have; the one they cherish but smother. I smother them in their turn and watch their pathetic eyes wonder, ponder the great question of life and death while the former leaves room for the latter, my hands fast about their neck.

I have become a master in the art of delay, of persuasion, of lying, of execution. Some of my suitors I conjured up when they suited my needs – those shall be dispatched in due time – but my queendom spreads across the mortal world – and all of mankind now grovel at my feet.

I have more facets than Proteus; I am more ruthless than Jehovah, more cunning than the Klok gumma, more implacable than the Erinyes, more enduring than Hauhet.

I allow myself few arms to combat the hordes of men who roam these lands: silence, love and cunning. I, who was once considered a frail, pitiful woman, is now considered by throngs of males to be the goddess of murder, betrayal and love, all bundled together under countless shimmering disguises – nay, they are wrong yet again: I am beyond divinity.

I have consistently defeated the beaus, the lovers, the toy boys, the homo erectuses, the significant others by taking them and their libido to the cleaners, by trapping them with their own feelings, their own sense of guilt, their own inflated ego. Menfolk are so predictable. They are like dogs left alone for a couple of days and presented with a cornucopian bowl of food: they will gobble everything down in a matter of seconds, and will then feel hunger bitterly after just a few hours. And they never learn, unless I come and teach them how to masticate their food – love, sex, routine – and how to savour it – until I snatch it out of their drooling, expectant mouth.

None of the numerous inamoratos who lie athwart my path had more worth alive than dead. Such is the bare truth. None can be trusted, their sentiments are fleeting, inconstant and their hearts two-faced, without their knowing it. Patient I was and am no longer. Long have I waited for their call, for their attention, for their will to live, for their unconditional trust, for their total, unequivocal love. With men one always has to share love, whether it be a bed, a home or a fistful of minutes.

At dawn, a certain sadness stirred my heart. Unquiet are the hours, and at the pit of my stomach churns a leaden turmoil: time passes like the clouds on the plain where I now dwell, purposefully exiled from the world of men. For good. I feel I must lose myself in some senseless activity. Waste my time so that I may not see it pass, so that I may not feel its burden on my shoulders. Ward off brutish time in walking and sowing the land. Lost to the outside world, losing myself in my inner world, where the fringèd sandworts live, where the sólarhringur lasts a century, where I can consume myself in solitude, hatred, envy and fading hubris.