The Filter Trap

Thank you for donating your precious time to read this book. In an age where many can hardly find the time to tell the rest of us how busy they are, it’s a rare treat to find anyone willing to set aside hours to read thoughtfully developed long-form entertainment. Please feel free to contact me with your thoughts on this work after you’ve finished (or while reading). I would be delighted to hear from you and thank you personally.

There are a few folks, however, that deserve my thanking in print, for they helped shape the work you’re about to (hopefully) enjoy:

Adele
and
Dale Long
, who always encourage me to follow creative pursuits.

Sommarat Rimchala
, my patient partner, whose “Why don’t you just write a book about it?” started me on the path to authorship.

Benjamin P. Roque
, who digitally painted the wonderful illustration on the cover. He can be reached at: https://benjaminroque.wordpress.com

Amanda (Nolan) Green
, a long-time friend and supporter of creative efforts. Though she claims to enjoy such torture, Amanda suffered the undesirable fate of editing out my horrendous grammatical mistakes (though I may have snuck a few more in after her last edit!). Amanda can be reached for editing assignments at: 304-488-6573.

Unlike so many of my literary heroes, I am not a trained physicist, astronomer, or scientist of any kind. I’ve tried my best as a layman to accurately portray the scientific concepts presented within. However, a healthy suspension of disbelief is still recommended.

I hope you enjoy this endeavor of many years.

Andrew “A.L. Lorentz” Long

Part I

Prologue: North

“No deep fryer? What kind of restaurant is this?”

The incredulous woman’s husband buried his nose in a glass of mead.

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” The only waiter at the only restaurant in
Patreksfjörður
gritted his teeth, struggling to hide his frustration at the unusual request.
The other patrons, families who lived up the hill above the harbor, didn’t expect French fries today. They were here for H
angikjöt: traditional roasted lamb. Unlike ever before,
avalanches, blizzards, and steep mountain roads couldn’t scare tourists away from the Icelandic Westfjords in winter. Even on Yule Eve.

In the summer the waiter served patrons from Europe, Africa, Australia, America, and even King George Island, Antarctica. The dead of winter lined roads with snow banks turned a beautiful glowing pink in the sunset, but the prospect of taking the ferry over the bay from
Stykkishólmur
and finding the mountain pass to Patreksfjörður closed usually kept the fjord free of tourists. To end up in Patreksfjörður in December proved one brave, stupid, or born there. The waiter chuckled, remembering a few friends who had all three qualities at the same time.

“This is funny to you?” The woman’s strong Irish accent bit his ears.

“Honey, did you really come 1,500 kilometers for French fries?”

The waiter smiled at the husband, hoping the wife wouldn’t decide the tip.

When all tabs were paid and the lights dimmed for the night, the waiter brushed snow off his Skoda and headed home. Lucky for the waiter, the local patrons only partied till three in the morning. Other Yule Eve celebrations stretched to sunup. Far from his family and friends in Reykjavik, loneliness gnawed. With the last ferry long gone he was stuck in the Westfjords. He needed money and the hotel needed a waiter. Any other night it would have been an adequate excuse to put up with the small fishing village’s isolation.

After being pinged on social media with too many holiday photos from the lively capitol, he needed to escape his tiny studio apartment. Car keys hanging by the door beckoned him and liquor bottles whispered liquid courage.

Stark reflections of the Moon on fresh snow lit the only road out of town. His companions for the evening: blankets, bottles and blackberry kush, sat in the tiny back seat. Not made for grinding through powder, the little car moved slowly. His hand flailed backwards, searching for a bottle, as the other gripped the slippery wheel.

An hour down the road the first inky green snakes slunk between stars overhead.

Near seven in the morning he pulled off into a snow drift plowed thick at the head of the fjord, where his route met with the only other road this side of the mountain. So close to the winter solstice it would be at least another two hours until the Sun would start to heat up the snow. He looked lovingly at the multi-colored glass bottles in the passenger seat, arranging them by taste from best to worst.

He stuffed the purple plant into a glass pipe, flicking away the orange hairs. He groaned as he cupped the pipe and opened the door. His mother, who loaned him the little Czech econobox for the winter, could sniff out weed like a bloodhound. Sprawled across the hood, flapping coat lapels to beat back the wind, he took a strong pull and chased the berry-flavored smoke with a sip of vodka. The burn inside and out temporarily woke him, while the evening’s astral entertainment continued above.

He wondered if his friends snuck something extra into his stash before he left Reykjavik for the winter season. Green sizzled from one horizon to the other, birthing an ouroboros of pink sparks at the apex. No one else slipped down the dangerous mountain pass leading to the little fishing village on the crystal blue fjord. The corona danced just for him.

The night never appeared this clear and crisp in the capitol. Lost to the spectacle of oxygen and nitrogen electrons above him migrating between orbits, he became independent of time, unsure where the kush bliss stopped and nature’s euphoria started.

A blinding yellow light forced his eyes shut and a bellowing shook his core.

‘Auroras can’t be that bright,’ he thought. ‘My ears just popped. What did those jerks lace this with?’

He parted his eyelids in slivers to protect against the blinding white reflection on the snow. The light, no hallucination, continued to worry him.

‘Did the atmosphere fail? Did I just get a dose of radiation?’

Even stranger thoughts like extraterrestrial abduction flashed through his addled mind as his eyes struggled to adjust. He jumped off the car and scrambled for his sunglasses inside.

‘I fell asleep,’ he surmised, noticing he still held the smoking pipe with a full chamber. He dumped the pipe contents in the snow and pulled his phone out.

8:33AM

The Sun never reached full fury in the arctic winter. However, despite what the phone said, it beamed down on the fjord brighter than a summer’s midday.

‘I have to warn those guys about the hangover with this stuff,’ he thought. What other explanation could there be?

He tried to call his boss to let him know he may be late, but the call would not complete. He smacked himself in the forehead. ‘Duh! No network, that’s why the clock is late.’

He shoved the phone back in his pocket and cursed his habits. He came here to make money, but also to get clean. His boss remained unaware of previous relapses, but it must be noon by now. The LED clock in the car broke a year ago, the perils of depending on modern technology. Thanks to Yule, at least nobody came down the road and saw him lying like a dead body on the hood all morning. He hoped.

As he attempted to pilot the car he found himself swerving, surprised at the vodka’s persistence. He looked at the bottle, wanting to remember the brand for later. No more than a few sips were missing.

‘Maybe I mixed it with something stronger and forgot,’ he thought, struggling for an explanation for the loss of time, the brightness outside, and the dizziness he still felt.

After parking at the restaurant he noticed the lights inside were still off; at least he wasn’t late. To the left, along the edges of the fjord, he saw last night’s tourist couple wandering to the bay with a few locals.

Street lights still burned along the fjordline road, competing with yellow sunshine. Birds in the bay flew off-kilter circles in the sky, patterning the side of the town with strange shadows. The waiter stumbled to the water’s edge. Something wasn’t right.

“Quite a low tide,” the French-fry-lover noted, as the fjord began to drain into the Atlantic.

“Have you ever seen Sun like this so early in the morning?” the French-fry-lover’s husband asked the waiter.

He shook his head, whispering, “Andskotinn!”

“It
may be
the devil’s work,” another local said with apprehension. “Never get this much daylight near the Yule.”

An old fisherman spoke through a heavy beard, his eyes never leaving the swirling birds.

“Nay the devil. This speaks of older beasts. The sea is disturbed in a way I’ve not seen in all my voyages. Loki’s child, the Jormungand serpent, has awoke and emerged to battle the gods at Ragnarok.”

“Ragnarok? Loki?” the Irish woman scoffed.

“The last three winters have indeed been record-breakingly cold,” another local admitted.

“Global warming,” the woman contended.

“Do you not see the Sun, the rooster Fjalar? Did you not hear Heimdall’s horn!”

“I heard a foghorn this morning, sure.” She turned to the young waiter. “You don’t believe in that nonsense, do you?”

The waiter looked northwest. Across the tip of the next peninsula a tall shadow trailed on the water, approaching quickly.

“I do now.”