LoveStar by Andri Snaer Magnason

Author:Andri Snaer Magnason [Magnason, Andri Snaer]
Language: deu
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: novel, Fiction, sci-fi, dystopian, Andri Snær Magnason, Seven Stories Press
ISBN: 9783404160877
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Published: 2012-11-20T05:00:00+00:00

GREAT OFFER ON MELONS

Indridi had only had one girlfriend before Sigrid and the relationship had been a miserable failure. He’d met her when he was seventeen and his father had got him a summer job producing electricity at the aluminium plant (LoveAl), which sprawled over the southern lowlands. He was fired in a matter of weeks for refusing to slaughter chickens and sprinkle their blood over the electrodes, although it had been scientifically proven that this would improve conductivity by around 3 percent.

Indridi worked on the treadmill in the mornings. He soon became super fit, as he ran thirty miles a day, producing close to 100 kW an hour. On Wednesdays he wrestled with employees from the souvenir factory on the sands between the aluminium plant and the national highway for the benefit of passing bus passengers. On Mondays he put on a Viking helmet and had sword fights (staged, obviously) with employees from the windmill factory for the entertainment of Japanese and German pensioners. The windmills, which were cast from the aluminium that Indridi smelted, had been raised all along the coast and extended beyond the horizon to east and west. They turned with the wind in their thousands like giant daisies.

Sometimes Indridi’s job involved walking along the shoreline, gathering up the birds that had collided with the sails. He collected the birds, categorized, counted, and skinned them. The skins went to the taxidermist at the souvenir factory. He sent the breasts to the kitchen, while the entrails and bones were minced and boiled down for fox feed. Then he told the girl at the hatchery how many birds he had found. The hatchery was by the southern wall of the plant. It was cheaper and more humane to rear and release birds to be stunned by the blades than it was to raise chickens in cages. The staff had game for lunch four days a week. The game improved energy production by around 0.5 percent (although excessive game consumption increased the employees’ sex drive by 5 percent, which in turn reduced their productivity by 1.3 percent). The chickens were eaten on Fridays after the sacrifice. Fridays could be quite lively, and there was a general scramble to take part as feathers, heads, and blood went flying, while the director yelled over the loudspeaker:

“SACRIFICE!! The metal craves sacrifices!”

Indridi stumbled into a relationship with the girl from the hatchery. She had raven-black hair and an owlish stare. Birds sat screeching on the dropping-splashed ledges that lined the wall and a strong fish-oil stench of fulmar vomit filled the air. Indridi visited regularly to read out his list. It was important to release the same number of birds as those that were stunned, so as not to upset the balance of nature.

“Forty puffins, a black-backed gull, fourteen kittywakes, eight fulmars,” he shouted, handing her the list.

“There’s no y in kittiwakes. Why did you put a y in kittiwakes?” the girl yelled back.

“I thought it was funny.”

“WHAT?” she shouted, “WHAT DID YOU

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