the BallPark goes to Iceland

snoring

“But of all the morning’s time signals the most reliable were his father’s snores.

At dawn when the boy awoke, he would still be snoring with long, long, deep, deep snores. This kind really belonged not to morning but to the night itself. These snores bore no relation to the world we live and wake in; they were an alien excursion over tilted space, immeasurable time, extravagant existences; yes, the horses of this cavalcade had little in common with the horses of our world, and still less was the landscape of the snoring life akin to the landscape of the day.

But as morning came nearer, his father’s snores gradually lost their resonance, the resounding chest-notes dissolved on a slowly ascending scale, moved by degrees into the throat, from the throat into the nose and mouth, on to the lips with a whistle, sometimes only with a restless puff – the destination was near, the horses prancing with the joy of traversing scatheless the sounding wastes of infinity. The homeland lay spread before the eyes.

The breathing of the others lacked altogether the range and magnificence of his father’s snores, and was, morever, heedless of time. “

from Independent People by Halldor Laxness