A Tale of an Indonesian's Trail

In the northern hemisphere of earth, dusts sent by the sun sneak in. They marry the gases, give birth to the pliant child. Dance of the Spirits, Cree Indians call it. But she didn’t dance.
I flew thousands of miles from a baked city for her. Aurora Borealis hung in the black drop, carving a shy green arch over the mountains. I fruitlessly tighten my only thin winter coat. My teeth were chattering, my tongue wooden.
Oh well, I thought as the wheels bumped the gravels down to Reykjavík, what was the plan for the next 5 days?
It was my third day when I rode the 4x4 beast again. Sunrays shoved the cold wind. Foreign smiles greeted warmly as I crawled up my seat in the middle. My eyes struck a small body settled next to me. Short arms bent oddly toward his torso. Curved fingers emerged from the folded jacket sleeves. Kind rounded face.
“I’m Carl, from Leicester.”
The jeep galloped to Þingvellir, where the fire married the ice. Carl stand beside me on a wooden bridge in the middle of the bursting ground, straggled with silver snow. He’s shorter than my 150cm height. We strolled between the cracks like Moses walked through the Red Sea. His left leg wielded in a strange way, but he scrambled the road like nothing was unusual. A lady in our group jogged to reach us, to zip his jacket up. I watched him eating when we had lunch at Haukadalur Valley. He bent forward to chop his meal, fork in the clubbed right hand, knife in the left. He swung his head down right, putting the food into his mouth.
Thrombocytopenia Absent Radius Syndrome caused the absent of bilateral radii of the forearms. Carl’s dad made some equipment, a hook to pull things up and down, before there was Internet. He needs more time to do “normal” things, brushing his teeth, carrying his luggage.
Unlike me, it wasn’t his first solo journey. He came not only for Aurora, but also to meet the killer whales. They travel along the year, creating bond with the place they are in. Carl, too, had been doing it for all his life. Not just the extra efforts he made, on top of all, being adaptable.
“I saw them in Grundarfjörður, a calming village. Aurora performed there each night!”
I turned to the milky land, to the stories it whispered. The tales we brought and built, the true thrust of a journey. I smiled and nodded, to the white-hooded mountains, the waterfall queen, the castles of the elves. I got mine.
That night, Aurora wore her statement dress of green, violet and pink. She danced cheerfully over Reykjavík.