The Fires

by Sigríður Hagalín Björnsdóttir

They were medium-sized eruptions that came and went, always cropping up somewhere new. Eruptions like that are called “fires.”

Ma che cazzo sta succedendo in questo paese?

the world is going to try and keep you down so it can use you. It wants to use you to clean and cook and birth children and wipe their butts and do the laundry and work an unbearably boring job in the service of others. You’ve got to break free of the demands of your environment, Little Anna, you have to learn to serve your own interests, not other people’s. You need to be disobedient, or else you’ll be squashed like a bug.

You must always be deciding who you want to be, she says. Whether you’re going to be who you’re told to be, or whether you’re going to be yourself. Whether you’re going to be obedient and good, or whether you’re going to be strong and independent.