Here we go. This is a full translation of Griðastaður, Matthías’s graduation work, complete with a bunch of translation footnotes.

When I translate lyrics, I usually try to stick as closely as possible to the actual words/phrasing used in the original, so as to give an accurate idea of what the original lyrics say (but translating idioms and such appropriately, of course). Here, the main goal is to get across the narrative of this play, so I’ll go for something that communicates that narrative effectively over directly translating the exact words being said. I’m not making anything up that’s not there, and most of this is quite close and possibly too close, but there are definitely times where some other phrasing would’ve been closer to the original but I consciously go for a different one that sounds more natural in English, just has a bit more punch to it, or conveys mood etc. better.

The play is pretty much a monologue, but I’ve included occasional stage directions when they help illuminate the context of what Lárus is saying, so that you should be able to just read the translation straight through without being confused (or, at least, any more confused than someone actually watching the play being performed). You can also try to watch along as you read, and then the stage directions will hopefully help anchor where you are.

Let me know if you read the translation and whether you enjoyed it!

Sanctuary

[LÁRUS is pacing, muttering to himself.]

Welcome. Good to see you. Hope you’re feeling all right… A store unlike all other stores. All other stores. Unlike all other stores. [unintelligible] Give you a warm welcome. There’s good morale, a dedication to customer service, great ambition… looks, responsibility, ambition. Yeah. The employee- employee and human - employee and human resources policy. Employee and human resources policy. The employee and human resources policy of IKEA.

[He sips a drink, then walks over to look in the mirror.]

Okay. Hello.

Hi. I’m Lárus.

Welcome. I’m Lárus.

I’m Lárus.

Hi.

Yeah, welcome. I’d just like to ask you to turn off all your mobile phones and… not take any photos during the meeting.

Welcome, I’m Lárus. I’m just going to - I’d be thrilled if you’d all turn off your mobile phones and not take any photos during the meeting.

Hi! Greetings! I’m Lárus! Um… I’d be thrilled if you’d just, maybe, put your phones on silent, or preferably turn them off, or, and don’t take any photos during the meeting. If you need to have it on, of course, you do that. I mean, maybe you’ve got kids, or… or moms.

[He shakes his head; starts pacing again.]

Hi. I’m Lárus.

Hi! Greetings! Lalli here! …No.

I’m Lárus. Welcome.

It’s nice to see how many of you there are, at this unconventional time. Right? Fun to see how… I’m Lárus! It’s fun to see how many people are here at an unconventional time. Everyone’s probably got a busy schedule, as you do, in a modern society… [sigh] Jesus Christ, man.

Hi. I’m Lárus, and I’m just going to get you up to speed on things around here. Get you up to speed… I’m going to get you up to speed on things around here. [He starts to write this down.]

Hi! I’m Lárus! I’m just going to get you up to speed a bit on how things work around here. Ah, it’s fun to see how many people are here at such an unconventional time. Um, everyone’s gone except me, and you, heh. It would’ve been fun to say hi to people - say hi to everyone, but… Maybe the Securitas guy’ll be here later. Obviously he’s not actually working for IKEA, unfortunately he’s Securitas, but if he comes around, I’ll just explain to him that we’re staying late, and it won’t be a problem.

…Ugh, what am I saying.

IKEA. IKEA, IKEA, IKEA. IKEA. What is IKEA? IKEA. Welcome. I’m Lárus. I’m going to get you up to speed on things around here. IKEA. What is IKEA? IKEA was founded in 1943 by Ingvar Kamprad. Uh… Ingvar Kamprad was born in Elmtaryd in Ag- Agunnaryd in Sweden, and he was a young man with big dreams. He wanted… Yeah, it all started with one matchbox, and it…

[He stops and shakes his head.]

Everyone… Everyone has their own special relationship with IKEA, whether they work here or not. It’s… I had my special relationship with IKEA long before I started to work here. I’d come here just to browse, and to find some peace. Right, I came here to find peace. And that sense of peace is still here, and there’s good morale, and we want people to feel good and give them a warm welcome, and that’s not least thanks to the employee and human reason- employee and human resources- employee and human resources policy of IKEA. Employee and human resources policy. Human resources policy.

[He sighs and flips through papers on the desk.]

Right. Four-day week. Four-day work week, twelve-hour shifts. Twelve-hour shifts, and that’s… Twelve-hour shifts, and for those of you coming in full-time - but to balance it out, we get good vacations in between. It’s intermittent work. …Employee and human resources policy.

I, for my parts, I just started to come here because I’ve always got this fucking guilt going on. I started to come here because I always just had this raging guilt. Uh… I guess that’s why I applied for a job here.

Today I don’t have anything to complain about! I’ve got a great job, I’ve got decent pay… [He looks at himself in the mirror.] Nice. The best. [He starts irritably straightening his hair.] I’ve got a decent car, a Netflix subscription, I’ve got a Nockeby sofa, I bought a Nockeby sofa here at IKEA, just a three-seater, not the corner sofa. Really nice sofas. And, uh…

Maybe I always just have this guilty conscience. A guilty conscience calling for organic fair-trade chocolate, or eco-labeled deodorant. Or a Netflix subscription, but no, that only calls for more chocolate, or a thoughtful status update, or a B-product, like that Nockeby sofa.

…Right. See, you, as employees, you get a 15% discount on all purchases, but for B-products, it’s 30% off. By all means make good use of that. 30%.

Right. So about two years ago, I got… I woke up with a raging guilty conscience. Woke up with a raging guilty conscience. And I came here, to IKEA.

It was just a normal day. I don’t know why I was feeling so guilty. I just woke up and got dressed and got some coffee, and I went out and unplugged my car, and I just drove straight up to Garðabær, alone. Did you know that there’s an eco-labeled house in Garðabær? It’s just like a regular house, perfectly usable, only eco-labeled. Sustainably produced. It’s… neat.

Anyway. So I drive up to IKEA, and what greets me is these flags. They’re majestic, the flags outside IKEA, the way they just ripple in the blue and yellow of the Swedish flag. I always remember where I parked my car based on the flags; where the third flag is, that’s where I parked. That’s how I remember. Yeah. See, I think, the person whose job it is to fly the flags at IKEA has to be really satisfied in their job. They’ve got to feel like the hero of the day at IKEA, waking up before everyone else and flying the IKEA flag in the morning sun, outside IKEA. Yeah.

But I’m not there to fly any flags, I just go inside and up the escalator and into the living room department, and I - well, I’d just have a quiet moment there, maybe even entire days, without buying anything. You see, I don’t feel guilty if I don’t buy anything, unless of course it’s a B-product. Yeah.

Hello?

I get a phone call. The phone rings on the escalator. A phone call. I’ll never forget that phone call.

[He picks up a framed photo on a shelf and looks at it.]

Hi.

Yeah, hi.

What’s up? Yeah?

How are you feeling?

Right.

Yeah.

Hey, should I… should I do something for you? Maybe stop by with some chocolate? Green & Blacks? You like that.

No?

Right, okay.

Or we can go out? We can take a walk later, maybe I can… Yeah?

Oh. No, it’s… You’re tired, I know.

Huh? No, they… they didn’t say, all they said is you’re not going home until the inflammation gets better. I don’t know what that means, it’s just… They’ve got to have the final say.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What? No, don’t do that. Nononono, you have to take your medicine. You have to take the - yes, you do, it’s one red one before you sleep, two green when you wake up, two Paratabs. And enough water.

Yes, Mom. Yes, you have to… yeah.

Huh? No, I’m just at IKEA.

No - what cabinet?

No, I - Mom, I’m not about to buy anything.

No, you know perfectly well that I’m just - no, I’m just thinking and people-watching.

Yeah… Yeah, I know it’s weird. Don’t worry about it, Mom.

No!

Huh, María? [He becomes audibly defensive/irritated.]

I don’t know. I don’t - probably just fine. Mom, we broke up ages ago.

Yeah. No, I told you ages ago. Yeah, I have no idea what’s new with her.

Right, I need to keep going here. We - I’ll visit tomorrow. Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Take those pills!

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

[He sighs, putting down the photo.]

Just to clarify it a little, see, some people go on walks, around Tjörnin, or by the beach, and others do yoga, or go to the gym. Some people go to church or a mosque. I’d just go to IKEA. For me. I know it’s weird, but I… IKEA is just the place that truly reflects me the most. I… My place is there, among the people, and the cabinets and shelves and price tags, and all my deepest desires and expectations.

Yeah. So I’m there on the escalator, talking to my mom on the phone, and then by the time I’ve hung up on my mom, I’m in a model apartment, in my favorite staged bathroom in IKEA. And I sit down on the brim of the bathtub and I’m just thinking. What… where do I stand? Who am I, Lárus, here among the furniture? Can I afford this cabinet, or this bathtub? How about that woman? Does she think she can afford it?

Am I ever, in my entire mortal existence, going to have stuff this nice? I’m thirty-seven years old and I would never use my oven enough for it to ever be worth it for me to buy the newest Griljera stove for 160,000 krónur. Even if I had that kind of money to spare. I mean… and even though it’s a good price, do I really need it? Do I want it? What am I doing here? Why am I here? What am I going to leave behind? What, a toilet brush? An IKEA toilet brush? I, Lárus, and my IKEA toilet brush! What, toothpaste? Toothpaste! Two hundred tubes of toothpaste! I, Lárus, and two hundred tubes of toothpaste! 6232 rolls of toilet paper! 6232! 26 bottles of shampoo, actually that’s not that much. Q-tips? I actually stopped using Q-tips. I just use toilet paper, take two squares and fold them up and put them in my wet ears after a shower. But you know, think about it. There’s just some factory over in China that’s producing some little plastic sticks with a bit of cotton on the end, just to put a hundred of them together in a plastic box - what for? And then a million - one and a half million liters of water. I’m not measuring that exactly, but you know, what am I, Lárus, doing with all this water? Or, like, laundry detergent. There’s a whole laundry tub full of it - Neutral, of course, it’s eco-labeled - fabric softener, lavender spray, toilet cleaner, uh, universal cleaner, floor cleaner, glass cleaner, bathroom cleaner, uh, shaving cream, seventeen bottles, aftershave, razorblades, disinfectant, thirty-four bottles of that. Yeah, I use a lot of disinfectant. And that’s not even over that long a period, it’s just since I moved out of Mom’s place.

And deodorant! 128 rolls! 128 rolls! And I couldn’t help thinking, last time I threw a roll of deodorant into the garbage, roll number 127, that, uh… Yeah. We’ve got a very clear environmental policy at IKEA, but it’s, uh… I couldn’t help thinking, as I was throwing roll number 127 into the garbage, that there had to be at least one guy in China, on the other side of the world, just spraying himself. Just spraying himself. You know, I use mine sparingly. My deodorant, an organic deodorant, from Germany, a really good-quality brand, not tested on animals or anything, eco-labeled, see - but he’s over there, some guy in China, just spraying himself. Spraying himself with his new Nike deodorant in the aluminum can that’s produced who knows where, some concoction of nastiness and chemicals, just to have exactly the right smell for the least amount of money. And he doesn’t give a shit about the factory and the ecosystem and whether it’s eco-labeled. They just spray it on! They spray it!

I think: last time I - yeah, when I was throwing mine in the garbage, at that exact moment, that guy in China, on the other side of the world, is throwing his away, and I’m just yeah, great! I spent 800 krónur on mine. I might want to use lavender, but I want to do it right. And I wish I could just say to that Chinese guy: Hey! Use that sparingly, man! You don’t have to spray it on like that! You’ll get the smell even if you don’t spray it on like that! Hey! Hey, look, I’m not spraying - Look, there’s aluminum, paraben and [unintelligible chemical name] in that! Are you crazy?! And I say something like that, but that’s not… Maybe he’d just answer back. “You no judge me! You no tell me what to spray in my own home! My sister, my sister died! She died! She overworked herself in a really intense environment so I could spray myself with Nike Extreme Men Edition Deodorant!” And I’m just like oh, really, of course, you’re right. What am I doing telling some Chinese guy what he does with his deodorant? I don’t even know Chinese, I could never say that to him! I can’t… I can’t even tell my mom how I’m feeling, how am I supposed to tell some Chinese dude what he does with his own deodorant? Maybe he’s working in some factory that’s full of gross chemicals and all he wants is to just come home and spray himself with some other gross chemicals! Maybe he was going… Maybe he was going to get ice cream, or on a date, I mean, I don’t know anything about this guy. I don’t know anything about this guy. I don’t know how to get across that hey, we both want lavender, but this isn’t the right way, you see? This here is eco-labeled! There are chemicals produced under some really toxic conditions! [He’s getting choked up.] Like where your sister worked. Right? But you don’t have to use it. I want to help you! We’re on the same team! Can you help me understand how I can help you? I’m just one man, and you’re just one Chinese man. But we share one beating heart! We have to learn to work together, think of the children, and buy eco-labeled! And eco-labeled products are often way higher quality, you just somehow get the feeling that they’re better made! And they don’t even cost that much more, if you take quality into account, see, if you take quality into account you’re really getting way more for your money! Do you disagree with that? Help me… help me understand.

[He bows his head, sobbing, for a bit, before slowly looking up.]

Help. Help! Spiders! Giant spiders! Nooo! Not in IKEA! Nooooo! Watch the children! They’re killing the children! Nooooo! They’re so small! Aaaaahh! Moooom! Take your mediciiine! Aaaahh! Yeah, glycol! You mean, just spray it on them? [He mimes spraying pesticide, making choked spider-dying sounds.] They’re dying! [Sprays.] Oh no! More monsters! No, what a nightmare! …María, will you kiss me?

[He snaps out of it and shakes his head, goes to have a drink, clears his throat, fixes his hair in front of the mirror.]

Ahem. Yeah, that little meditation, uh… it’s just… The story about the Chinese guy and the spray bottles and the spiders, that’s… I dreamt this once, actually, and I just chose to tell it because it happens here, in IKEA, in this model apartment. The truth is… the truth is that we are constantly battling contradictions, like the eco-labeled nightmare, every day. [Looks in the mirror again.] Nice, Lárus. Every day. We don’t want to give discounts; we want to get discounts, on eco-labeled products.

[On ‘discounts’, he clicks his tongue, miming pressing a button on a remote. The camera zooms out to reveal a projected word behind him, like a PowerPoint slide: “DISCOUNT”]

[Points into the audience.] You there! You want to get a discount, on eco-labeled products. But you won’t get that here! Not in IKEA. Not today.

[Another click, switching slides; the projected word is now “IKEA”.]

…Or, well, okay, you get a 15% staff discount on everything, and 30% on the B-products, and you should make use of that.

[Projected: “B-PRODUCTS”]

But we, we want quality of life. [“QUALITY OF LIFE”] But what is quality of life? Is it love and happiness? [“NO”] No. Is it security and contentment? Soft beds and good dreams? [“NO”] No. Isn’t quality of life just not having that guilty fucking conscience? [“YES”] Yes. Environmental policy. The environmental policy of IKEA.

But how are 7.6 billion homo sapiens [“SAPIENS”] supposed to live and breathe together on one planet without having a raging guilty conscience? It’s not like they’re all just going to go shop at IKEA. No, they’d just buy up everything in a split second and everyone goes home with their Griljera stoves [“GRILJERA”] while everything goes to hell. So what then? [“?”] Is our conscience perhaps what makes us human? [“US”] Is it fair that I have a guilty conscience, enough to only buy organic fair-trade chocolate and eco-labeled deodorant, but that Chinese guy from the story, he doesn’t feel anything? He was just spraying it on. [“LIKE, SPRAYING”] Like, spraying. Not me. Does this make me better than the Chinese guy? [“NO”] No. But I feel like I am.

I have flown to Asia, and I got a hell of a guilty conscience for that. [“GUILTY CONSCIENCE”] Because flying pollutes. And so does eating meat, and keeping dogs. And mass-produced furniture! And cars! My car, even though I drive an electric car. [“NICE”] An electric car. And I sort my garbage. And I’m a vegetarian. No, I’m vegan. Yeah, I’m vegan. [“NICE!!”] Sort the garbage.

And then eating food also pollutes, but it varies how much. But tofu’s not eco-labeled! [“TOFU”] Is it? Or the veggie balls here in IKEA? [“NO”] No. And it’s all imported. But what about disasters, like tornadoes or hurricanes or those spiders? …No, they’re… I guess they don’t pollute. That’s tragic. Very tragic. Very tragic.

[He goes and has a drink, then walks over to the corner.]

“Can I help you?”

I’m standing there in the bathroom department, in the staged bathroom, and suddenly I hear this firm, young, but still kind of pathetic voice behind me.

“Ahem. Can I help you?”

See, the only thing that annoys me about IKEA is all the other people at IKEA. And there he is, some summer-job substitute employee in a polo shirt, trying to sell me something, some shelves or a bathtub, or just politely ask me to leave. And he says, “Thanks for that contemplation. Obviously we live in fraught times. An ever-expanding middle class in eastern Asia is entering the same quality of life race as us Westerners, increasingly flying and bowing to ever more exaggerated standards of hygiene. But is that your fight? No. Your fight is to get your own priorities in order. And good for you, buying eco-labeled.”

…No, he didn’t actually say that. He just said, “I’ve noticed you’ve been here in this bathroom since we opened.”

Oh. Uh, yeah, you’re right.

“Right. And you were here yesterday too?”

Huh? Yeah.

“And the day before that?”

Yeah, that’s right.

“Right. Can I… help you with anything?”

What?

“I mean, are you looking for something in particular?”

Nah, or, well, yeah, uh, how much is this cabinet?

“Oh, that’s 7950.”

7950. It’s 7950. He’s already trying to sell me something.

“Yeah, it’s 7950, and these are really nice cabinets. We’ve got them in light brown, too.”

Right. No, white is - white is fine. What… what do you put in a cabinet like this? Is it for toothbrushes and…?

“Sure. Toothbrushes…”

Toothpaste?

“Yeah, sure, that too.”

200 tubes of toothpaste?

“Huh?”

How about medicine and stuff like that?

“What? Oh, sure, you can put medicine in it.”

My… my mom is chronically ill, in the hospital.

[He, playing the employee, nods slowly.]

So, uh, do you live alone? Because I live alone.

“What? No, or…” [The employee clears his throat.] “No. I’m sorry to hear about your mom. Uh, how about I write this down for you, the number, and they’ll help you with it down in the warehouse? I have to help more customers, so…”

And then he goes and writes down, with a tiny little IKEA pencil, on a tiny little IKEA note, in tiny little IKEA handwriting, that I’ll find this cabinet in aisle 7, rack D. And this - this is just a really good example of how there’s a difference between service-mindedness and not knowing how to mind your own business. There I was, expertly manipulated into buying some cabinet that I wasn’t going to - I mean, I was going to be there until closing, and I’m allowed to do that, but no, now I have to buy this cabinet. I’ll just walk the path that IKEA has laid out for me. And it all goes smoothly - the whole building and the people are completely different when you know exactly what you’re going to buy. I, Lárus, am going to buy a cabinet, that I, Lárus, picked out for myself, Lárus. And you, whoever you are, you can stand there looking at those neat little spice shelves all day, but I know what I’m buying. I’m here to buy! And I’m just going to pick up a fake cactus and some towels, and some plastic boxes that fit into the Silverån white mirror cabinet. Yeah. And I walk right down there, straight-backed, faster and faster, not giving a fuck what the staff think of me, not giving a fuck if they saw me here yesterday or the day before that or the day before that. All those days are written off, when you’re buying a white Silverån cabinet at IKEA. And I walk past the lamps and the potted plants, and I see that on the other side of the potted plants there’s a whole new world. The warehouse. Hallelujah. The warehouse, oh yes. A giant hall, shelves upon shelves upon shelves, boxes upon boxes upon boxes, of all kinds of crap. Dead-honest fucking white fluorescent lighting and a flat concrete floor, with garden chairs placed in the middle and a cabinet on display and some woman with a cart trying to maneuver her Billy-shelves onto the cart, and I don’t even stop to help her, I just go straight to aisle 7, rack D, and look for that white Silverån mirror cabinet, and what I find is that the white Silverån mirror cabinets are all gone!

Fuck!

Then what am I doing here, with a shopping cart with some towels and a fake cactus and plastic boxes? What am I supposed to do with these plastic boxes? They were supposed to go in the cabinet! And now I’m all worked up about some cabinet. What am I doing? I’m like an idiot. And you can’t just walk backwards against the traffic through IKEA, that just looks silly!

I’m standing there, by the rack, facing this question: why am I here? And that’s when my phone chimes, a quiet little chime. I reach into my pocket and see I have three missed calls and a notification from the hospital.

The nurse that I’ve been talking to the most about my mother’s illness writes:

Dear Lárus,

After a diligent struggle with her illness…

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

…nothing that could be done.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Your mother, Stefanía, passed away shortly after three o'clock.

Your mom, Lárus, is dead. She’s a carcass. Dead as a doornail. Dead as a doornail in the hospital bed. Sorry 'bout that.

Deepest sympathies, your mom’s dead.

And there and then is when I decide the sole purpose of my being at IKEA is to climb up into the rack, behind the boxes in the next rack, without anyone seeing, put on headphones - I carry headphones - and just lie down and wait. I’m going to wait until everyone’s gone from IKEA and has forgotten that I exist, and IKEA closes, and I’m all alone in the world. In IKEA.

And I lie there, somewhere in aisle 7 in the warehouse, sometimes with the headphones and sometimes just waiting and listening, for six hours.

[He’s curled up inside a box for a couple of minutes while the lights dim and soft, mournful music plays; you can hear him sniffling a bit. After the music stops, he slowly uncurls himself and stands up as the lights come back on.]

[Whispering] And then it’s quiet.

Wow. Can you hear? And I realize I’m all alone in IKEA. The silence is incredible. And I’m all alone, in IKEA.

Your mom, Lárus, is dead. A carcass. Just dead as a doornail in the hospital bed. Sorry 'bout that. Deepest sympathies, your mom’s dead.

If I ever cried over the content of that message, it’s here, alone, at IKEA.

And suddenly - suddenly, for no particular reason, don’t know why, I imagine - I imagine an argument with IKEA’s security guard, who’s going to kick me out into the deep blue night, out of IKEA.

“Excuse me, pal, we’re closed,” says this grumpy IKEA security guard. He says, [more angrily] “Hey, excuse me, pal, we’re closed.”

No, no, please - hey, listen, man -

“No, listen to me, man.”

No, you listen to me, man. IKEA is my sanctuary. Right?

“That’s none of my concern. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

No, but - you don’t understand - I’ve had a really difficult day, a difficult month, year. I was just going to - hey, take it easy! I was just going to check out this cabinet and - I didn’t mean to - I was just going to search for - hey, calm down. Don’t - listen to me! Don’t! Let me go! Stop! Don’t touch me, you - Hey! Hey! Don’t you touch that white Silverån mirror cabinet! It’s mine! Fucking shit! Go fuck yourself, you disgusting piece of shit! Fuck! Fuck!

[He mimes wrestling an imaginary opponent down; he mimes the entire following couple of paragraphs as he’s saying them.]

And I take him and throw him to the floor, and I just start to beat the crap out of him. Pow! Pow! Pow! And I take an IKEA screwdriver and stick it in both his eyes, and he’s just “Aaaahhh! Aaaaahhh! Aaaaahhhh!” And I pick him up like “Ahaha! Huh?” And he’s like “Please, please, I’ve got kids, I’ve got kids,” and I twist him around and jam the screwdriver up to this throat and say “If you don’t fucking leave me alone, huh? If you don’t fucking leave me alone, I’ll take this screwdriver -” “Yeah, yeah, please, please, please, I have kids, please don’t kill me, don’t kill me -” “Are you going to get the fuck out?” “Yes! Yes, yes, I promise! I promise! I’ll do anything!” “Are you going to leave me the fuck alone?” “Yes, yes, I promise, I promise!” “Who’s the king of IKEA?!” “What? You! You!” “I can’t hear you!” “You! You’re the king of IKEA!”

And then I take him and wrestle him down, and just pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! And I take the screwdriver and - [He mimes stabbing several times, then stands up and mimes stomping on the guard’s face, then mimes some other action I can’t quite figure out.] And he’s just, he’s just, “Aahhh, I’m dying, I’m dying, don’t, my kids, my kids, I’m dying!” [He’s panting.] And I…

…And I’m suddenly just really hungry, so I just head straight to the cafeteria where I’m just going to spray, just spray some Swedish veggie balls into my mouth, but no! I go there and find they’ve taken all the hot food and just thrown it away! How typical, how they tell you they’re so environmentally friendly, and then they’re just throwing imported chickpeas into the trash! And suddenly I really need to go to the bathroom, so I go to the bathroom.

[Leaning against a wall, presumably in the bathroom, he starts to catch his breath.] Okay. Okay. Okay.

When I go back to the cafeteria, I see that the salads in the fridge are fine, and I grab a chicken salad, and a healthy wrap, and a smoothie, and a sixpack of beer. And I take it all to my favorite staged bathroom, and I lie down in the bathtub to have some chicken salad.

[He lies down on a couch, still panting, and starts to eat.]

What was that. What was that.

There’s not a soul here. No security guard. He was imaginary. No veggie balls. Chicken salad. Sure.

The king of IKEA, bathing in a staged bathroom. I’ve always dreamed about doing this. [He gets choked up.] And Mom’s dead.

[He’s lying there, sniffling a bit, for some time, then slowly sits up.]

I don’t get… I don’t get when I cry. Why I… I don’t get why I’m even crying. I don’t get whether I’m even crying. Do there have to be tears for you to be crying? I don’t know.

It could be anything. Really I went through the mourning process long ago. I haven’t really cried about María since we split up and I’ve barely cried for Mom. And where should I cry for them, if not alone at IKEA?

See, deep down I knew that Mom was going to die. I knew ages ago. She’d gotten so tired, somehow.

[He stands up and starts pacing.]

Look, in the German PoW camps during World War II - not Auschwitz, not the concentration camps, the PoW camps for captured British soldiers - the first ones to die were the ones who didn’t bother to shave. I read that in a book. The ones who shaved and bathed every day, they survived the camps. Maybe years of imprisonment. I know it’s weird, but I think it makes sense. I mean, if you’ve stopped bothering to take care of yourself, you’ve stopped bothering to live. Tenacity - you lose that tenacity. You just think: Why shave? Why take a bath? Why exercise? Why buy myself flowers? Let myself have some fine chocolate, just because my life is worth it? She always liked it. Green & Blacks, the green, long one.

Then she stopped wanting it, stopped calling me, stopped wanting to do anything with me, stopped looking forward to going to the theater with me. That’s how it was with the World War II prisoners of war, too. The ones who saw a reason to take care of themselves and bathe and shave, they weren’t really prisoners. They were just… just sprightly guys.

And part of me said, I said to her, Mom, so what? So what? Of course you’re going to die! We all die! Are you just going to sit there wallowing in it? Are you just going to give up? We all die! You, me, the nurses, everyone at IKEA! Me! Just, everyone you see dies! Everyone dies, Mom! Everyone dies, you understand? Just because you’re dying, you don’t have to wallow in it! No! Because everyone dies! Everyone! Everyone dies! Everyone dies! Do you know how many people died in World War II? No? It was… many. Because everyone dies! Yes! So just have some fucking chocolate, just once go to the fucking theater before you fucking croak! Or whatever, we can go for a drive! You can leave the hospital bed for a bit, the nurse said so. Sure, go, by all means, everyone dies. She said that. Sure, fuck it, just go, everyone dies. Yeah? Because everyone dies! I’ve got these black hairs in my nose and aches in my knees and my back and every now and then I get a long hair growing out of my eyebrow, right? Because everyone dies! Yes! And I’m not wallowing! No! Fuck it! I love you!

[He looks down.] …No. I didn’t say that to her.

At least, I’ve gotten up and I’ve had some food. I’m in the sofa section, looking at all these nice sofas in IKEA. And who should I bump into but the Chinese guy from the story? He’s just sitting there. Sitting on this Norsborg canvas sofa, green. Maybe he’s mourning his sister. His sister who died.

Maybe she was young, his sister. She wasn’t meant to die. She was young and she was - she had dreams. She had dreams, she had tenacity. She was going to - she was going to move to the big city! Shanghai! There’s three IKEA stores in Shanghai. She was going to do something real, learn something real in Shanghai. Maybe she wanted to be a nurse. Or a bio… biomedical… or a marine, a marine biologist! The kind that scuba dives with dolphins! And she recognizes them individually, and talks to them… and she’s diving, and maybe she sees a turtle, a little turtle stuck in a piece of plastic trash. [imitating turtle] Aaaahhh! And she goes and saves it, and removes the plastic. Here you go, little turtle! Turtle! [imitating turtle and waving] Thaaanks!

And then maybe she analyzes the water for the little turtle, because she’s checking if the turtle - this is in the South China Sea, and she’s checking if the little turtle can even live there anymore, what with the rising acidity of the oceans. And then she’s got coral plants, maybe she’s growing coral plants in her home or at a lab, a lab full of coral plants, and she’s going to save the coral reefs, and the coral plants, and the dolphins, and the turtles, and just, do something! Do something other than just dying!

…Yeah. And he sighs, like this [sighs], thinking about his little sister. His little sister who died. Maybe he never managed to say goodbye to her. Maybe he never said 'I love you’, those words, to her. Couldn’t do anything for her. And I sit beside him and put my arm around him, on his shoulder. And we just sit there, the two of us, in silence. We don’t say anything, but we understand.

I feel like I can leave something behind here. It’s not about 'What’s Lárus going to buy at IKEA?’ And it’s not about 'What’s the Chinese guy’ - I don’t know what his name is - what he’s going to buy at IKEA, but what do they leave behind?

When the time is right, we split up, and the Chinese guy and I go our separate ways, in a deep mutual understanding.

Before long, it’s not long at all, before long, another IKEA employee shows up. It’s a woman, in her thirties or so, who’s probably worked there a few years. Blonde. She obviously just got up, but she’s still in a bright mood. She’s just flown the Icelandic and Swedish and IKEA flags, in the morning sun outside of IKEA. The IKEA flag-bearer. And she takes my hand and leads me out of IKEA.

Yeah. Bye. [He waves.]

A few days later, I bury my mom. And then a year passes, the great IKEA year. The IKEA year. Today, I work for IKEA. I even outrank Guðrún, the one who led me outside the previous year, the IKEA flag-bearer, her name’s Guðrún. I outrank her, working at the same company. Head of marketing and sales for the business department of Swedish furniture giant IKEA, that’s me. [He sighs.]

The other day, Guðrún and I visited my mother’s grave. Guðrún, the one who led me outside after a whole night alone at IKEA. The two of us together, at my mother’s grave. And Guðrún, she knows what she’s talking about. She said to me: “Yeah, Lárus, you’re right. Everyone dies. Me, you, everyone at IKEA, everyone who designed all those shelves, everyone asking about the quality of the different mattresses at IKEA, everyone having veggie balls, everyone having meatballs, everyone drinking beer after work at IKEA, everyone buying a bunch of Swedish crisp bread and weird soda, everyone having a hotdog at the corner store, everyone arguing about the kitchen at IKEA, everyone browsing spice shelves at IKEA, everyone crying in the bathroom department, everyone buying a bunch of disposable crap they’re not going to use, everyone just looking and not buying anything; you’re right, Lárus, everyone’s going to die.”

IKEA is my sanctuary, I answer. Here, mortality is as staged as the staged bathroom.

“Yeah, Lárus,” she says, “mortality is a staged bathroom.”

…No, actually she didn’t say that. She just said some - she was very polite. She said… actually just the other day, out of nowhere, completely out of nowhere, she said, “Doesn’t everyone die, Lárus?” Everyone who… everyone at IKEA. Everyone opining on the food at IKEA. Everyone who thought their oven would be more expensive at IKEA, they’re going to die. Everyone who thought their whole kitchen would be more expensive at IKEA. Everyone who’s disappointed at IKEA, everyone mourning their mother at IKEA, everyone mourning their sister at IKEA. Everyone at IKEA who has kids. Everyone at IKEA who doesn’t have kids but still browses the kids department of IKEA. Everyone feeling their age at IKEA. Everyone celebrating a milestone at IKEA. Everyone who gets the IKEA catalogue delivered to their homes but still doesn’t go to IKEA. Everyone who takes the IKEA catalogue to IKEA and asks an employee if they’ve got this carpet at IKEA. Everyone who’s been to IKEA once, everyone who’s been to IKEA a lot. Everyone who’s been to IKEA abroad. Everyone who lives in the countryside and uses the opportunity when they come to the city to go to IKEA. Everyone who thinks going to IKEA is a family moment. Everyone who takes selfies of themselves and their families in IKEA. Everyone who’s disappointed in IKEA. Everyone who just can’t deal with IKEA. Everyone who feels a spiritual calm in IKEA. Everyone who was just going to visit IKEA briefly but then spent most of the day in IKEA. Everyone. Yeah.

And Guðrún, she… she leads me out, softly, after that fateful night when my mom died, this night that’s stayed with me all this time. She says goodbye on the escalator. And I stand on the escalator with tears in my eyes, and opposite me, the first customers of the day are coming in. The first of the day to browse the selection available at Swedish juggernaut IKEA. I can see that outside the day is growing brighter. And I wave to them, one after another. An old man with a walking stick. A mother and daughter pointing somewhere. A just-married couple planning out their kitchen. They don’t wave back, they just look at each other. A few teenagers, probably just going to hang out at the cafeteria. Contractors having breakfast. Two sisters around fifty. I don’t know what they’re going to do. And suddenly I’m all the way down, the king of IKEA. And the years just pass, peacefully.

I know - I know what some of you are thinking. You’re thinking, 'No, that doesn’t make sense. IKEA doesn’t have two escalators! There’s only one escalator and it goes straight up to the living room department! They don’t face each other! This doesn’t make sense! There aren’t two escalators!’ But I’m telling you yes! Because it’s new! And you know what else is new? I’ll tell you. I can proudly tell you that we here at IKEA will soon be introducing our first eco-labeled cabinet at IKEA! The first eco-labeled cabinet! And do you know what it’s called? It’s called the Silver Swan mirror cabinet! And you know what? It’s exactly as functional as its predecessor, but far more sustainably produced! The Silver Swan! The eco-labeled mirror cabinet at IKEA!