A glacier is dead. A monument will tell visitors whose fault it was. (WaPo)

(Dedicated to Morgan Krakow)

my friend Crazy Henry got 2 tickets from Icelandic Airlines for a round trip to Reykjavik and back. I don't know how he got them; he's always getting stuff for free. one time he got a live turkey in December and kept it in his garage because he couldn't stand the thought of killing it. it finally escaped through a broken window and terrorized the neighborhood for months with its strange threatening mating cry. 
in Reykjavik we found an economy hotel with free cereal and milk in the morning. I asked the clerk how to get to the nearest glacier.
"they're all gone" he said, in perfect English. "what do you mean they're all gone?" I asked. "the last one melted away last spring" he said, snowflakes trickling down his cheeks. when I told this to Crazy Henry he said no use crying over spilt glaciers let's go see some volcanoes. but the same clerk told me there were no more volcanoes, either. they had all moved south to Italy. he was a total wet blanket, was that clerk.
so we toured a lichen farm and watched the sardine migration from a lighthouse. now that we're back home Crazy Henry is trying to grow a glacier in his backyard. "it only takes one ice cube a day and infinite patience" he says. while we were gone he lost his job at the Creamette factory. He didn't bother to tell them he would be gone for two weeks.