Dancing at the Tectonic Plates Club

Reykjavik has many clubs. Most of them play music loud enough to damage hearing. Only one of them plays music loud enough to damage geology. The Tectonic Plates Club sits straddling the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which means the dance floor shifts approximately three millimeters per song. If you have rhythm, you adapt. If you don't, you fall into a fissure. Natural selection with a DJ.

I arrived at midnight wearing my hat and a expression that said I'd already survived worse evenings. The bouncer — a geologist by day — checked my ID and my structural integrity. Cacti pass on both counts. Inside, the bass wasn't just something you heard. It was something the continental plates felt. Every drop hit and somewhere under the Atlantic, Europe and North America shifted slightly further apart. I consider that my contribution to international relations.

I danced for six hours. Not well — I am a cactus — but with conviction. My thorns cleared a respectable radius on the floor. A couple from Oslo asked if I was part of the installation. I told them I was the main event. Carl would have been in bed by nine with chamomile tea and a journal entry about self-care. I was doing the worm on tectonic boundaries. Different philosophies.

At 4 AM they served fermented shark shots at the bar. I didn't drink them. I just watched other people regret their life choices, which is its own kind of refreshment. When the floor shuddered for the last time and the plates settled into their new positions, I walked out into the Icelandic dawn feeling like the world had rearranged itself specifically for me. It probably hadn't. But let me have this.