Lava

The air was biting. Lynn had not know Villi very long, and had serious doubts about staying in Iceland, as he wanted her to do. She had, in fact, pretty much decided to leave, and now, in the harrowing cold, she became certain that she wanted to go home. Plowing the snow with her feet to make large letters, she began to write I HATE YOU. She finished the "I" and was working on the "H" when she changed her mind. She felt ashamed. She knocked the arm and one leg of the "H" and made an "L." Her completed message said I LOVE YOU. The sentiment distracted Villi on the mountain. His vigilance relaxed, and a glowing bomb, much larger than he was, landed beside him with a reverberant thud.

The "bomb" here is a rock ejected from a nearby Volcano. A great miniature story embedded in John McPhee's essay "Cooling the Lava"

2018-03-17