The Quiet Volcano
UNITED STATESSHORT STORY12
Jón
12/3/20251 min read
The mountain had not erupted for hundreds of years, so the villagers called it sleeping.
Elín did not think it was asleep. She pressed her palm to the dark rock and imagined a red heart beating far beneath her fingers.
“Maybe it is listening,” she said.
That evening, she told the mountain everything she had been too afraid to tell another person.
The ground stayed still, but she felt lighter walking home.