'Volcanoes' by Lynda McMahon

 

The Vice-President in charge of volcanoes rang me. I thought this was a bit strange. We didn’t even know each other. In the background I could hear music. Muzak, even. As he informed me that the most valuable commodity on earth was about to run out all I really heard was the soft pipes play on. Bizarre.

     “I had to tell somebody,” he said. “I’m sorry. I just closed my eyes and stabbed the phone book and your number came up.”

     Why was he sorry? There wasn’t much I could do about it was there? But there you go. He put the phone down.

     A few seconds later there was a knock at the door and I understood his apology. Two men were standing there. Side by side like two little jugs. Except they weren’t little. They were enormous and the dynamic tension increased as they entered the room.

     “Can tension be ‘dynamic?’ I wondered. Rather pointlessly as it happens. My neck developed a nervous tick. Literally. Tick, tick, tick as it jerked away from what I knew was coming. There was no pain as I felt the bullet enter my heart. Incongruously, all I could think about was the last song I listened to by ‘The Waterfall Strainers’ - “Blood on the Easel”.

     Funny, that.