Flash Fiction - Torrents and Torments

I was so pleased and honoured that this story – a flash fiction – was considered for the annual Iceland Writers Retreat flash fiction competition (Dec. 11, 2017). It didn't win  and there was no shortlist, but it was fun to try (I'll post the name of the winner and a link to their story when the convenors do). The prize was worth the effort, a chance at a tuition-free writing retreat week in Iceland (April 11-15, 2018)!

The competition was on a theme of waterfalls and limited to 500 words - a tough but enjoyable challenge. Anyway, now I am able to share my story, a later version of which was long-listed for the 2018 Tarbert Book Festival's flash fiction competition. I've added a couple of links for your further edification. Enjoy.

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Torrents and Torments

“Don’t fall!” she always says.

Words of encouragement? Or textbook redundancy, like “try not to get hit by a car”?

“Don’t push,” I always tease in reply.

Stepping back from the brink of our latest conquest, I clapped my hands in the time-honoured style and reached for my notebook.

“Bagged,” I pronounced.

“Not yet. Take the picture.”

“Make the picture,” I corrected – again.

‘Bagged’ is a term adopted by diarizing hill-walkers in Scotland. To ‘Bag’ a Munro, like bagging game on a hunt, is to have walked or climbed one of Scotland’s many peaks of a certain elevation. Named for— well, Google it.

We bag waterfalls, my love and I. It began early in our relationship, after a romantic picnic overlooking spectacular Helmcken Falls in British Columbia, the pounding, pulsing roar symbolic of the rush of our passions. We were one with the thundering torrent, the breathless, pulsing plasma of pounding hearts.

We’ve recorded waterfalls on trails and highways in Canada, America, Scotland, Germany and now Iceland. We’ve swum naked in pools beneath the veils of broad falls, the cool waters failing to quench our passion. We’ve made love beside remote rapids, our young bodies conforming to the smooth rocks.

In our home, photographs of children and family are interspersed with those of waterfalls, some of which likely had a role in the making of those children. Sometimes just those waterfall photos kindled the flames of desire and exploration.

Over time, though – as kids grew and we aged – the frequency of our trips to falls decreased. As the photos get dusty, the falls are fewer and the trips more laborious.

The once-energizing hikes toward the crescendo of cataracts are of shorter duration and are less adventurous – closer to the road, so to speak. Sometimes the hike proves too tedious altogether and we don’t make it to the falls. I can’t remember the last time we bagged a big one.

Patience for the trips has declined in proportion with patience for each other. At times, I’m a little taken aback that we have come to resemble one of those cranky old couples on television – funny and sad, not going anywhere, unable to resist occasional hurts disguised as reminders or corrections in not-so subtle sarcasm, a drawn out game of insults.

I don’t keep score, but it’s like we get some satisfaction, a little emotional rush, out of the deepening digs at each other’s dignity – where once we cuddled and coddled and took pleasure in little things, we now take pleasure in little antagonisms in a downward spiral of insults.

This time may be different, an anniversary trip to bag Iceland’s Svartifoss – the black falls, ironically – to rekindle the passion.

Yet the concussion from the water pounding on broken basalt below feels less like bliss enveloped in the depths of passion, and more like the relentless throb of fatigue.

“Don’t fall,” she repeated as I stepped closer to make the picture.

“Then don’t p—.”

=30=