When I was in grade school I was fascinated with volcanoes. I remember seeing Life Magazine photos of people in Pompeii who had been captured as lava statues. This young writer was already filled with morbid imagination and wondered what those people were thinking in that last second before they perished. I imagined myself as one of those people and was sick to my stomach. Im recalling this now because Ill be attending the literary festival in Reykjavik, Iceland during the third week of September--and Im watching the news with geological interest. A volcano is rumbling, signalling that an eruption may be in the works. It could happen tomorrow or days from now or never. And no, I have no fears of being turned into a lava statue. The volcano is in a remote area. Reykjavik is quite a distance away. But air traffic is already on orange alert. In 2010, another volcano in Iceland blew thick clouds of ash and 100,000 flights in the EU and US were cancelled over a 6-day period. If luck is on everyones side, the magma flow will spread out underground and never break surface. Now that my childhood fascination has been renewed, I think Ill go read up on volcanoes.
Posted on: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 00:36:30 +0000
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