SHORT STORIES

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BLACK, COLD, HARD LAVA rock as far as he could see. Off in the distance, Mount Murgatroyd seemed calm, or did she? Her plumes of off-white smoke with just a slight tinge of blue coasted against a bright blue sky and ocean backdrop. Did she look different this morning? Tom stood on his deck and pondered the majesty of his volcano. Murgatroyd was his treasure. For some thirty years, he watched her up close, from a distance, and through his binoculars. He recorded her bursts and blasts. For thirty years, he wrote about her in poems and prose. 

The nearby villagers knew when...atroyd was erupting, Tom would warm and protect them. He would come down from