Closed Circle: New Flash Fiction in the Sunlight Press

Late in December 2007, Daniel and I traveled to Iceland, where we rode snowmobiles on the Vatnajökull glacier, tasted fermented shark meat, and… got engaged. Daniel proposed on the balcony of a Reykjavík apartment just after midnight when the sky exploded with fireworks to celebrate the new year. As a result, we got married in Volterra that fall and drank a lot of Tuscan wine.

While still in Iceland, we visited some of the country’s other natural wonders, its black volcanic beaches, geysers, and waterfalls. As a result I wrote a flash fiction, “Closed Circle,” that The Sunlight Press published today.

Thank you, Rudri Patel & Beth Burrell, for your continuous support of my work! Previously, The Sunlight Press published my short fiction “Growing Pains” and my book review on End of the World House by Adrienne Celt.

Image by Oleksandra Zelena via Pexels

The others and I hike up the winding trail from the riverbank to Dettifoss, queen of glacial waterfalls. The canyon is steep and stark as though warning me for what’s to come. Forty-five meters high, a hundred meters wide, two hundred cubic meters of water per second. This Icelandic queen draws tourists from around the world like magic.

I’m surprised to find myself having an okay time, mingling with the others, sharing in the happy anticipation of all. Do thoughts adapt and intertwine when you talk inside clouds of vapor? While my new colleagues and I compare notes on growing up, relationships, the contrast between pushers and pullers, the revolutionary potential of art, it’s as though the distance between us gets smaller and our boundaries less fixed.

We hear the royal fall long before we see her and when we do see her, beyond the line of rocks, we drop into silence and stare in awe.

This is what we’ve come to experience, a beauty so great it pauses the self.

From: Closed Circle by Claire Polders, first published in The Sunlight Press

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–> to continue reading “Closed Circle”, please visit to The Sunlight Press site.

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Would you like to read more flash fiction by me? Please consider reading the following stories:

• “New Leader” in: Cheap Pop, selected for the Wigleaf Top 50
• “Mirror” in: Cincinatti Review, nominated for Best Small Fictions
• “Woman of the Century” in: matchbook, nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions

Or browse my short prose page to find your own favorites.