Blues Before Sunrise
3. The Knockdown Dragout
Vladis called Ingunn Blondie and Ingunn called Vladis Scrumptious. Blondie was taller than Scrumptious and not so curvaceous and also lighter in complexion and with long hair like spun gold, while Scrumptious with her closely cropped chocolate curls made Blondie's mouth water every time their eyes met.
And now they were married.
They were indulging in a public display of affection that Scrumptious no longer resisted when one of the photographers lining the ice-strewn black beach interrupted their kiss with a cry of dismay.
He had gone too far out trying to get a good shot of the jewel-like ice in its perfectly contrasting setting, and an incoming wave strangely larger than the rest had just knocked him off balance.
The backwash then finished the job.
As he went down clutching his tripod and hoisting it high, the newlyweds watched as the rest of him, all but the camera at the end of the tripod, disappeared under the rush of the outgoing water.
They let go of each other and sprang into action.
As they dragged him up coughing and spluttering, the first thing he said was, "I got it! I bloody well got it!"
Soon other photographers came and helped him out of his sopping wet coat, draping one of their own over his shoulders. Behind them their abandoned tripods stood together like a gaggle of three-legged one-eyed aliens observing an otherworldly event.
Squishing loudly in his boots full of ocean and visibly shivering, the unfortunate fellow slogged away toward the red bus that had brought him. The other photographers recovered their gear and went back to their odd hunt of the diamonds on the black velvet shore.
"I feel a strange affection for that man," said Blondie, "almost as if he were our father."
"So do I," said Scrumptious. "That's so weird."
In their room for the night, they ordered room service rather than sit in the restaurant, wondering aloud why suddenly they felt so private. A baffling sadness sapped their appetites, so that neither took more than a bite of the lamb nor more than a sip of the wine.
"I hope he's all right," Blondie said, as she reached out to turn off the lamp by the bed.
"Yes, and that he really did get what he wanted," said Scrumptious.
They curled up together but only held hands. In a whisper they agreed to return to Reykjavik the next day and spend the rest of their honeymoon somewhere warmer, like the south of France or in a discotheque in Spain.
7 December 2022
Texas Jim
Breiðamerkursandur, Iceland
www.granitecoast.ca