Willow started it so blame her! Seriously though I have benefitted muchly from Sue Vincent’s many #writephoto prompts and while she is cogitating on how to replace the small dog’s ball, I thought I’d repost this one from 2018 as a thank you. If you enjoy it then go and say thanks over at Sue’s and tell me; I might stick up some more…

Sue Vincent’s #writephoto prompt this week is

‘Surely not? Is that you, Gladys?’

The voice echoed down the valley, like a tsunami of gravel being tumble-dried.

‘It is, isn’t it?’

The reply, a high pitched whine, much like a chainsaw sculpting granite, bounced off the sides of the canyon. ‘Gregory? I haven’t seen you since that grind-a-thon up in Stavanger.’

Gregory’s response was thunderous, a rumble so deep it registered on the Richter scale and caused a couple of minor rock falls. ‘Those were the days, Gladys. You are looking very sparkly.  How’s it going?’

The sigh, like an underground cave collapsing filled the air. ‘It’s been hard, I can’t deny it. This climate change has been murder on my crevasses. They’re as wide as a bullock’s buttocks these days.’ 

‘Yes. Look at my Seracs. Stumpy little things. I’ve been,’ the voice dropped twenty seven octaves and, apart from Gladys, could only be heard thirteen thousand miles away by a surprised pod of deep-diving hump-backed whales, ‘melting.’

‘Goodness, it’s happening everywhere. You had mountaineers crawling all over you, back in the day. I heard Gerald has all but disappeared.’

‘Gerald? Noooo. Surely not. His moraine was a thing of beauty.’

‘Now he’s just a couple of grubby ice piles and a giga-tonne of silt.’

‘Still you’ve made it here. That’s something, at least.’

‘It’s been a grind, I don’t mind saying. I wonder why we keep on going.’

‘Oh come on, it’s not that bad, surely.’

‘It’s not the career it once was Gerald. No one wants glaciers these days. It’s all artificial snow machines and snow globes. Once upon a time we were the landscape architects to the gods. Now we’re lucky if we see out a ski season. I’ve been receding quicker than the Donald’s hairline.’ 

‘You know how it will end, don’t you?’

‘We vanish?’

‘Oh worse than that. At least if we vanish we avoid being humiliated. No, Giuseppe over in the Rockies said it the other day. It we keep melting and the sea rises much more, we’ll end up as icebergs.’

‘Oh good grief, surely not.’

‘Mark my words, Gladys. If this keeps on we’ll end our days as floaters.’