Lesson One: Simona ~ fiction by Kati Bumbera

Simona is a mountain. She is tall. She speaks with an accent.

Where are you from, Simona? I am the daughter of continental plates. My parents argued when I was born. I fled the desert to go to school. The children laugh. There’s distant thunder.

Simona writes an essay. What do you want, Simona? I want to see the sea. Simona graduates with honours. The teacher laughs. You are a mountain, Simona. They will drill tunnels through your belly. They’ll smear hot asphalt on your face.

They’ll move the sea just out of your reach.

Simona rents a small apartment. She goes to work in a big city. Her boss owns all the summer months. He rejects Simona’s leave request. He says, you are a mountain, Simona. Also, your forest is on fire. Her colleagues laugh. There’s distant thunder.

Simona has a tall, American boyfriend.

Simona gives birth to a small rock. It’s carried away by the river.

Simona is taken to hospital. The doctors don’t know what’s wrong with her. She attracts lightning. She coughs up lava. The doctors tell her it’s her fault. You are a mountain, Simona. Your guts are made of lodestone. It broke our scanner. There’s nothing we can do.

One night, a woman comes to see her. She says, hello, Simona. I am a ghost. I wear these long skirts, these high-heeled boots. They weren’t made for hiking. I came too early. Before my time. They told me that the world was flat. They tried to lock me in staid rooms. But I still climbed you. And from your heights, I saw the sea. I saw the thunder, the avalanches. I am dead now. But you, Simona, are a mountain.

Simona survives, encircled by summer. It never ends. Her boss gets rich. There’s constant thunder. Simona is a mountain. She’s everyone’s playground and refuge. But her forest burns all the time.

Her son sends her a postcard from the sea.

Simona’s old. She lives in a nursing home. Strangers come and go every day. Simona wants to be alone. At night, a cat sits by her window. She sees desert stars in the cat’s eyes. She sees the storms, the avalanches. She sees the woman in her soaked skirts. She sees the sailors, steering by lodestone in the dark.

Simona knows she is a mountain.

There’s distant thunder.

Kati Bumbera is a video games writer who ran away from the city to live between the mountains and the sea. Her short fiction has been published by NFFD, Roi Faineant Press, The Fabulist, and The Fantastic Other. Occasional tweets at @KatiBumbera.