Ash Lullaby

The volcano wakes in the night and by morning the evacuation road is gone. Sigrún and her six-year-old daughter are left in a village where the ash comes down like snow and the air gets heavier every hour.

The radio gives her instructions. Wet cloth over the face. Head for the coast. And the one that matters: keep her awake, whatever else happens, do not let her sleep.

So they walk. Across the lava fields, through a grey world lit only by the red seam on the horizon, and Sigrún sings. Every lullaby she knows, and then the same ones backwards, and then sideways, and then ones she is making up as she goes, because a lullaby is a song designed to do the exact opposite of what she needs it to do tonight.

No score, no rescue helicopter arriving on cue. Just the ash, the distance to the sea, and a woman running out of songs.