The first time I read this story, I only realised half way through that I was holding my breath, so worried was I that it would lose its momentum. It didn’t. From the very start we find that the Ida of the title has “broad shoulders. One is three meters long, the other, stretches sixty two miles.” Once worshipped as a goddess, she’s now a tourist attraction, Bird Island. But in the middle of the story there’s this glorious line: “If she doesn’t move, no-one will know she is breaking down.” Oh yes, something’s going to happen…
First published in Atticus Review, Nov 2017, where it was Flash Fiction Contest Runner-up
A Personal Anthology 