"A Dry Spell" by Einar H. Kvaran

A government store clerk waits out a prolonged dry spell by philosophising about death with his colleagues. Little does he realize how near actual death is to him. Read by Jonathan Strong.

This story was written one-hundred years ago, when Einar H. Kvaran was approximately 49 years old. (He died in 1938.) Kvaran was of a generation of Icelandic students and scholars who became prominent in the burgeoning regional arts movement of that country around the turn of the twentieth century; he was a journalist and editor who also wrote all types of fiction, as well as poetry and plays. This story may show a tinge of the moralism which eventually overwhelmed Kvaran's work, when he became more interested in the hereafter than the here-and-now. Oh, well, it's still nice to finally have an Icelandic writer represented on this site!

Jonathan Strong used to write plays, as well, but nowadays restricts himself solely to fiction. We've told you about him before.