The March Waters

The stillness of the air weighed heavily on the landscape. The lake, melted during the false summer, was paved over again.

Every kid in the neighborhood was under strict orders to stay off the ice. After the first melt happens, you can't trust its solidity.

The best part about even the mildest of late winter storms is that school shuts down but parents still have to work. By 10AM all the boys, and a few of the girls, had started an epic hockey game.

That night, they all bristled at the injustice of their punishment. After all, they'd been right.

Gone Fishing

The fish hook didn’t stir in the stillness of the water.

There’s a dark, ominous look in the sky. Not the sunny, warm weather the forecasters predicted.

The shore wasn’t far, so I stayed on course and waited. I wished I had something to drink. The air was humid, and my lips quenched water.

In the tiny row boat, I felt lonely, especially since no one else was on the lake and my only companions were the birds chirping in the trees.

A bolt of lightning filled the sky, followed by claps of thunder.

Then the downpour.

No fish today.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

The Hawk

A red-tailed hawk screeched as it circled above. Grandfather pointed and said, “That is your spirit animal, my little one. You are a chosen one. It carries a message for you.”

“What do I do, Grandfather?”

“Clear your mind.”

“How will I know?”

“When your mind is clear, the message will come.”

“I’m trying to hear, but there is no message.”

“Stop trying, clear your mind.”

An eerie stillness settled in. “What will happen when they dig the new mine, Grandfather?”

The old man looked at the hawk circling and said nothing.

“We must stop them.”

The old man smiled.

From Guest Contributor NT Franklin

NT has been published in Page and Spine, Fiction on the Web, 101 Words, Friday Flash Fiction, CafeLit, Madswirl, Postcard Shorts, 404 Words, Scarlet Leaf Review, Freedom Fiction, Burrst, Entropy, Alsina Publishing, Fifty-word stories, Dime Show Review, among others.

Parasitic Sea

A stillness descends on the empty beach. The children are asleep in cottages. How many of you stepped on shells and hurt yourselves? How many of you were stung by jellyfish?

A small light shines far away over the dark sea. It rushes faster than the waves, dashes across the beach, and dives deep into the scratched feet of the dreaming children. And it divides, multiplies, and devours.

The next morning, the children wake and run toward the sea. They leap into the waves and swim away.

It’s time to go home. Are your parents going to miss you, kids?

From Guest Contributor Natsumi Tanaka

Translated from Japanese by Toshiya Kamei

Natsumi Tanaka is a writer living in Kyoto, Japan. Her short stories have appeared in journals such as Anima Solaris, Kotori no kyuden, and Tanpen. She is the author of the short story collection Yumemiru ningyo no okoku (2017). Translations of her short fiction have appeared in Fanzine, Star 82 Review, and The William & Mary Review, among others.

Winter

I peered suspiciously beyond the chipped lacquer of the oaken balcony. I had seen this before. The wind was coming.

Somehow, this place had now become my opus. I mean to say of course that it had supplanted my imagination. The verdurous landscape below appeared at times surreal; dioramic. And yet, at almost the same moment, conscious; alive to the rhythmic pulsations of the earth. Living in the trees was an idyllic stillness; in the air, an inscrutable entropy.

Soon, without warning, the wind would be be upon us, and a pervasive cold would grip the house for many days.

From Guest Contributor L.S. Worthy