An Empire At War

The empire went to war the same way an insecure dog picks fights, erratically and for unknown cause. Was it to assert dominance in an uncertain universe? Or maybe to protect resources of little worth and questionable appeal to her adversaries? Who can say? The whims of the empress were unpredictable and perhaps more than a little self-destructive.

The reasons mattered little to the soldiers of the empire. They were just unfortunate strays caught up in affairs beyond their ken, with only one concern: hope that their lives, and their deaths, would somehow satiate the inscrutable monarch.

They rarely did.

Midnight

Nancy Botkin loves midnight. She stands on the porch, wind whispering. She watches moon drifting. Luminous, motherly, never leaving. A new day awakens. Possibilities rise.

She imagines a father who doesn’t burn her stories. Crinkling creation. Flames consuming.

A father who doesn’t demand her to clean. Buy booze.

She conjures leaving. Like Mama, selfish, enviable. Going wherever whims call.

Nancy can’t imagine the shape of winning. What a miracle truly feels like.

Dad always emerges, demands she get inside. She slinks in, weary, unable to find words. Leave me alone.

She hides pieces of dreams, waits for the next night.

From Guest Contributor Mir-Yashar Seyedbagheri

Mir-Yashar is a graduate of Colorado State's MFA program in fiction. The recipient of two Honorable Mentions from Glimmer Train, he has also had work nominated for The Best Small Fictions. His work has been published or is forthcoming in journals such as 50 Word Story, Molecule Lit Mag, The Write City Magazine, and Agony Opera. He lives in Garden Valley, Idaho.