The Sentinel

As I regained consciousness I was keenly aware of the back of my head before I even opened my eyes. It felt like someone was beating the inside of my skull with a hammer, pounding in rhythm to the beat of my heart. I don’t think I had ever been so aware of anything in my entire life.

I began to become aware of the rest of my body as my brain started to cope with my throbbing cranium. It felt like I was sitting down, but my arms were behind me. I tried to reach up to feel what must be a lump the size of a baseball when I realized that I couldn’t move my hands. With considerable effort I lifted my chin from my chest where it had rested and grimaced as a rush of blood sent a fresh wave of pain across my skull.

I must have let out a groan because as I opened my eyes I saw a man standing in front of me, staring at me with a sideways grin like someone had just told him a joke that was sort of funny but not funny enough to laugh out loud about. He was a mountain of muscle and leathery skin, and from my vantage point he appeared to be over ten feet tall.

Downpour

Tags

flash fiction, micro fiction

His face remained impassive as swollen eyes watched the flag slowly drop to half-staff. The air was still and thick, the red, white and blue hanging lifelessly on a bed of ashen clouds. A sea of gray obscured the morning sun and cast the entire campus of his old high school in a monochromatic pallor. His head lowered and he shut his eyes.

He saw her face. Her picture had been all over the news and her name had been on the tongues of everyone in town over the last few days. Mention of her had invariably been accompanied by the words “hometown hero” or “fallen soldier,” but all he saw was the girl he grew up with. The girl that used to tease him mercilessly whenever she beat him in a race. The girl he had shared his first kiss with at their senior prom. The girl that went away after high school and would never return.

As the air began to move in erratic gusts of wind, he looked up with damp eyes and watched the flag wave in heaving spasms. Behind it, the swollen clouds hung heavy with the weight of water, churning violently and threatening to unleash a downpour.

 

 

Blueberry Hill

Tags

flash fiction, micro fiction

“Blueberry pancakes,” Alan said.

Rachel thought for a second. “No, blueberry jam.”

“Blueberry jam on blueberry pancakes?”

“Okay, agreed. That was Mom’s best.”

Rachel smiled and plucked a blueberry from the wild bushes that dotted the hill beside their childhood home. She popped it into her mouth and was surprised by its tartness. Her pursed lips stretched into a sad smile.

Alan recognized her smile as the same one their mother wore as she watched her children leave home in a domino effect that left the house like a forgotten museum.

“Not the same as you remember?”

“No, it really isn’t.”

Alan squeezed Rachel’s hand as they descended the hill.

 

 

Melancholia

Tags

poetry

Her head slumps with the weight of black bile,
too heavy to turn to watch him leave,
too tired to shed a tear.

 

The Inevitable Winter

Tags

poetry

The inevitable winter falls
slowly, burying us under
the weight of its beauty.

 

Caruso

Tags

flash fiction, micro fiction

Caruso was the runt of the litter, but his cries those first few nights were deafening. Mother said he needed to learn to behave and forbade me from comforting him. She would play her favorite old opera records to help drown out the wailing and help ease our guilty ears.

Caruso eventually stopped crying, but every time Mother played her records he would howl along with the music. I would join in and hum along, annoying Mother to no end.

As college approached, Caruso’s old eyes told me he knew I was leaving soon. The morning I left, I played Mother’s records one last time. His tail wagged as we performed a duet, howling and humming. He wasn’t there when I returned home the next summer.

Last night we laid my mother to rest. After the service, I played her records for the first time in thirty years. The humming helped ease the pain constricting my throat.

 

 

Journey’s End

Tags

poetry

At journey’s end,
Amongst the dead and the dying,
Nature reclaims her wandering children.

 

In the Abyss

Tags

flash fiction, micro fiction, third place

“Cross over, please.”

Angela heard the words, muffled, as if spoken through liquid. She tried to focus on where she was, but everything was muddled, like watercolors pooling into a mess of muddy hues.

Panic seized her. She remembered frantically reaching up as she sank, water filling her lungs. Her silent scream was lost in the abyss.

“Rest in peace, Angela,” Vivian said quietly, dropping a rose into the empty pool. After twenty years, she could still feel her friend there, trapped, stuck in that horrible moment.

Vivian thought she heard Angela’s voice. She mouthed a silent goodbye as the pain washed over her anew, overpowering, dominant.

 

 

Ready

Tags

poetry, third place

A stoic face belies
The rush of life beneath, ready
To leave it all behind.

 

Invisible Snow

Tags

flash fiction, micro fiction

Shiro stared at Yuki’s picture and remembered her cheeks, rosy from the frigid air. She was a cherry blossom caught in the breeze.

That was how he wanted to remember her, but the monk’s chanting reminded him of the loudspeakers meant to bring order during the evacuation. They merely provided background noise, radiation, as they fled, Yuki’s cheeks wet with tears as they left their entire life behind.

Newspapers called the fallout “invisible snow,” but it was a blizzard. It buried her in an avalanche. Yuki’s final act was the only escape she saw, an attempt at finding warmth.

The sickly sweet aroma of incense brought images of burning flowers to Shiro’s mind. Quietly, he turned away from Yuki’s photograph on the altar and exited the temple.

His heart smoldered beneath the surface, threatening to crack the ice created by their nuclear winter. A snowflake landed on Shiro’s cheek and melted into an unconscious tear. He didn’t feel it.