Nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide, neon,
helium, krypton, hydrogen, and xenon

are the gases which make up
the Standard Dry Air.

And it’s air, but also love, and faith,
and trust, and warmth,

and friendship, and thoughtfulness, and courage,
and everything we can’t even see

that which keeps us alive.

A marketing specialist at a Romanian national radio station, Teodora Vamvu lives in Bucharest, Romania. Her microfiction and short prose have been featured on 101words, Spillwords, and MetaStellar, and her first non-fiction piece was a finalist in F(r)iction’s Creative Non-Fiction Spring 2024 contest. She is also part of two prose anthologies published through Amazon, available in Kindle format and print-on-demand, and an upcoming poetry one.