The dark isn’t always scary, or so the voice tells me. You might even come to like the simpleness of it. There’s the unknown to embrace. Not cold, it says, not alone.
I nod, not sure the voice will understand.
Am I dead?
No.
My eyes?
Gone, the doctor whispers.
Jane R. Miles lives in the Netherlands, but will always call Australia home.
I had a little truth and reconciliation session with myself the other morning. I did the voices of all my accusers. Their testimony was totally devastating. In my own voice, all I could say, over and over, was, “I never knew you felt that way,” as the accusations piled on.
Called “one of the innovators of the short short story” by Publishers Weekly, Peter Cherches has published short prose in scores of magazines, anthologies and websites, including Harper’s, Fence, Bomb, Semiotext(e), and Fiction International. His most recent book is Things, a collection of short prose and poetry from Bamboo Dart Press.
The loud engine of the pickup truck keeps interrupting her thoughts.
Exhausted, she peers out the window at the autumn trees.
It’s so different from the city. Admittedly, it’s beautiful. Like driving through fire.
Resigned, she looks ahead at the farmhouse looming before her.
“Welcome to your future,” she whispers.
Thilda Haylock, an Australian teenager in Switzerland, believes that poetry is more than just the words; it’s a feeling all in itself.