There’s been so much commotion and excitement around here lately that I almost forgot:
I owe a big thank you to the folks over at Flash Frontier.
They nominated my story “Cicadas,” which appeared in their November 2012 Issue Eye Contact, for Best of the Net!
After an incredibly intense month of submitting writing to 30 literary magazines in 30 days, following my Submission Bonanza! Challenge, I am beginning to reap the rewards.
This month Flash Frontier included me in their featured authors section. Check it out!
Also, if you want to do your own Submission Bonanza! you can check out my tips for editing and choosing pieces to submit, finding magazines, and writing your cover letter and bio.
Or check out the unexpected lessons that I learned while doing this challenge.
She could hear his abdomen, even from eight stories above. She knew he waited for her, dressed in new skin holding the bark of a mango tree. For thirteen years, she had dug and hid, dug and hid, a pale pearl of a nymph sheltered in flooding clay. Prematurely buried. She had fed on rootjuice and waited.
And now, the time for burying herself had gone. She no longer wore the tough soil skin of the past. The brightness of being was nearly unbearable. She was green and larger than herself.
She sat exposed, mesmerized by the equatorial sunlight and the sound of his clicking ribs. She could see him from here, just a speck, but she could tell even at this distance that he looked back at her. Through her ten eyes, he was a kaleidoscope of rounded cicada flecks, mirrored and moving in unison, calling her to the ground.
And then a closer sound. Behind her, ten of the same dark-haired girls with lightning eyes and cloud-colored skin reached a catastrophic finger in her direction.
She heard him again, dry-fly ribs rubbing together to blot out the sounds of metropolitan traffic and children. The vibrations called to her.
She looked down at the expectant mango tree and imagined the future she would create: millions of shimmery nymphs sprinkling from the branches, raining onto the soil below, christening the ground with their sparkling selves.
There was nothing for her to do now, except let go.
Back in the day, I wrote about submitting some of my flash fiction to Flash Frontier. This rewrite of my original post was published in Flash Frontier’s November Issue, Eye Contact.
Also, I’d like to reiterate my Creative Commons love to Flickr user Roger Smith for the amazing photo!
She could hear his abdomen, even from eight stories above. She knew he waited for her, dressed in new skin holding the bark of a mango tree. For thirteen years, she had dug and hid, dug and hid, a pale pearl of a nymph sheltered in flooding clay. Prematurely buried. She had fed on rootjuice and waited.
And now, the time for burying herself was gone. She no longer wore the tough soil skin of the past. The brightness of being was nearly unbearable. She was green and larger than herself.
She sat exposed, mesmerized by the equatorial sunlight and the scene in front of her. A kaleidescope of rounded, dark-haired girls with lightning eyes and cloud-colored skin. Mirrored and moving the same. The repetition of girls had no expression on their faces. Their mouths moved at the groups of people surrounding them, but their dream-time eyes looked through the scene.
She heard him again, dry-fly ribs rubbing together to blot out the sounds of metropolitan traffic and children. The vibrations called to her.
She looked down at the expectant mango tree and imagined the future she would create. Millions of shimmery nymphs sprinkling from the branches, raining onto the soil below, christening the ground with their sparkling selves.
There was nothing for her to do now, except let go.
Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/rogersmith/ for the photo! Thanks!
Dry Flies
Ten eyes blink
in an unfamiliar brightness.
You both almost remember
seeing this sun before.
Some time before the darkness,
before you slept with roots and grubs,
before your premature burials,
before the prime number
of years spent waiting.
The temperature is right.
It’s your four minutes, the soil urges.
Take it. Take it.
Seventeen years this moment has
grown and molted, hid and sighed,
waited and waited to sing.
It’s not time to store for winter.
It’s time to leave empty selves behind,
clinging to bark and dust.
It’s time to shed golden skins.
Vines pause their swaying,
mangoes hold their breath,
leaf corpses don’t even rustle.
The dog day is silent.
It’s loud at first, furious and brave,
drunk with the newness of light.
It’s not a matter of legs or violins.
Bodies resound as ribs rub together.
The song becomes a whisper
as you near each other,
gentler, like a snake in the leaves.
It’s no longer for coaxing,
no longer for the eyes of the trees.
Branches are split.
Later, much later,
buttressed trees will burst with children,
nymphs will rain from their twiggy fingers,
speckled-dust life and the promise of song
will fall to a summery, shimmery floor.
But now, it’s not time to store for winter.
Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/pennstatelive/ for the photo of “Cicadas” etching by Marilyn McPheron.