The Raft

Listen to an audio version of The Raft

By Cecilia Rogers

“I can’t!” My voice, high and strident, carries out across the water.

“Sure you can; come on, try.” My sister’s voice, low and calm, comes to me clearly.

“No, I can’t.”

“But you did last year.”

Last year. Perhaps. But this is now, and I know I cannot do it. I don’t answer her.

“Come on, just try.”

Still no answer.

“Do you want me to come and get you?”

My teeth are chattering together with the cold, so I nod, and watch as she swims toward me.

I am standing in the water, and when I look down my feet seem to be very close to the surface. There are little minnows swimming around — the other kids say that they nibble on your toes, but I don’t believe it. I’ve never felt them do that.

It is the first morning of our summer vacation, which we spend every year at the cottage. We got up early this morning, my older sister and me, in order to go swimming. While everyone else slept, we put on our bathing suits, found some towels and went outside. We didn’t bother eating any breakfast, but went straight down to the lake.

When we got there she dove in; she just went in and started swimming. I put one foot in, and when it was numb with cold, the other one. Moving by slow degrees, I am now just up to my knees, and shivering. Continue reading

Déjà View

By M.P. Witwer

After experiencing the scene again and again in his dreams, those awful nightmares that drew him here to Times Square, Evan knows every detail before it happens.

A flag twisted by the wind is about to tear free of its anchor and sail away. The Diet Coke ad will morph into a pitch for regular Coke. Someone wearing a red coat on the steps ahead is going to trip but not fall. And at precisely 2:17 p.m., a girl will plummet from the tower.

Quickening his pace, he steals a glance at his watch. He has less than a minute to prevent her death. But how? The dreams haven’t revealed that piece of information.

As he sprints toward an unknown destiny, the events unfold on cue. The flag whips violently. The giant screen changes from white to red. His vision sweeps toward the red coat, but the lettering on the base of the intervening monument catches his eye and stops him short — “Father Duffy,” it reads.

He closes his eyes, envisioning the familiar image. The statue in the dreams depicted another World War I hero, Sergeant York, he’s absolutely certain. If the nightmares had been wrong about that…

Evan looks around, taking in everything. The woman in red glides down the steps without stumbling. The flag miraculously hangs on by a thread. No girl has fallen.

He checks his watch. 2:19. Feeling a mixture of relief and foolishness, he walks away. Time to go home to Kansas.

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This piece was written for and ultimately won a weekly Indies Unlimited flash fiction contest. Please see the original post for details of the challenge and the photo prompt referenced in the story: Flash Fiction Challenge: Déjà View

Anytime Is Time to Read

Quote

“The time to read is any time: no apparatus, no appointment of time and place, is necessary. It is the only art which can be practiced at any hour of the day or night, whenever the time and inclination comes, that is your time for reading; in joy or sorrow, health or illness.”
~ Holbrook Jackson