First Words—July 15, 2018: C.M. Simpson

First words were completed, today. Tomorrow, there will be more.

Another 365 Days of Poetry

Farewell to the Conquering Queen

Written on July 15, 2018, for the March 9 entry of Another 365 Days of Poetry, this elegy takes its inspiration from stories of medusa and asks what would happen, if she’d been a queen.

Gone! The West Wind weeps. The waves sing their grief.

Gone! This island is much more barren, now,

without the sibilance of your waving hair.

Gone, the truth of your words, your treachery,

all gone with your plotting, your schemes, and your wars.

Another 365 Days of Flash Fiction

The Threat Beneath

Written on July 15, 2018, for the July 15 entry in Another 365 Days of Flash Fiction, this piece contemplates an unexpected danger on a colony world.

The worms came in the morning, millions of them, rising from beneath the ground and spewing curlicues of dirt. The chickens went wild, and a feathered feeding frenzy ensued, but I wondered what was happening beneath my home.

I didn’t step down from the porch—there was nowhere to put my feet—but I grabbed a broom, and stood by the rail, and watched to see what happened next. The sun was still a glimmer in the morning sky, but it was rising, and the worms would burn—and then the chickens screamed, in desperate drawn-out cackles, as they fled the ground, and raced up to cluster around my feet, their squawking growing short and hoarse and choked.

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Previous collections of flash fiction—365 Days of Flash Fiction and 366 Days of Flash Fiction—and poetry—365 Days of Poetry and 366 Days of Poetry—are all currently available.