Bill Engleson is the Readers’ Choice in this week’s Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Challenge. The winning entry is decided by the popular vote and rewarded with a special feature here today. (In the case of a tie, the writer who submitted an entry first is the winner per our rules.) Without further ado, here’s the winning entry:
The Shallows
by Bill Engleson
The light slants in, a shaft of life affirming brilliance, warm, warming, a wonder.
I am treading water; always treading; my lungs are about to burst, my legs pedal as if I am running downhill with no earthly hope of stopping.
My heart is strong though; strong, but it is wanting.
Something.
There is always something.
We, you and I, we seem to skim just below the surface these days, don’t we?
We hover inches under the tip of the sea, the slim sheaf of water that separates.
Oh, we see so much when there is so little happening…up there.
When all is still, when the rafts lug along, flooded with the lost ones,
tipping them into our sea, flapping away in their death throes, a shabby lot of refugees,
Drowning in our sea, thinking, last thoughts, in our sea.
But we continue to skim just below the surface, these days, all days, don’t we?
Don’t answer. It is not necessary.
I will always see you speak.
Sound travels well here, bubbles of resonance swishing in the wetness,
words, humming, frothing of fine fizzes, stinging silently,
rays of sharp words, slicing down from above the sea,
a sky of opportunity there for the taking.
If we dared…
But we continue to skim just below the surface, these days, for all time, don’t we?
Yes, you know we do.
You know…
Congrats, Bill!
Thanks, Annette.