Published in Sick Lit Magazine 2/3/2016

This microflash fiction was submitted in response to an invisibility call.  The writer who suggested the invisibility theme, the lovely Kate Jones, said this of “Arise”

This intense, detailed, yet short piece holds many evocative references to nature. The penultimate paragraph took my breath away, and I had to go back and read the whole piece again.  — Kate Jones

I like this flash a lot, because in some ways it’s a tribute to a strong-spirited neighbor I once had. At its core, the story shares a theme with a moving poem by Robert Frost, his 1914 “Death of the Hired Man”:

The nearest friends can go
With anyone to death, comes so far short
They might as well not try to go at all.
No, from the time when one is sick to death,
One is alone, and he dies more alone.
Friends make pretence of following to the grave,
But before one is in it, their minds are turned
And making the best of their way back to life
And living people, and things they understand.

I think death must be like childbirth.  Mother Nature says let’s go, and you go, and there’s only one way to go.

Here is a link to the story.  I hope you enjoy it, it’s very short, and thank you for sharing and supporting Sick Lit Press — a start up interested in preaching the gospel of literary fiction. I’m taken by the image that editor Kelly Coody paired with the story, an original photo by Brian Michael Barbeito. Great synergy there.  Thank you for reading.

Arise