On the first day of August, the lake in the forest swelled like the belly of a waterlogged corpse. I sat on the shore and wrote a book about the event. Breaking News in Slow Motion. By September, the icy brown water swallowed my ankles, my shins, the weathered legs of my bench. But my book remained dry. I wrote on. Soon the water licked at my waist. Filled the cups of my armpits. Climbed the base of my beard. So I held my book above my head and continued writing in my brain. An eastern bluebird chirped overhead. A serrated elm leaf floated past my nose. Sharp rectangles of sunlight slit the swampy water.
Steve Gergley is the author of The Great Atlantic Highway & Other Stories (Malarkey Books '24), Skyscraper (West Vine Press '23), and A Quick Primer on Wallowing in Despair (Leftover Books '22). His short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Pithead Chapel, Maudlin House, Passages North, Always Crashing, Rejection Letters, and others. In addition to writing fiction, he has composed and recorded five albums of original music. He tweets @GergleySteve. His fiction can be found at: https://stevegergleyauthor.wordpress.com/
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