words and images by mk swanson
 
Category: <span>fiction</span>

Nuclear Summer

Three days of thunderstorms, rainbows, ospreys carrying fish to their young, alligators lounging on logs in the Ocklawaha, hibiscus flowers blooming and dying overnight, the smell of four o’clocks, the hum of bees, the smell of ozone after lightning.

Are You There?

The Island inhabitants were peaceful. No disease ate away at their bodies and their consciences felt no pinch because they had protected their own. The outside world had been a dream, and now they were truly awake.

Breathless

Breathless is the post-apocalyptic tale of a woman, a mechanical egg, and how the fear of losing hope can prevent a person taking necessary risks. “She sometimes imagined that she could hear the corpuscles knock on the valves, polite as old nuns, before sweeping in with their sacred bath of …