I stare at the screen
Checkered with dark boxes
Names and pronouns gleam
Back in bright white
Are you there? I ask, smiling
The chat box is a vast depot for responses
If only you’d answer
When the silence swallows us
Your words trickle in
One by one
Yes
Here
+1
I used to wonder what you were doing
On the other side of the screen
Now I imagine we’re all just
Languishing
Locked between
resignation
and waiting
The waiting room chimes
Announce your arrival
And remind us both how
You are
elsewhere.
At the end of the day
Eyesight blurred by blue light
I scan your responses and find
"Residence time is
the amount of time
a water molecule
will stay in a reservoir."
It’s not yet possible to calculate
How long we’ll stay
Here.
About the Creator
Steph K
I am a biologist, illustrator, educator, dancer, and writer. Given this assorted list, you can easily conclude that no activity exists that I enjoy more than learning, except perhaps sharing learning with others.
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The Spring
The sun was high when Lance pulled off the road and into the dusty lot of the service station. The sign back at the hairpin--the first sign in a long time--said they just rolled into Hatter’s Creek, Population 63. It was small enough it didn’t appear on the handmap in Shelby’s lap, yet here it stood, the first backwater township on the fringes of the National Park. The plan was to gas up, restock the snack bag, and press on into the wilderness.
By Zack Graham5 days ago in Fiction
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