Flash Fiction by Elin Järvinen
It gets darker. There’s too much ash in the air to truly tell, but I think I see in black and white now. I don’t remember if that’s because of the cones or the rods. It’s the ones that make you see the smallest hints of light, but grainy like a damaged reel of 16mm film.
People pass me by in their black clothes, on dusted pavements, beside dusted high-rises. Sometimes a glisten of light betrays where their eyes must be. Their breathing grows louder every day. All around me, breathing.
Suddenly, it gets quiet. Pitch dark. The metal smell. I shiver. It shouldn’t surprise me anymore, but it does. I know the steps back to my room and finger the cold key in my hand, moving as fast as I can.
When they first brought me here, someone whispered I had to remember my name. To say it out loud every day. I did, but not aloud. I said it in my dreams, and I carved it in tree trunks, under young lush leaves, against the brightest blue sky.
Until last night, when I painted my name in the air but couldn’t read it anymore. The colors faded, spreading out, staining like watercolors.
I open my mouth.
Darkness breathes in.
Text © Elin Järvinen
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