March 18, 2025

White Cold Winter

By Willow Campbell

Photo by Anna Tarazevich on Pexels.com

In the stillness of my apartment, I boil water to watch something move. I like bubbles when they grow into noises I can notice like the ghost of someone’s laugh. I can be funny sometimes. Once, I slept on the floor because the bed felt too big, and there’s a saltine cracker I dropped in the bathroom and decided to never pick up because it fell exactly in line with the grooves of the wood. In the stillness of my apartment, I watch water boil and forget about thinking of you. I don’t worry if it’s clear that I’m listening.

About the Author

Willow CampbellWillow Campbell (they/them) is an MFA candidate at the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts Program through Cleveland State University. Their fiction has appeared in Gordon Square Review, Glass Mountain Magazine, American Literary Review, and BHB Press. Instagram: @unbroken.blue

Related Flash
Rusted metal plate

Mulberries

By Jon Doughboy

“June in the rustbelt and we’re raving drunkenly down the street trying to catch mulberries in our mouths as they fall, chomp chomp chomp their bloody juice and save them from the sidewalk.”
selective focus photography of black rotary phone

The Things You Will Do

By Andrea Marcusa

“You will see your mother’s number calling and a strange cardboard voice will strike your ear with She’s passed, and you’ll hang onto your mind, save it from falling into dead air, fingers squeezing the life out of the phone…”

red apples on tree

That Scene From Every Movie Where the Dead Person Gets Cremated

By Benjamin Drevlow

“When we spread my brother’s ashes in the apple orchard just below the barn, they never blew back in our face and made us sneeze…”

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This