February 14, 2023

Listening

By Diane Payne

Photo credit: Erik Karits and Rıfat Gadimov.

You waken to the sound of an owl hooting, two cats screeching, and the sound of humans crying, their grief whirling into the eternity of nocturnal voices reaching out, a desperate call and response heard by insomniacs, dogs stuck in pens at night, and infants who awaken and join in the crying, the howling, the screeching, wondering why no is listening. 

You look out the window and see the silhouette of a neighbor mother picking up her infant, two cats running separate directions down the road, and the next-door neighbor family gathered beneath their large oak tree wailing into the night.  You know the young mother has died and go into the kitchen to make muffins, as if a plate of muffins will ease their loss, but it eases your loss of feeling unable to offer any solace.

You mix the blueberries into the batter, once again, remembering one by one your personal losses, understanding this neighbor family’s permanent loss, while the owl looks down at the family beneath the tree, the cats sitting on opposite sides of the yard watching the grieving family, as the baby falls asleep assured that someone is listening.

About the Author

Diane PayneDiane Payne’s most recent publications and forthcoming include: Best of Microfiction 2022, Quarterly West, Invisible City, Cutleaf, Miramachi Flash, Microlit Almanac, Spry Literary Magazine, Another Chicago Magazine, Whale Road Review, Fourth River, Tiny Spoon, Bending Genres, Oyster Review, Book of Matches, Abandon, Notre Dame Review, Watershed Review, Superstition Review, Windmill Review, Lunch Ticket, Split Lip Review, The Offing, Elk, and McNeese Review. dianepayne.wordpress.com

Related Flash
two orange tigers sitting beside each other

Hotdogs

By Hugh Behm-Steinberg

“We’re sitting beneath blankets on the upstairs porch, watching the river of tigers. In ones and twos they trickle, and then in columns they saunter. It’s purposeful, as more arrive, a parade strolling through our town.”

pink steel water pump behind blue fence

If You Must Know

By Barbara Diggs

“You saw your lil friends drown in a whirlpool of white, one by one, or sometimes one by two like when Tay-Tay got shot during a pickup and the bullet passed through his neck and hit Raymond in the shoulder as he was running away.”

Woman in silhouette near the Taj Mahal

Once in our home in Agra, the monsoon was over

By Tara Isabel Zambrano

“we took off our PJs, and became the afternoon—our earlobes and neck, our limbs and nails turning pink from the syringe of the sun, asphalt gritting our feet, downstairs our mothers calling our names circled red with curses…”

Pin It on Pinterest

Your Impossible Voice
Diane Payne
two orange tigers sitting beside each other
pink steel water pump behind blue fence
Woman in silhouette near the Taj Mahal
Share This