Frost Bite

“Frost on iris berries (11620851205)” by Ian Kirk from Broadstone, Dorset, UK

Allister knew

that the cloud cover couldn’t show up in time.

He placed his hands on the horizon arm’s length, and discovered he only had two, maybe three hours of daylight.

It was already cold.

His fingers ached as breath spumed in nebulae that crystallized, fell: Frost on the ground.

The fire was high, but not high enough.

It crackled, reported and screamed; a billowing and waving semaphore of light and heat.

Ahead the moon, already eager, late in the month, was high in the dome; Artemis taking aim, seeming to close in on Apollo.

“At least there will be plenty of light tonight.”

He thought of a cold, stiff-legged walk through the moaning pines and in that frigid glare, gunmetal light of the waxing moon.

Lifting, chopping, toting,

Feeding that insatiable beast that keeps him alive, here, that cracks and spews and sparks and demands.

Hacking and splitting, Allister’s hands made mitts of callous ice full of pressure and

He fed the blaze.

– Alex White, Copy Editor

Alex White lives in Florence, Alabama and is from Decatur, Alabama. A self-styled Buddha-survivalist, he enjoys the outdoors and is an avid angler and dachshund enthusiast. He maintains a poetry blog “Visions of the Afterworld” and copy edits for Garden Spices Magazine.