The Ink Well Highlights Magazine #3 (April 10, 2021)

They tried to wake her up, but she was anchored to her dreams, screaming in desperation. That night was called "The Night of Thunder" in the newspapers. Of these events, Maya hardly paid attention, except once her grandfather smiled at her. This was because he appeared and vanished within minutes of appearing. Without anyone calling or warning him. On that occasion, he stayed for two hours with the family celebrating. -@ricardo993

I tried to ignore the dreams and memories, but with time it became more and more impossible. I could be reading the day's paper, then find myself laughing at an old joke I never heard. Or I could be doing my laundry, then suddenly start crying over an old heartbreak. And almost every time, my nose is assaulted with the sickly sweet smell of freshly cooked bacon. -@bruno-kema

At first, you seek reaffirmation of your reality. You need to be sure that you cannot change your reality into something new. When you have satisfied your senses as to the regularity of every sweep of bird wings in the sky, the constant drama of crickets at night, the steady swing of trees in the wind, the heat the sun brings, the emptiness of your bed where missing bodies had once found shape, you go within. Your mind becomes the uncharted territory that you have to travel. In it, you hope to find something new—an animal, a god, a human being just trying to be. -@warpedpoetic

I stared at the different dishes of assorted delicacies I had lined up and displayed for Felix. The effort seemed wasted. The fact that I had no one to share all the food with made me even more bitter.
Being with Felix for years had been a long life wish and dream come true but at the same time, it seemed like a furnished hell prepared for separate souls. -@zanoz