Credits:
Harvest season is Nature’s gift of life and abundance, of food and wine, of work and celebrations once the labors are over. Harvest to many means life, although the symbolism of death cannot quite be disassociated from it. It means reaping; it calls to mind the low-hanging blood red Harvest Moon. To some, it also means gods and goddesses who run the cycle of birth, life, and death.
Harvest is produce from the Earth, the offering of the elements, a wonderful and powerful present from Nature, and yet we cannot seem to help but appropriate it. Each year technology plays a bigger role in harvesting: we want things faster, bigger, better. We want enough product to feed the masses, and we want it pleasant to the eye, to the palate, and to the stomach.
Hunger is of course involved, and with hunger there is the sense of greed, of gluttony, and of fear. What happens if we do not have enough? What happens when we create the erroneous ideal of perfection to which Nature cannot cater because the human ideals are just that, idealistic? Idealism is naïve, and Nature’s splendor is flawed and at times treacherous. Hunger is a powerful drive. It is lust. When one satisfies his longing, chances are someone else is giving in.
Harvest is the season where one has to yield, while another gets to reap.
***
And all the moonlit cows and all the sheep
Stare up at her petrified, while she swells
Filling heaven, as if red hot, and sailing
Closer and closer like the end of the world.
from The Harvest Moon by Ted Hughes
-Ludmila Rishkova
Why is it that when you are in the biggest rush the world slows you down? This thought rushed through Caroline’s mind as she hurried to get to the opening of her best friend’s gallery show.
She wished that she could crawl into bed with an ice pack and a cup of tea. Head pounding, the idea of being part of a crowd was not appealing, especially as people were the cause of the pain. Unintentionally, of course. No one was setting out to hurt her. How could anyone know what she saw when she looked at a person’s face, and the energy that this vision drained from her?
“Good morning, Mother.”
The Mother is in her garden on hands and knees. The tips of her shoes bury deeper in the fine sand as she slowly leans back on her heels to look at me. Her skin is sallow. Arms that were once plump, now struggle to support her upper body. Her collarbone protrudes sharply from the base of her neck. She averts her eyes and smoothes the front of her dust-stained blouse.
“Good morning, Elijah,” she says. Her once inviting mouth is now too big for her face. “Tell me. What do my children require?”
Corinne stands at the threshold, where the sunlight becomes patchy and the wind is torn. The trees before her are like veins, capillaries that run from the earth and into the emptiness of the air. The spaces between them are dark, as if they are bleeding shadows and the forest is a bruise upon the face of the world. She steps among them. She walks. Her footfalls are a thudding, broken echo of the pulse in her own veins.
Love comes calling like an unwanted salesman
all straight teeth good smells
hunger wrapped in jasmine.
Julie opened her eyes.
Sunlight had begun to stream into the room, illuminating their naked bodies tangled in the twisted sheets.
Julie grumbled and rolled over.
Jacques Chevalier-Vicare leaned over the prone form of his daughter to tell her she was going to die.
Evangeline lay quietly, a drip attached to her arm. An ECG machine towered behind her, its blinking pulse graph an ominous countdown. She was thin, her face a bruised purple. She wore a gown patterned with rainbows and stars. Soft toys lay at the foot of her bed: a large Pegasus with widespread wings that sheltered a griffin, a gargoyle, and a phoenix.
butterfly memories
flutter like whispers of the dead
beneath the white rasp of kitchen lights
Crystal Bourque is a perpetual daydreamer. When she's not writing, she spends time going on adventures instead of making them up in her head. She currently resides in Toronto, Ontario.
Tod McCoy is a technical writer in Seattle, Washington. In 2010 he was a Crazy 8s filmmaker semifinalist in Vancouver, BC, and attended the Clarion West workshop. His work has appeared on AntipodeanSF.com and Qarrtsiluni.com. He is also the founder of Hydra House, a Pacific Northwest publisher of speculative fiction.
Christopher King grew up in the forests of Ontario and now plants trees for a living. "We Are the Woods" is his third published work.
Denise Kelly LeBlanc works at a bank by day and spends her nights building a life as a writer, blogger and jewelry maker. She dreams of moving to the country and supporting herself with these pursuits full time.
Dinesh Pulandram has been writing since Robert Jordan's Eye of the World novel fell on his head during a library tour. He's a full time IT geek -- no he doesn't play World of Warcraft -- and he loves reading and writing. His favorite authors are Roger Zelazny, George RR Martin, and Robert Jordan.
Peter Krane is a scientist, business owner, and world traveler, living in Northern Virginia. His first novel, The Sylvan Path, is currently being considered for publication. To learn more about Peter's work, or to contact him with questions and comments, visit www.peterkrane.com.
Lee Clark Zumpe, an entertainment columnist with Tampa Bay Newspapers, earned his bachelor’s in English at the University of South Florida. His nights are consumed with the invocation of ancient nightmares, dutifully bound in fiction and poetry. His work has been seen in magazines such as Weird Tales, Space and Time and Dark Wisdom, and in anthologies including Horrors Beyond, Corpse Blossoms, High Seas Cthulhu and Cthulhu Unbound Vol. 1.
Lee lives on the west coast of Florida with his wife and daughter. Visit muted-mutterings-of-a-mad-poet.blogspot.com or www.amazon.com/Lee-Clark-Zumpe/e/B005JUX38M
Cover, We are the Woods, Grandfather's Day, Evangeline Vicare: Adriana Coluccio
The End is the Beginning: Veronique Vallieres
The Last Gardener: Stephanie Deliva
Delilah of Damnus IV: Ludmila Rishkova
Kitchen Ghost: Angela Roberts