A Flash Fiction by Kate MacDonald

Is there a place somewhere for me, a cosy cave, complete with soft furnishings and WiFI? There are deadlines to meet. I also need quiet to concentrate. Unfortunately, at this moment, every nerve ending in my body is vibrating. The cacophony made by my three children echoes through my skull.

The tenth circle of hell is reserved for writers, awaiting readers. Therefore, the dichotomy of a writer’s existence is the need for solitude to write, the desire for an audience to exist.

All true, but as a working mother, life intrudes, interjects, influences. If some considered hell to be on earth, I knew where that tenth circle was.

There was not so much a lightbulb moment, more the slight flicker from a guttering candle. My Celtic heritage might be of some use here. I was the keeper of our family ephemera, going back generations.

Great-great-grandma Harraughty had earned the soubriquet of Wise Woman. I knew there was a tattered book of her’s, in the obligatory battered old tin trunk, in the attic. Among the dust motes and the cobwebs, there it stood, as I remembered it. At the bottom, I found the aptly named “Book of Shadows.” Back in my study, I riffled through the pages. I was amazed to find this passage;

Take a tallow candle.
To harness time, etch “one minute= one hour” down the length of the candle.
Light the candle. Chant:
“While fully conscious mine eyes shall see, a portal open up for me.
I summon the space that I desire, to come to me for just one hour.”

I am sure there will be questions. For example, did it work? All I can say is, I have written four books in two weeks.

Kate MacDonald is a retired septuagenarian insomniac. She dabbles in buying junk and selling “Antiques” online, but writing has become her quiet passion. So suitable to help fill the still dark hours. Kate has only returned to writing in the past year or so. Kate has had five poems published in Stardust Review. She has also had two short stories published, one in Stardust Review, the other in Nonsensically Challenged. A poem, “Surprised” has just been published by High Shelf Press, volume XXIII. WinglessDreamer printed Dark Danger and Different Drum. A Tanka “Languid” was published by Spillwords Press.