Waves

The Australian weather reporter walks away from his job after reporting about their high temperature of 123 degrees and heads to the ocean, far away from the emails about the heat killing their dogs, seemingly blaming him for their deaths, the tedious texts with photos of people frying eggs on the sidewalk, the angry phone messages declaring climate change is a hoax, while a woman in Michigan and her dog leave their home to walk in the rain and head toward the dunes, some cars veering towards them to deliberately splash water their way, one person slows down to offer them an umbrella, which she politely declines before they climb the dunes, walk through the woods, then find the perfect spot where they listen to the waves roll to shore, back and forth, over and over, as both she and the weather reporter, miles apart, breathe deeply, telepathically willing this sound to a newborn on a ventilator, struggling to breathe and make sense of this painful world—whoosh, whoosh, whoosh…

Diane Payne’s most recent publications and forthcoming include: Best of Microfiction2022,MicroLit, Abandon Journal, Cutleaf, Another Chicago Magazine, Whale Road Review, Pine Hills Review, Tiny Spoon, Ellipsis, Bending Genres, New York Times, Unlikely Stories,, Hot Flash Fiction, The Blue Nib, anti-heroin chic, X-ray Literary Magazine, Oyster Review, Novus, Notre Dame Review, Obra/Artiface, Reservoir, Southern Fugitives, Spry Literary Journal, Watershed Review, Superstition Review, Windmill Review, Tishman Review, Whiskey Island, Quarterly, Fourth River, Lunch Ticket, Split Lip Review, The Offing, Elke: A little Journal, Punctuate, Outpost 19, McNeese Review, The Meadow, Burnt Pine, Story South ,and Five to One.