Fall Flash Festival: Autumn Flame

This is for Eric Martell and Daniel Swensen‘s Fall Flash Festival…Autumn is and forever will be my most favourite season! Click here to join in the fun!

Autumn Flame © Lisa Shambrook (with pixlromatic)

Autumn Flame

Heat seared, sizzling across parched earth, and the cloudless sky, a hothouse dome, desiccated leaves and flora. Listless and languid, folk wandered aimlessly, unable to bear the sultry oppression and Summer’s impasse.Her eyes darted from house to house; windows wide, porch doors open, and dogs sleeping with lolling tongues and trails of slobber. Inside, people rested hot and sticky, irascible and ornery. Her brow furrowed and she stared across the yellowed hills. Autumn was late.As the sirocco tickled her frazzled mind she swept her jade skirts high up into the hills and sought out a crevice, a deep, dark crevice. She gathered her volumes of green about her and traipsed inside. The welcome cool whispered and the ground sighed with each step she took, until she paused and stared at the vast lump curled up before her.

She prodded the lump.

Light mist rose in the shadows and she spoke, “Wake up!”

…

 

This is a preview to the story that can be found within A Symphony of Dragons. It has become one part of my symphony, a composition, of A Symphony of Seasons… You can find this enchanting book of short stories in many outlets in both paperback and eBook or at my publisher BHC Press.

Autumn Flame won the Honourable Mention in the Fall Flash Festival.

 

Read previews to Spring’s and Winter’s tales: Spring Symphony and Winter Hope.