They Say It’s Wonderful

Flash Fiction Magazine · 13 hrs ago · 4 views

In our city, the floodgates are kept shut by a machine powered on human breath. We call it the regulator. It listens to the lungs the same way a metronome listens to music. If rhythm breaks, the gates slip. Then the river takes everything.  For most of the year, the regulator rests. But each wet season, the rain swells channels, the river leans on city gates, the regulator roars, hungry for breath—the breath of one person who, in that season, shall breathe for the city. They stand in the cistern under the courthouse—mask on their mouth, belt on their ribs, […]