Winner of the 2021 Micro Fiction Contest (100 Words or Less)
The Writing Desk
Dawn Hammer
A burnished wood, perhaps mahogany, or maybe cherry, smoothed and worn by women’s hands for over a century, the timestamp of our lineage engraved in the micro folds of words scratched hastily on creamy silk paper by fountain pen nibs scratching out lists of endless chores or desires or tirades against all that is set upon us and before us, the marks of our writings and our nails refusing to be buffed out of existence, the signatures of generations before me etched into the surface of this small corner of the world, a home for ideas that won’t be stifled.