Feels Like Extinction by Linda Niehoff

She ate the tangerine and wished it was an orange. But it was the only globe of fruit in the plastic bag from the Safeway ten miles back up the highway. Ten miles back before they broke down. Broke down and waiting. The station wagon like a dead moth lying motionless on a windowsill. Hot wind moving from the ghost of cars that had long since passed, wouldn’t come around again. She touches the white line at the edge of the road with a toe before he says, “Get back and mind the little ones.” She touches it again when he looks down the long ghost strewn highway. Looking for what doesn’t seem to be coming. All of them standing and waiting in a line under unseen stars. Under Saturn.

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LINDA NIEHOFF — Linda is writer and photographer living in a small Kansas town. Her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, TriQuarterly, Flash Fiction Online, and elsewhere. Find her intermittently on Twitter: @lindaniehoff.

Art by SHERRY SHAHAN — Sherry lives in a funky beach town where she grows carrot tops in ice cube trays for pesto. Her artwork and photography have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Backpacker, Country Living, San Francisco Chronicle, Down in the Dirt (featured artist), Rogue Voice (featured artist) and elsewhere. She earned an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and taught a creative writing course for UCLA Extension for 10 years. wwwSherryShahan.com.