short fiction · 2026-10-08

Lumina in the Trench

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

In the trench where no light dares to stay, glass fish drift in a slow ballet. Their bodies paneled with frozen song, each facet hums where currents throng.

They do not swim, they simply hang, a choir of shiver, a choir of clang. Notes like ice, like distant bell, ring in the dark where pressures swell.

A diver comes, his breath a thread, watches the living chandelier spread. He reaches out, his glove near cold, and hears the deep begin to hold.

Not fear, not wonder, but a thin recognition: he too is thin glass in the dark, a fragile pane, waiting for the next refrain.