ILLUMINATION by Audra Kerr Brown

ILLUMINATION by Audra Kerr Brown

Three weeks after her miscarriage, Guinevere fell in love with the lightbulb. A 40-watt incandescent globe from the dining room wall sconce. She removed the lampshade in order to stare at the glow of its tungsten filaments, the bare harp sitting above the bulb as a halo.

You are beautiful, Guinevere would say. Absolutely beautiful.

The light had an electrical heartbeat, a faint buzzing, as if bees were trapped inside.

She liked to unscrew the bulb from its socket, marvel at how perfectly it fit in her palm. How warm it felt. How round, how small.


Audra Kerr Brown lives betwixt the corn and soybean fields of southeast Iowa. Her fiction has appeared in Fjords Review, People Holding, F(r)iction, Fiction Southeast, Outlook Springs, Cheap Pop, and elsewhere. Brown has been listed on Wigleaf’s Top 50 (Very) Short Fictions and nominated for Vestal Review’s annual VERA award. Her story “The Way of the Woods” was selected by Aimee Bender as a winner for Best Small Fictions 2018. She is currently a Senior Fiction Editor at New Flash Fiction Review.

Art by Bob Schofield @anothertower

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