“I want something bright,” she says.

Something to take us to sunrise, I muse, rising over the bay, filling the morning with light. For if night has a winter this is it, this last hour ... lines of a poem in my head where they’ll stay.

“Oh, but I can’t wait,” she says as if reading my thoughts in the dark, in bed, next to me, both of us awake, on our backs, too early to rise—too early says who, too early for the sun, this we know, too early for the cat who is regular as clockwork, is in fact our clock since the digital stopped working.

Since we stopped working.

Since one of our bodies stopped working.

Organ by organ.

And so, we play a game of Silver Lining.

“Why not gold?” she asks. “I prefer it, though I love your silver hair,” she assures, “glows in the dark like snow, so lovely.”

“There’s a silver lining right there,” I say. “Or gold, I guess, if we’re playing by new rules.”

“And there’s another,“ she says. “We don’t have to play by rules, do what people tell us, stay busy, or please a boss—because we’re in our golden years.”

“So, then it’s a golden lining?” I ask.

I feel her smile in the dark, feel her turn on her side to face me, feel her hand in my hair—what the chemo has left of it.

“Nope, definitely silver. Gold is the color of the ring you gave me. And gold will be the color of the sky,“ she says.

We both look to see a gold line of horizon above the curtains as sunrise begins to keep its promise. The cat hops onto the bed as we face each other, holding hands in this silver lining of a golden moment with time running thin, everything noticed, defined in new ways by crisp light. Astonishing how the unimportant fades away, the petty and un-miraculous forgotten.

And with that, the cat meows. One of us rises to feed him and pour coffee, and returns with two cups, throwing open the curtains to the bright light of now.

Guy Biederman

is the author of six books, including Translated from the Original: One-Inch Punch Fiction (Nomadic Press, 2022) and Nova Nights (Nomadic Press, 2021), both of which were acquired by Black Lawrence Press in June 2023; Edible Grace (KYSO Flash Press, 2019); and Soundings & Fathoms (Finishing Line Press).

His stories have appeared in many journals such as Bull, Carve, The Disappointed Housewife, The Ekphrastic Review, Flash Frontier, Flashback Fiction, great weather for Media, KYSO Flash, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Riddled with Arrows, and Exposition Review, where he was twice a Flash 405 winner. His story “Coyotes, Pelicans, & Prisoners” appears in Best Microfiction 2024 (nominated by Six Sentences). His work has recently received a Publisher’s Choice Award and an Editor’s Choice Award, and has been nominated for Best of The Net.

A former peace corps volunteer, gardener, and college creative-writing instructor, Guy lives on a houseboat with his wife, and walks the planks daily.

Author’s website: https://www.guybiederman.com/

Author’s blog: This Day Afloat: Reflections of Life on the Water

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Meow of Now, a tribute to Pierre, beloved companion and writing buddy; in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 23, April 2024)

⚡ Precious Artifact Repairs, microfiction by Guy Biederman in MacQ (Issue 22, February 2024); nominated by MacQ for Best Microfiction 2025

⚡ Quite, a prose poem by Biederman selected as winner of the “Triple-Q” Writing Challenge in Issue 11 of MacQ (January 2022); to hear him read this piece, see Recordings at his website.

⚡ Edible Grace: An e-Collection of 12 Micro-Prose in KYSO Flash (Issue 12, Summer 2019); click on Next Page at bottom left of each piece to access the next one.

Edible Grace is also available in print and offers bonus content, including six additional micro-prose and five more photographs by the author, plus a pen-and-ink drawing by Tula Biederman.

⚡ The Lion Has Lost His Roar, a tribute to Little Bud (aka Cap’n Orange), from the Edible Grace e-collection described above