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Writing blog for Danielle Ellis Writing blog for Danielle Ellis

Writing blog for Danielle Ellis
Writing blog for Danielle Ellis

A Beacon. I Follow.

Posted on September 4, 2025November 27, 2025 By Danielle Ellis

I smell something sweet, a beacon as aroma.

I feel heat, a radiation from the giants, the vibration of their murmurs oscillates my body.

I hear waves, some deeper, some pitched higher, starting and stopping in melody. Laced with meaning. “I think you over cooked, darling.” “I always do now that the kids are grown.”

I see orange, rising and falling against the walls of light brown. Emitting the sweet scent I trail, sitting beside it.

Sweet. Warmth. Waves. Orange.

A beacon. I follow.

Dipping my toes into the soft, cold, delicious orange.

I only mean to drink from it, but my toes are stuck. I try to pull them back, a splash of delicious brushes my face. The orange rises, surrounding me as the world tilts up. Then I’m swept away, swirling into the middle of the orange as the world jolts back, flat as a horizon.

I want to fly. To jump. To escape. But the orange is heavy, an oppression against every attempted twitch of my body. I gasp for air, but my breath becomes liquid.

Before the world goes black, I hear muffled sounds of waves, harsh and sharp like a storm, “Damn gnats!’

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Publications

“Make Room” – descant (Forthcoming)

“The First Morning of Us” – Brown Sugar Lit (Forthcoming)

“A Very Ugly Man with Beautiful Hair” – Neon & Smoke (Forthcoming)

“Men Don’t Fall In Love” – nachtljocht (Forthcoming)

“Mental Houses and Cosmic Complications” – Penumbric Speculative Fiction Magazine (Forthcoming)

“Patchwork Reflection“ – Story Sanctum (June 2026)

“Delicate Little Cookies” – Furrow (May 2026)

“The Supreme Law of Tory Martin & The Precedent of Tory Martin“ – The Applause Journal (Digital – May 2026) (Print – June 2026)

“The Script” – Cedar Valley Divide (April 2026)

“Delicate Little Cookies” – Writing Contest Winner, Kirkwood Community College (2026)

“The Eleven Year Debt” – Women on Fire Anthology, Neon & Smoke (April 2026)

“Dolls and Action Figures” – Brilliant Flash Fiction (March 2026)

“No Music Played” – Five Minutes Lit (March 2026)

“Popcorn” – 50 Give or Take and related anthology by Vine Leaves Press (March 2026)

“The Wickie” – Still Here Magazine (Republished March 2026)

“He Cried in a Hardware Store” – Still Here Magazine (Republished February 2026)

“For Allyce, and Maybe Jay Andrews” – For Page and Screen (February 2026)

“The Lady Working in a Grocery Store” – Third Wednesday Magazine (Digital – January 2026) (Print – February 2026)

“Beneath the Yellow Streetlight” – Kings River Review (Digital – January 2026) (Print – February 2026)

“The Wickie” – Journal of the Westbrae Literary Group (2025)

“He Cried in a Hardware Store” – Ink in Thirds Magazine, Fall Equinox, Vol 6, I.2 (2025)

“The Wickie” – Finalist, Fiction Potluck (Ocean Theme, 2025)

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