Synkroniciti is excited to welcome back writer and poet Jonathan Fletcher, most recently featured in our “Family” issue, with a short story entitled “Battle of Raymond.” Andrew and Alana are on the road in Mississippi when they come upon a Civil War battlefield at dusk. Alana, who is fighting for her life against cancer, signals a stop and Andrew fears she’s going to be sick. Instead, she reads the roadside monument and finds common ground with the ambushed Union Soldiers who fought there.
“Though I’m fearfully awaiting a flood, one that will dampen and salt the collar of your t-shirt, maybe even my arms, no deluge comes. Instead, the wind picks up, rippling through the back of my hair, snatching the cap from your head, carrying it high and far. I chase the gust, worried it will take your cap into the seemingly endless field of wheat, becoming yet another thing you’ve lost. Over what must be a patch of uneven ground, I trip and fall.” It is this moment of vulnerability shared by the side of the road which bolsters their strength and confidence for another day.
Jonathan’s story is beautifully written–his experience as a poet makes him adept at imagery and musical delivery and his deep humanity and vulnerability create a believable scene, one that shows both the resilience of cancer warriors and the preciousness of moments spent with those we love.
Read “Battle of Raymond” in Synkroniciti’s “Vulnerable” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Originally from San Antonio, Texas, Jonathan Fletcher has been rejected 276 times from various literary journals and magazines. Inexplicably, he won Northwestern University Press’s Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. Somehow, he also made it through Columbia University School of the Arts, from which he graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in Poetry in 2023.