Please join Synkroniciti in welcoming back writer Julie Dron, based in Taiwan. We nominated Julie for a Pushcart prize for her flash fiction “Take Me Back” in our “Broken” issue last September. “COLD,” the runner-up flash fiction selection in our “Vulnerable” contest, is inspired by homeless persons observed at the local train station. A person lies on a scrap of cardboard in the cold of winter, possibly near death from exposure, and the sound of the bamboo trees in the wind reminds them of home and the loss of home. “I have no photographs of ma, I can’t remember her face, her form, only the sadness within that grew and enclosed me like the unchecked roots of a banyan tree. People say it’s my own fault, I have no home, I guess they’re right.” Of course we sense immediately that nothing is farther from the truth. Julie’s watercolor touch is delicate and evocative. She asks us to look deeper at the homeless people in our communities. These are real people, with memories and stories, who might have lives similar to our own if their circumstances had allowed it. Julie packs so much into 350 words and yet there is a sense of space, of a lack of hurry. “COLD” is a marvelous character sketch, full of imagery and heartache.
Read “COLD” in Synkroniciti’s “Vulnerable” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Julie Dron began writing in her 60s and has been published in a number of online journals and printed anthologies including Synkroniciti, Syncopation Literary Journal, Wordrunner eChapbooks, The Wild Word, Amaranth Food and Writing, Blink Ink, Scottish Arts Trust, and Flash Fiction Magazine. Julie was twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize 2024.