He remembered having a fever. Days and nights of struggling to rise from his blanket on the ground to tend to his sheep. Awake and in dreams, he longed for Fernando, his relief, to arrive so he could go home. And then the man was there, helping him up onto his donkey and sending him on his way. The transfer of watch made at last; but not so clearly as to banish fretful thoughts of sheep scattered. Of wisps of wool left on miles of briar. Good that the donkey knew which forks in the road to take, even as it dozed sometimes along the way. Lost in its own dreams.

He thought of home, and the house he sought seemed to grow ever smaller in his imagination. To stop the dwindling before it went too far, he held to a memory of his wife, waiting there for his return. He thought of how, even if he were sleeping when he reached the door, it would be her soft hand on his cheek that woke him. And then he would get down and go to her. Again and again, he thought of that delight.

 

 

* Detail above and complete image below of The Return Home (1830), woodcut
on paper by English painter and printmaker Edward Calvert (1799–1883).
This artwork is held by The Art Institute of Chicago:
https://www.artic.edu/artworks/4703/the-return-home

Daryl Scroggins

has taught creative writing and literature at The University of Texas at Dallas, The University of North Texas, and the Writer’s Garret, in Dallas. He now lives in Marfa, Texas with his wife, Cindy, whom he met 45 years ago.

Daryl is the author of a collection of flash literature, The Light I Want to Keep (MacQ Books, December 2024); The Scold’s Romance: A Story in Prose Poems (No. 3 in The Ravenna Triple Series; Ravenna Press, 2012); This Is Not the Way We Came In, a collection of flash fiction and a flash novel (Ravenna Press, 2008); Winter Investments: Stories (Trilobite Press, 2003); and Prairie Shapes: A Flash Novel (winner of the 2004 Robert J. DeMott Prose Contest).

His fictions, poems, and creative nonfictions have appeared in magazines and anthologies around the country and abroad, including *82 Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Blink-Ink, Carolina Quarterly, Chiron Review, Cutbank, Dime Show Review, Eastern Iowa Review, Egress, elimae, Fiction Southeast, Green Mountains Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, The Memory Palace: An Ekphrastic Anthology, New Flash Fiction Review, New York Tyrant, Northwest Review, Portland Review, Quarter After Eight, The Quarterly, Quick Fiction, and Third Wednesday, among others.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Vigilance, microfiction by Daryl Scroggins in MacQueen’s Quinterly, aka MacQ (Issue 25, September 2024); nominated by MacQ for The Pushcart Prize L

⚡ Suitcase Full of Clay: An Ekphrastic e-Collection by Scroggins in MacQ (Issue 18, April 2023)

⚡ Roadshow, microfiction in MacQ-15 (September 2022); one of three pieces by Scroggins selected as Finalists in “The Question of Questions” Ekphrastic Writing Challenge

⚡ Spring, microfiction in MacQ-12 (March 2022)

⚡ Writer Boy, microfiction in MacQ-4 (July 2020); nominated by MacQ for Best Microfiction 2021

⚡ Field Trips, flash fiction by Scroggins in KYSO Flash (Issue 12, Summer 2019)

⚡ New to School, microfiction in Eclectica (Jan/Feb 2018)

⚡ Two Fictions: “Almost Baptized” and “Against the Current” in New Flash Fiction Review (Issue 10, January 2018)

⚡ Eight Stories: A Mini-Chapbook by Daryl Scroggins at Web del Sol