After walking through tulip-filled Windmill Island, this tired-looking family is about to leave when the older woman in the group stops, points across the two bridges, and says to her family, “I know what that is now. It’s not a lighthouse. Not a lighthouse. Why did I even think that? It’s a windmill. I won’t forget again.” Windmill. Windmill. Windmill, she breathes over and over as her family nod their heads and the wind carries memory after memory into the fields of tulips, until a cardinal swoops near the woman, returning one more memory, as she singsongs, Windmill. Windmill. Windmill.
Some of Diane Payne’s most recent publications include Cutleaf Journal, Miracle Monacle, Hairstreak Butterfly Review, Invisible City, Best Microfiction, Another Chicago Magazine, and Bending Genres.