By JR Fenn
In northern Maine, on the U.S.-Canadian border, lies the lake where my family went every summer—East Grand, it’s called, and aptly so: the sunsets orange and pink in the sky, the smell of fish rising from beaches of white-bleached rocks, the meteors streaking across the sky at night; during those summers, there were long swims in ice-cold water, so cold from the winter ice thick enough to drive on, or so the rumors said; there were afternoons roasting in coconut oil on the dock; there were evenings playing poker on green felt at the table in the old log cabin after dinners of lobster caught earlier that day and bought from the fisherman who parked his truck at Mile 90 on the County Road at three o-clock sharp, after which the lake would grow quiet, the motorboat traffic slowing to an occasional mosquito whine out beyond the islands, the noise lost on the far side of the lake, which was owned by a timber company and so was completely dark, empty of houses and docks and lights; after a long day of gathering driftwood, or kayaking, or watching the loons disappear under the surface of the water to appear eons later, making their call—there, between the log cabin and the woods, stood a bath house, with a low tub set beside a window, the bottom sill even with the tub’s edge—and in the window was a sign, which when set at the right angle screened the tub from view: Keep the Crowd Moving, the sign announced to the lawn, the small, square-fenced garden full of cherry tomatoes, the slope leading down to the lake, and the lake itself, magnificent and flat as a pancake, its surface reflecting the sky in a wash of silver, populated by all the creatures that made that place their home—we were visitors, temporary, signing our words, silent, out to the universe.
JR Fenn is from the Central Appalachians. Her writing has appeared in Boston Review, Gulf Coast, DIAGRAM, and more. She’s the winner of the 59th Annual New Millennium Award for Flash Fiction and The Masters Review Chapbook Open. Her chapbook, Tiny Vessels, is forthcoming in February 2026. More at http://www.jrfenn.com.