surface of sea water

Photo by Daoud Abismail on Unsplash

On Seas and Mirrors by Pamelyn Casto

Angler fish are almost all mouth and dangling from their huge orifices are lights that illuminate the dark abyss and lure food to their hungry maws. When young, some angler fish have no gender. But when they attach themselves to a female's head, they become male. They also become parasites—gradually withering to nothing but their male organs. Perseus, angling for a better position, decapitated once- beautiful Medusa. She was not immortal. In his way he became a man, a hero, locked himself to Medusa's threatening head. He refused to look at her enraged face and snaky hair. He shielded himself, would only view her in a mirror.


Bio

Pamelyn Casto has articles on flash fiction in Writer's Digest, Fiction Southeast, OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letter, Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction: Tips from Editors, Teachers, and Writers in the Field, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of New American Reading, and in Critical Insights: Flash Fiction. She is associate editor flash fiction discourse at OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters. Her poems have been published in several print and online publications (the latest in Better Than Starbucks and KYSO Flash).