Nadia Born

@nadiaborn.com

1491 Followers 1110 Following

✍️ Writer & fabulist | 📝 in Electric Lit, LitMag, New Letters, SmokeLong Quarterly, Augur Magazine, Small Wonders & more | ❤️‍🔥 #fairytales #fantasy #speculative #flashfiction | 🔗 www.nadiaborn.com

The Cartography of Lands That Shall Remain Lost

The cartographer travels to unknown lands, tasked by the emperor to inventory anything of value. Here the forest grows thick and she makes virgin paths in her yellow gumboots. She marks rivers blooming with pearls, villages built on pink stone, trees with leaves as wide as wingspans.

In these lands of wonder, she begins to survey her heart.

Soon silver rain unspools from the clouds and the cartographer doesn’t think twice. She unfolds her maps and lifts them to the sky. She imagines the emperor's fury, his failed ambitions.

The ink dark-trickles into the earth the way new roots might.