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DisillusionedDisillusioned7 months ago in Short Stories More Like This
"You girls need a ride?"
October looked up, letting her eyes stray from the gravel beneath her feet. She had been walking along the highway for so long she had started counting her steps to pass the time, hoping that when she finally looked up she would see civilization. Abigail ran to the truck driver's passenger door, haphazardly pushing past October as if she had never ridden in a vehicle before.
October glared at the driver's soiled clothes, greasy hair, and crooked teeth. She imagined his smell which made her gag uncontrollably. It was as if his unkemptness was setting off red flags in her head: "Never talk to strangers. And never acce
Ghost of a ChanceI flicked through radio stations, trying to find one that had decent reception out here. The classic country station had petered out about fifteen miles down the two-lane county road, and the beat-up Chevy that held all our gear didn't have a CD player. Static, static, and more static, then a burst of faint Hispanic-sounding music, but even the ranchera station was more white noise than melody.Ghost of a Chance7 months ago in Short Stories More Like This
"Forget it, Jules," Elliot sighed from the back seat. "It's only twenty more minutes."
"Yeah, assuming we don't run into a dirt road with a tree across it." Ally, our pugnacious resident skeptic, glared at the asphalt ahead of us.
"Don't jinx us
Harvest Time "Oh, come on. There's got to be service around here somewhere." Maria stretched her arm high over her head, hoping that the extra height would help her cell phone find enough bars to call for a tow truck. When that did no good, she climbed up on the roof of her station wagon.Harvest Time7 months ago in Short Stories More Like This
"Don't you ever try something like this, Lucy. It's dangerous. Mommy's only doing it because it's an emergency."
"Okay, Mommy." Lucy was playing in the grass by the car, and even though nobody was around, Maria couldn't help but worry.
"Stay close to the car, okay? You don't want to get lost out here." Maria didn't want to even be here. If the GPS
ParricideChris loves his new doll.Parricide7 months ago in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
Its china face, with delicate hand-painted features, is framed by curling golden locks. He likes to trace its face with careful fingers. He can see his murky reflection in its glistening shoes and its dress is so soft he can't stop running his hand over the sapphire blue cloth. His parents aren't sure who gave him the doll, but six-year-old Chris can't be parted from it.
When he asks for black patent leather shoes, his dad glances up from the bills spread on his desk and his mom starts looking for her Caravan's keys.
When he asks for his chestnut hair to be bleached, his dad's head tilts and his mom takes him to
They Also Serve Who Only Stand and WaitI don't know when we first went underground. I don't even know if it was one mass exodus, a swarm of mankind trickling through the earth's crust so vehement we carved our own caverns by the force of trampling feet, or whether it was a gradual process, perhaps even a repetitive one, a family here, a neighborhood there. For all I know, the echo of the damp subterranean machine has always reverberated off the cave walls, created long past by the Angels, who think of our well-being even while they shake their heads helplessly at our flaws.They Also Serve Who Only Stand and Wait8 months ago in Short Stories More Like This
They say that those who remained on the surface were raptured away in a great flash of light, like a millio
Between Two Strangers1Between Two Strangers1 year ago in Short Stories More Like This
"You're ugly."
"Well, you're allowed that opinion I guess."
"And easily offended."
"No, I know I'm not the best looking, it's just that... no one's been that blunt before. It's pretty rude. Sorry."
"What's your name?"
"Um… Sheri?"
"Last?"
"Sorry, but are you asking because you need to know, or are you just curious? I generally don't just tell anyone that."
"I'm Charles Reagan. Stupid name."
"No, it's a fine name."
"What are you doing here? Obviously not trying to impress anyone. You'd have picked out better clothes. Those are hideous."
"They're... all I have. I don't really have anyplace else to go, but it's okay. This is f
I am not ObsessedWatching your metamorphosis from a naïve teen into a beautiful young woman has been the greatest experience of my life. You have enlightened me, you have changed my views on life and the world, and you have brought me from the brink more times than I care to count. My dear, you are the sole reason for my very existence. Yet you will never realize just how much I love you.I am not Obsessed3 years ago in Short Stories More Like This
For you are not the wife I married or the children I raised,
Nor are you the best friend on my street
Or my most beloved sibling.
That night you called the police about the man standing in your backyard marked the closest I ever came to actually stepping through yo
The TranslatorMalena was born on the third of April, a heady Aries and a talented translator. She only waited for so long before she put her foot down and took charge of her destiny, riding it like a child of the sea would a dolphin.The Translator2 years ago in Short Stories More Like This
She began her job with diligent care from the moment she first awakened from the drowsiness of the very young and into the slow comprehension of children. She first translated her own simple thoughts to the world in an agonized cry - 'I'm hungry! I'm hungry!' - first in the Spanish words of her parents and then repeated in the strange, native Tupi dialect of her Mestizo nanny. The dark-skinned woman had gasped in fear and tri
The Death of LanguageThey say that every fourteen days, a language dies. The statistic isn't alarming, after all there are supposedly seven thousand languages in the world. That a language dies every two weeks, is just a statistic. The concern comes with the knowledge that a language dies because it has been forgotten. Thus it dies without recognition, without farewell and without acknowledgment. It was merely there before, a communication bridge once upon a literary dream - now a nothing. This fascinating tool that we use to interact with our fellow human beings is lost. And we don't care. The Eskimos, they say, had a hundred words for snow.The Death of Language6 months ago in Editorial More Like This
That favourite pair of shoes that you love all the holes and splits into because they are so perfect and fit you so well - gets a better send off than a language. That coat that's become too small or too big, or too much last years fashion and too little of this years craze gets more of a farewell than a languag
my body is a funeral servicethis morning i emptied your ashes into the sky, hoping to watch them sift through my fingers like an eagle taking flight. but the wind carried them backwards and my face became an ashtray for memories. you came back to me, like you always do, like a kiss or a reoccurring dream that i can never forget. i became cloaked in black grain, the remnants of your body. your cremated smile was caught somewhere between the stinging in my eyes and the ash on my jacket.my body is a funeral service9 months ago in Emotional More Like This
in that moment my body became a funeral service. my lips preached your names to the trees. i forgot what it was like to feel anything but hymns pressing down on my back like the heat of t
JuliaMetMichaelSamaraSawTheStarsGenevieveFoundFeari.JuliaMetMichaelSamaraSawTheStarsGenevieveFoundFear10 months ago in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
Tonight is different.
Genevieve pauses, staring as layers of fog encroach forward. The ominous mist slinks onward only to settle against her taunt muscles. Vapor coils along her skin like venom; tangible and prickling.
She allows her lungs timid inhales of February. Every breath sparks artic shockwaves throughout her nervous system Glacial streaks start to sprout within her tissues, ever-so-silent and sickening. She slows, listening to iced-oxygen hardening between blood cells.
The cold feels like boulders in my lungs.
Genevieve feels so unexpectedly heavy in her skin. Wadi
The Substitution ParadigmThe Substitution ParadigmThe Substitution Paradigm8 months ago in Short Stories More Like This
Ramu came up to our table. Glaring at me, he said, “You either order something or get out.”
I glanced away from the threat, and turned to Raghav. A single drop of sweat was running down his brow. Ramu saw that too and identifying his prey, he sprung.
Swinging around, he faced Raghav, “Order something or get out.”
Then Ramu just stood there. It was not as if we had rehearsed it before hand, but he knew. He knew that my co-occupants generally folded in the first round. Only the stout made it to second level, but they too buckled under Ramu’s relentless gaze.
I always had a policy of n
SomedayJane and Ellis floated parallel to one another across the vast canvas of space, eyeing the marble-like planets that slowly crept past them. Their skin reflected the starlight with a dull orange sheen. Ellis had called it 'planet gazing,' an activity he apparently thought suitable for a date.Someday2 years ago in Flash Fiction & Vignettes More Like This
"Do you see that one below us?" Ellis said, pointing to a round blue mass.
Jane shrugged.
"Isn't it beautiful?" he asked. "I'll bet it's beautiful on the surface, too. Like the way the dust begins to spiral when a star is forming."
"Something like that," Jane said. She didn't understand his excitement. Planets were nothing interesting. They were just
the Chandler's Around the WayThe hose slipped out again. Chan cursed, and shoved it back into the incision he'd made, adjusted his mask, and bent over the pump. He yanked the cord, and the pump started to life with a cough of biodiesel. It bounced on the sand as it grumbled away. Chan kept one hand on it and held the hose in place with the other.the Chandler's Around the Way1 year ago in Short Stories More Like This
If fucking Fathers would spend the bone on a new one, I wouldn't be all night at this, Chan grumbled. He ached for a smoke, but didn't have the hands to spare. Plenty of hands here, he thought as he glanced at the riverbank. Some of them even had a pulse.
"Hey," he said to whoever was closest.
It was a sunbather. A walker who drew enough bone to slot time on the beach without having to fight for it. She had each arm draped around a man, both of them tattooed in the same place with the same sigil. Chan was jealous. Someday he'd have his own numbers, but they'd be women. All of them. He was old-fashioned like that.
The walker answered without raising her sungl
The Price of Dying“I want to be interred after I die,” Mr. Peters said. He made that clear to his family while he was still lucid, before old age and illness rendered him unintelligible. Seventy wasn’t that old, but he recognized the symptoms that were creeping up on his ailing body – the aches, the fatigue, the feeling of helplessness and despair. Despite his daughter’s attempts to assuage his concerns, he sensed his own mortality.The Price of Dying8 months ago in Short Stories More Like This
The worst part about dying, Mr. Peters thought, was what happened afterwards. Even since he was a small boy, he had been afraid of fire. He could never forget the scorching heat of the orange flames searing his skin, the dark billowing smoke entering his nostrils. The time that his house burned down, the fire almost took him with it. How ironic then, to escape the fire only to be fed into it after death.
So one day, he sat his son and daughter down after dinner. “I want to be buried whole,” he said, emphasizing the
The IdolI once saw a man on the television who was so afraid of fruits that when presented with a bowl of them, he fled the stage, knocking over the host and several other guests. Though I openly pitied the man for his obvious malady of the mind, inside, the small bit of sadism buried within all humans laughed at his bizarre affliction. How can one not find cruel amusement in the cowering of a grown man who has been confronted by nothing more than a bowl of peaches? But now I understand fear like no other. I now no longer find amusement in the terror of others, no matter how illogical.The Idol2 years ago in Short Stories More Like This
Now, let me tell you the story of why the sound of wind whis
Caw“Kill the heretics and their demonic creations! Chase them off into those abhorred woods they adore so much! Burn their house down to make sure they never come back!”Caw7 months ago in Short Stories More Like This
The angry villagers’ voices echoed in Sienna’s head as she and her dad trudged through the thick layer of fallen leaves on the floor of the “abhorred woods.” She didn’t understand why the people of Salem hated magic so much. Did it scare them? Sienna was familiar with the feeling of being frightened by the unknown, mostly due to her past experiences in this forest. Too bad it was the only way she and her dad could go to elude the people who were planning to kill them. Dad claimed he knew his way around the forest, but Sienna wasn’t so sure she could trust him after he accidentally let the villagers see his scarecrow walking around outside. Now Sienna was following Dad to a town to the south, where he said they could live in peace and rebuild their lives.
“How long unti
Halloween Warning, Halloween Horror, Halloween EndMy family is magical.Halloween Warning, Halloween Horror, Halloween End7 months ago in Short Stories More Like This
There is no other way of explaining what we are, for I am not certain myself. My mother is a witch. So is my grandmother. And so was her mother too... a long line of ancestry reaching back all the way to the early settlers from Ireland , 16th century. Ever my two sisters are witches. And yet I.... I am not. And yes, it's very complicated.
Don't even ask.
I've never felt anything supernatural or magical whole my life and lately, I've started feeling more than ashamed.
I've hoped and hoped for any sign of magic all these years and throughout time, I've given up.
Entirely.
I've come to accept my destiny of an outcast, but
The Protector's PromiseThe e-mail said to come alone, no phone and to tell no one and nothing would happen to anyone I love. So here I am out in the middle of the forest, walking down a path to some unknown location,the feeling of impending doom crushed me as I walked. Not one star could be seen in the sky and the full moon barely shown through the inky night clouds. The air felt like I was walking through quicksand. It was not going to bode well for me tonight so why didn't I just turn around and leave. I can tell you why, I am too stubborn for my own good. I seem to act first and think second. My father has warned me that it would be the death of me. I guess he jThe Protector's Promise7 months ago in Short Stories More Like This
La Isla de la MunecasAs soon as violet stepped foot on the vessel, she regretted her decision. When the engine erupted and the boat left the dock, her heart went running straight up the ramp and onto dry land where it was safe. She gazed over at Dianne, who was basking in the sunlight, and wondered how she could be so calm. Didn't she know where they were headed?La Isla de la Munecas7 months ago in Short Stories More Like This
The driver of the boat, noticing violet's distraught expression, let out a little chuckle. "Is this your first time in Mexico City siñoritas?" he said with a thick Mexican accent.
"Yes it is!" Dianne clapped her hands as she replied, her big blue eyes lighting up like lanterns. "We are
GapeGape7 months ago in Short Stories More Like This
Janice's feet hurt. They burned from her heel to her clenching toes.
'David, my feet are killing me.'
'You said.' Her boyfriend sounded tired. He glanced back at her and shifted his backpack to try and make it more comfortable. 'You keep saying it. I can't do anything about it.'
'They rub like a bitch.' Her voice was an irritating whine in her own ears.
'Yeah. I'm sorry. Just... just a bit further, love.' He turned and walked on, trying not to get too far ahead of her. The stony track was uncomfortable underfoot, but it was safe compared to walking on the grass at the edge. The sunset lit up the tumbled boulders at the bottom of the oppos
The Fish Men of Nuptus County The cashier stared me dead in the eye. I recognized her type. The crazy eyes, the tobacco stained collar, the rather tenuous thread connecting her to reality---I'd be lucky to get anything other than a migraine from this conversation.The Fish Men of Nuptus County7 months ago in Short Stories More Like This
"Some say they crawl out of the ocean, but I've seen 'em walk upright like men. Little things. Nasty things."
I jotted it down in my notebook to keep from snapping at her. It wasn't the first time I'd heard a local blame the Fish Men of Nuptus County for this kind of thing, and it probably wouldn't be the last. Five years of investigation had proven there were no blood thirsty mutants roaming the shores and
The Possession of Henry BlaineThe Possession of Henry Blaine8 months ago in Short Stories More Like This
To whoever may find these words, I pray they find you well and I hope that you do not throw them aside as mere ramblings of a delusional mind. My name is Henry Blaine. I have lived only a short life in respects to that of average men. Although my grandfather was blessed with a long life and it was to be my gift as well, I fear that I had thrown it all away in the foolish exploits of my youth. I will not go into much detail of my earliest years, for I lack the time and the will to bring up such horrific memories. I also do not wish to fill you with disgust and loathing towards me. I simply wish you to understand that in my youth I was naive an
Sta.sh
