Category: Stories

Ritual

He appeared scrupulously unsuperstitious, but the smell exposed him, acrid, brain-curling. I startled him in the bathroom.

Grandpa dropped the burning envelope into the toilet. “Sssh. Tell nobody. The witch will know.”

After he died, I continued the family tradition, as my grandchild will. Burn all clippings, hair to toenails.

photo by chuttersnap at unsplash

Power Down

Tonight I write by candlelight.  A scheduled outage they said.

No light, no heat, no electronic hum but in the shadows story pours from my pen.  Stream of consciousness, words flow like water or wine or my own blood.

Now I know I should have contrived a blackout long ago.

Image by Robin Anderson

Power Down originally published at fiftywordstories.com on 

The Octopus and the Diver

 

She hid in the depths of the sea, only emerging from her den of shells after he visited her many times, proving his trustworthiness. Dropping camouflage for her natural red, she aimed one eye at his two. Looking deep into his single heart, she revealed a taste of her three.

Becky Kjelstrom

art by Zo Razafindramamba at unsplash

Brain Fog

Have you ever driven on a foggy morning?  Diffuse grey light wraps around trees, utility poles and buildings.  No hard edges to alert you.  Are you traveling fast? Or slowly?  Time is compressed, attenuated or smoothed out.  Your brain eventually tricks you into seeing black and white dots swimming in the fuzzy air.

Pandemic is like that.  Time becomes flat and we are all dots floating in space.  Getting nowhere fast.  Or slowly.

Image by Jason Strull via Unsplash.com

Quiet Like Sunday

Listen.

Quiet like Sunday on the first of Spring.  No traffic, no voices, no airplanes.  Only birdsong or a dog barking.

Listen.

Humanity withdraws and the world settles into silence.  People in houses gaze through closed windows.  They can hear sunlight drip off buildings and roar down empty streets.

Listen.

Image by Harrison Fulop

This story also appears at fiftywordstories.com