Old ghosts,new tricks–n scam and kopi at a time.

☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞

Detective Boon Teck. Kopi shop legend in the HDB heartland of Toa Payoh, whose palette distinguished coffee grounds with panache. His mind read case files with equal clarity.

His mobile came alive with a frenetic buzz as he tried to catch some well-deserved shuteye one evening. It was a neighbourhood auntie, voice racked with tears. Her son had vanished after getting caught in a robo-investing scheme hawked on Facebook.

“Tiok Beh Pio (He won the lottery),” Boon muttered under his breath. He swirled his kopi with his teaspoon. “Put in money, kena (and got) swiped!”

He traced the robo-investing scheme to a HDB unit with an altar glowing with faux red candles. Incense ash seeped from the boy’s mobile phone. On the cracked screen was a message: “Bro, she said I’ll be rich if I transfer money to you.”

The boy—Ah Seng—lay slumped against the wall, still warm. No scammers in sight. Only the robo-investor—a Hantu (ghost in Malay) Algo in the guise of an AI program smirking on the phone’s cracked screen.

The hantu’s bloodshot eyes took him in. A cruel sneer.

“Old ghost, new tricks.”

Boon slammed the phone on the floor, stepping on it with energy he never thought he could muster. The phone died.

But another ping sounded from outside. Someone else had clicked on the hantu.A haunting snark.

“Yiau kui (greedy),” a hollow voice echoed.

☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞

If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights on! ☕Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!

Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.

This poem explores our crossroads—the times when we experience cosmic shifts in our perspectives of life and are ready to embrace change. Truth is hidden beneath a moth’s dark wings and slowly surfaces.

Rouse what’s beneath dark wings.

🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉

Dark wings

Flutter at dusk

Flittering to the end

Light breaks water, almost before–

It leaves.

🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉

It leaves–

The pond stores the secrets unseen

Saved below the surface

Where eyes can’t see

But wait.

🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉

Light wings

Surface for sight

Flitter to light’s new glow

Unfurling their hidden glory

For all.

🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉🧉

If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights on! ☕Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!

Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.

Light breaks water–people empathise with gentleness, not force.

🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼

In stillness deep, where silence looms

A jellyfish with glowing rings does zoom

Shedding sword threads, bright at the ends

Trying to stitch truths that won’t mend

🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼

Its light, too strong, will blind and halt

Builds cold walls that only shout

An angelfish, with its soft gleam

Knows light too harsh will not redeem.

🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼

“Slow down,” it prompts, “Soften your light,

A gentle beam guides more than might.

For them to see, with softened hearts

Use light with a muted start.”

🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼

So light breaks water—not to fight,

But to soften dark with quiet light.

And in that glow, the deep learns how

To open up, to breathe, to bow.

🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼

Light from the jellyfish, breaks through the stream

But quiet, softened and redeemed

In that gentle glow, the heart does learn

To open doors, hear, and discern

🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼

Insight comes softly, not a blast

A patient glow that warms a heart

At times, to light, we must first wait

And shine with care, not push, not hate.

🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼🪼

If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights on! ☕Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!

Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.

The sun may hide the truth.

🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂🍁🌿🍃🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂🍁🌿🍃🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂

Quiet sewed in gold–faux stillness

The lake pauses with bated breath.

But hears.

🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂🍁🌿🍃🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂🍁🌿🍃🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂

A golden gate opens—

No clang, no clink, just clouds–

in a question.

🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂🍁🌿🍃🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂🍁🌿🍃🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂

A damselfly shields herself

With her wings,

A spring leaf forgets

Its drops.

🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂🍁🌿🍃🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂🍁🌿🍃🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂

Below the noon light, all deceive.

My shadow, too still.

But reaching.

For the forgotten.

🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂🍁🌿🍃🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂🍁🌿🍃🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂

I wait for ripples.

Or a voice.

To call.

🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂🍁🌿🍃🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂🍁🌿🍃🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂

If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights on! ☕Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!

Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.

🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂🍁🌿🍃🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂🍁🌿🍃🍃🍂🍁🌿🍃🌱🍂

Original poem by Michelle Liew. AI tags are concidental.

Silence doesn’t mean absence.

(⁎˃ᆺ˂)(⁎˃ᆺ˂)(⁎˃ᆺ˂)(⁎˃ᆺ˂)(⁎˃ᆺ˂)(⁎˃ᆺ˂)(⁎˃ᆺ˂)(⁎˃ᆺ˂)(⁎˃ᆺ˂)

I never said

As I watched you with my heart

More than my eyes.

You thought it was the trees,

But it was the way you moved

As you were thinking.

(⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂)

I never said

But I recall each step that you took

More clearly than my name.

I learned the rhythm of your breaths

In the rooms where you thought

I didn’t hear.

(⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (

I never said

My silence was my shelter

And I kept my feelings in a locked closet

Because you never asked about them.

(⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂)

I never said

How quietness can seem like consent

And made it easy for you to

Dismiss.

(⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂)

I never said

How I see myself

Stand before you

Remembered.

(⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂)

I never said

That I am not fine

With being remembered

As easy to love

As I never said.

I never said

(⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂) (⁎˃ᆺ˂)

If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights on! ☕Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!

Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.

Sure, here’s a line of sealed envelope emoticons for you:

💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌

Brown, sealed envelope
A hidden message within
Words denied world’s gaze

💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌

Words covered by fear
Masked sentences drift with time
Penned words left unread

💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌

Inked words share secrets
Hands will muted words to ink
Curled forms that are true

💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌

Small words find the light
Penned forms muted no longer
Silenced words now read.

💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌 💌

If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights on! ☕Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!

Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.