What one loves never really leaves. Happy Hallowtide, all!
🌕🍂🎃🌾🎃🍁🌕🎃🍂🌾🎃🍁🌕🍂🎃🌾🎃🍁🌕🎃🍂🌾🎃🍁
The garden bathed in silver moonlight, pumpkin vines coiling beneath fresh soil. Sandra’s fingers ran along the cool skin of a pumpkin–it throbbed, as if in a dream.
Old Sebastian had said that they grew best near Hallowtide–when the Earth recalled
the names of those within them.
She edged closer to the ground, her eyes on a flicker of light sparking deep within. For a second, she believed it was her reflection. Then, the pumpkin–
Smiled.
Her grandmother’s smile.
Tender.
Knowing.
Sandra teared, not with sadness, but knowing–
That nothing she loved ever truly left.
It grew again—sprouting different vines.
🌕🍂🎃🌾🎃🍁🌕🎃🍂🌾🎃🍁🌕🍂🎃🌾🎃🍁🌕🎃🍂🌾🎃🍁
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights 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.
Jun Park’s world was made of words—his apartment was plastered from floor to ceiling with old newspaper clippings. No one could ignore the musty scent of ink and yellowed paper when they stepped in—it clung to the air, heavy with stories long out of mind.
There were so many articles that he could no longer read them all.
But they were his muse.
The need sparked a little spontaneity.
He remembered a ladder he stored in a seldom-used room–one that he had subletted for ready cash, until work took the tenant to another city.
As he approached, a faint, bluish hue caught his eye–it leaked under the door, like a crooked finger, drawing him to his next write.
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights 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.
On World Internet Day today, we stop to hear–not the notifications and hums of inboxes, but the quiet buzz of the World Wide Web. This poem ponders the paradox of a connected world that seeks warmth from the glow of screens.
Every digital signal is a heartbeat– fragile, human, and still powerful.
💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍
I woke up to the hum
Of routers pulsing before I woke
An invisible net throbbing through the walls
Of a digital heartbeat–
I am in awe, in need
💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍
We wove a web
That joins our hearts, our minds, our needs
Stories and photos shared real time
A net of wires that binds–
Too tight
💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍
Alone behind the screens
Misinformed, misaligned
Connected with the world–
Yet by myself–
Unseen.
Unheard.
💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍
My soul yearns for the voice
Of care, of soul–
Of heart.
To make.
The web we wove holds–
Not swallows.
💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍
We wove a web
That joins our hearts, our minds, and needs
Stories and photos shared real time
A net of wires that binds–too tight?
💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍
💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍💻💫🕸️💬💞🌍
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights 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.
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights 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.
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights 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.
Some maps don’t like being drawn–they prefer to hold the pen.
🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭
Elias tried to get on his feet, but Historian’s curiosity got the better of the young man.
Something felt off. And it wasn’t just the map.
His eyes scanned the Archives. Familiar. Yet not.
They were no longer arranged according to Dewey Decimal System– but alphabetically, in sets spelling his name.
Street names were strangely misspelt. Buildings on the map seemed to have walked–
They had switched positions.
Panic rushed through his veins. He looked out the window.
Buildings hadn’t changed places on just the map– it had happened on the very Street he lived.
The world.
Possibly his life.
Rewritten.
🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭🧭
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights 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.
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights 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.
Today, October 6th, is when the Nobel Peace Prize winners start being announced.
Peace is lived, not viewed—-through the eyes of a child.
🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️
Home was alien to Eunice; it was her first time back there after years of documenting conflicts in war-torn countries.
The house remained as it was when she left her parents and the neighborhood—a decrepit riverside garden, walls overwhelmed by creeping bougainvillea,
Yet, the vibrance of the flowers locked the eyes of the young photojournalist.
The creeping vines throbbed with an unrest that mirrored hers—
Permanent and unresolved.
She stepped into the garden as though it was a shattered fragment of the world she now knew—chasms of chaos.
Even in the silence, she recalled the roar of broken cities.
She breathed in the still air and shut her eyes.
Broken buildings.
The holler of exploding bombs.
🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️
Eunice tried to realign with life as it should be—
Normal and uneventful.
Bomb free.
But falling bombs and the cries of motherless children were stalkers she could not shake off
Her camera lingered, untouched, on a shelf.
She volunteered at a local community center, trying to forget the unsettling images she had captured for Life magazine.
Images with an unrelenting grip.
Then, she met Tomo.
The five-year-old was hard of speech—his drawings spoke for him.
Louder than the spoken word.
The children he played with drew to his silence.
The surreal calm of the mountains and lakes he painted.
Children who played together, the colours of the skin and mind linked—
Not a barrier.
🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️
On an afternoon at the centre, hollers that kissed the sound barrier.
Human tsunamis formed in the city streets, swallowing buildings.
A fire had consumed a building nearby.
Screams.
Anarchy.
Fragments of Eunice’s mind.
The nightmares she had borne, that her heart now unfollowed.
The photo journalist within reached for her camera, then stopped.
Realisation gripped her arms.
🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️
One that she followed. She helped to lead the children in two lines, an adult picture of calm, down the fire escape.
Firefighters doused the raging flames in a matter of minutes.
She helped to bring the charred garden back to life—to a place of reflection, community, and shared stillness.
And came to know that peace couldn’t just arrive; it had to came in parts, with gestures of gratitude, sincerity, and above all—
Tolerance.
🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️
Eunice left the camera behind, an unwanted memory puzzle piece, forever.
She had to live, not capture, stories of peace.
Her eyes fell on Tomo, sketching a dove in the garden.
The world she left behind raged, but the garden buzzed with gentle truth.
And the quietest persons— and moments—held the greatest power.
🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️🌿🕊️
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights 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.
Lara stood on the championship golf course, waiting for the tee-off. Whispers drifted from the stands–everyone wanted to see if she would return. A title that was hers–unless fate planned otherwise. The murmurs of the crowd were far away–as if the world had converged on that grass patch. She felt the familiar hunger of ambition, in answer to the crowd. Too loud, too urgent. Then a glint that drew her gaze. Waiting Patient. Demanding. From the 7th tee. The others were too caught up in the game to notice. The smell of cut grass strengthened and swallowed. Around her, leaves blew, rustling– Without wind. But a warning.
Lara reached downward, her fingers wrapping around the glinting tee. The shot was too perfect. Straight and equidistant. Of course, cameras did equally perfect zooms. The commentators hailed the miracle Then the green grass around it wilted, and the sand split. Fissures appeared on a nearby mound. A lone red robin appeared on it– Dead. Her caddy hollered a warning; not that the officials heard. But she was too close to the title to stop her swing. A crack. Under her feet. Lara kept swinging and winning. Each swing carved into the mound, making cracks. Deeper and deeper.
⛳🍃✨🌫️🏌️♀️
Lara took her final swing. The ground responded, trembling more than the St. Andreas Fault. The fissures were invisible–at least to the clamouring spectators. Roaring the win. They raced towards her, unknown to them. But Lara knew– Her perfect putt had carved too deep. The trophy was within sight– On cracking ground.
⛳🍃✨🌫️🏌️♀️
The spectators cheered in a roaring wave, moving forward, oblivious to the danger. The ground beneath Lara crumbled into a gaping hole. Wider. And wider. Applause rose, blind to the widening chasm. She grasped the trophy– The Earth gave way faster than a sonic boom. She had to decide–to hold with both hands and fall– Pride’s prey. Or release— And breathe. At last.
⛳🍃✨🌫️🏌️♀️
Lara’s fingers were in iron cuffs; the fissure threatened to swallow.
The roar of the crowd deafened, a drum that lured.
The gaps between Lara’s fingers turned chasms themselves.
into an open palm.
Sweaty, but breathing.
She released.
With a breath that finally soothed her overwrought limbs.
Salved her heart—and spirit.
The spectators gaped, mid-stare.
The silence washed over the greens, a gripping shroud.
Then, they scattered their disappointment felt—but forgone.
⛳🍃✨🌫️🏌️♀️
The hole swallowed the crowd, its cheers curdling, then dying off.
The crowd’s roar had dulled into silence.
A leaf rustled, accompanying the lone golfer.
It was a magnificent scar on the course—one some reporters hailed a legend.
Others, a tragedy of Tsunami magnitude.
The iron cuffs—off her hands.
Lara’s trophy had lodged itself within the wide crack, gleaming to applause—
That would remain heard—
Only by Lara.
⛳🍃✨🌫️🏌️♀️
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights 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.
Do you have Russian dolls? Which do you wear the most?
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 Getting Literal Writing Alcove 