Small warmth in a weary world
🐕🦺🐕🦺🐕🦺🐕🦺🐕🦺🐕🦺🐕🦺🐕🦺🐕🦺🐕🦺🐕🦺
🐕Soft fur warms worn hands
Small heat for the weary soul
Calms at needed times. 🐕
🐕🦺🐕🦺🐕🦺🐕🦺🐕🦺🐕🦺🐕🦺🐕🦺🐕🦺🐕🦺🐕🦺
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.
Moments that melt the cold
🎄☕🎄☕🎄☕🎄☕🎄
Hot coffee warms hands
Casting small glow in the cold
Heat glistens in dark.
🎄☕🎄☕🎄☕🎄☕🎄
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 is the International Day of Human Solidarity – one when a jigsaw becomes completely fitted.
When walls part, and partitions close.
When differences meet, magic happens.
🌟
The city of Parting was – parted. There were many parts, true to its name.
Every district spoke a different language. And within each language, a separate dialect.
Rules veered like cars as they steered from street to street. Neighbours saw each other – only with their eyes. Glances fleeted, lasting shorter than seconds.
🐾
Kevin frowned at George’s odd dances. Harry squirmed at Sheila’s crooked smile – one fixed on her face due to facial paralysis from an accident.
They laughed at Juno – he wrote, but climbing Everest was easier than reading.
But the little child smiled like an angel.
Then, the Mayor threw them a ball into a curve that was already curvy.
The Day of Differences. A town holiday.
To mark the day and make it as COMFORTABLE for the edgy as he could, he PAIRED the townsfolk.
Two worlds collided in a day.
Leila, the quiet librarian, frowned at George’s heady dance moves. Tom, the straightlaced mathematician, baulked at Ben’s cheeky eyebrow raising.
The differences sounded louder than cymbals.
Hearts listened, though minds ignored.
✨
The diversity blanketed Parting – now Imparting – and beyond.
Leila held Dance Appreciation Days at the town library – with George’s help. Ben spun records at the radio station with the help of a metronome that Tom assembled – after a mouthful of quirky complaints.
And containers were no longer separate – the differences melted hard plastic partitions.
Into nothingness.
🌟
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.
Even in darkness, small deeds shape the world.
🪱
The pale moon rises.
An earthworm’s quiet burrow.
Body shuns the light.
🪱
No fancy chorus.
It moves soil with its body.
Without wings for flight.
🪱
It hears loud footsteps.
Life pressing on its soft skin.
Learns not sounds of praise.
🪱
Roots sprout where it treads.
The soil recalls its labour,
But never its name.
🪱
It returns at dawn,
To the dark soil where it thrives
Soil’s breath now relaxes.
🪱
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.
Sharing is the season’s greatest gift.
❄️
A Yuletide snow blanket covered Windleaf Town, turning chimneys, roofs, and roads a dirty white. Holiday lights cast their glow on streets shrouded in frost.
Marlow was the town Grinch – a staunch disbeliever in the Christmas spirit, he kept to himself. No one dared touch the toys in his store – or so he thought. Snow muffled the world’s noise – to Marlow, it was the sound of jingle bells hatching an annoying plot.
Then, Marlow’s ornaments began to disappear.
One.
By.
One.
Right under his nose.
Each missing ornament felt like a tiny stab in his back. Near the cash register, a faint jingle – reminding him of each missing bauble.
❄️❄️
The disgruntled shopkeeper refused to let missing decorations daunt him – he decided to fight the good fight.
His solution was simple: traps and a little subterfuge.
Armed with a little strategy, he placed them where kleptomaniac fingers would pinch.
Near his Christmas tree.
Near the window.
Near the cash register.
Near the mouse hole (just in case).
Traps carefully set, he waited with trepidation – his heart thumped with hope, not fear.
Trap evidence brought in the usual suspects -brown mice with cheeky grins, a gust of wind, and human footsteps craving for warmth long absent.
Then, Mary, a long-time customer, brought in a bauble.
“Doesn’t this belong to your tree?” She shot him a quizzical look
He shot her a puzzled one of his own.
Mary was a retired widow whose husband had recently passed.
Then, a nutcracker, brought in by Tim.
A man who called park benches his home.
And a little angel – whose place was the top of his tree. Brought in by Katherine.
“Is…is…this…yours?” The sentence emerged, though with some effort.
Then, mid-craft, he dropped his tools with a jolt.
Not in anger, but in realisation.
His ornaments had gone to the hands of those who needed them.
And the gruff grinch understood the gift hidden in his loss.
❄️❄️❄️
Project Catch Bauble Thief went on for two heart-stopping days.
For a grinch who often felt his heart on the wrong side of his chest.
Then – payoff.
On the store’s CCTV camera was little Elvie, placing the ornaments in gift bags, bow-tied with meticulous precision.
Sending them to the lonely and needy with thoroughness that spoke ‘care.’
He made his move on Christmas Eve.
The little boy gasped mid-gifting and dropped a bauble.
Marlow the Grinch fixed the little pilferer witha penetrating gaze.
On his face was his signature scowl – one that he dropped after a while when he thought of the little boy’s heart.
One that knew that gifts should be held by the hands which needed them.
❄️❄️❄️❄️
The grinchy shopkeeper succumbed to Yuletide’s resonating charm – he drove Elvie to homes that needed seasonal cheer.
His shop opened to customers with an unfamiliar glow.
Warm and welcoming.
It had never felt fuller or readier for a new start.
For a grouchy shopkeeper, sharing had become the season’s greatest gift.
❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️
Original story by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.
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.
Where the glow of the season reveals what was once hidden.
🎄✨🕯️❄️
Red and green flashes, sparkling eyes,
Whispering tales that few dare speak
Bright sparks fill winter skies,
Beneath their glow, a shadow seeps.
🌙🕯️❄️
Shadows scale the darkened walls
Unopened letters on the mantle;
Confessions fill the quiet hall
Gift-wrapped truths hiding by candles
🔥📖❄️
Ember’s glow lights hidden truths
Photos, books beneath dust’s veil;
White snow falling from the roof
Red tiles that covered untold tales
🏠❄️✨
Stories told by a hearth that’s warm
Tales embracing hope and peace
Snow scales soft, the open roof,
Tales, now told, and minds at ease.
🎁🕯️❄️
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.
It takes one to burn…and the flame spreads.
🕯
In a silent corner of a snow-caked street was a lone candle -sentient, it seemed to have a watchful eye.
Laura first observed it from her apartment window. It never burned out. But glowed brighter when someone walked alone. A crying child covered in frost. A young lady walking alone. An old man hobbling with a cane, trekking the pavement without help.
Curiosity poked its head from the recesses of her mind.
🕯🕯
She left a warm loaf of sourdough she had just baked outside her door. The candle sparked -swaying in an almost-dance of approval.
It was one of encouragement; Laura did a jig herself.
She thanked the shopkeeper who kept his store open over Christmas. She gave a knitted sweater to the little boy who wore too-thin layers.
And the mailman? She put the dog away so that it wouldn’t jump.
And the candle almost did the Macarena.
🕯🕯🕯
The candle’s glow wrapped the sidewalk on Christmas Eve; the whole street was bathed in its light. Neighbours came out of the shadows, beckoned by its warmth.
🕯🕯🕯🕯
Frost remained until the next morning, holding blades of grass with icy, white fingers. Then a knock on Laura’s door.
The store owner, with a cut of Christmas ham that reminded her of a mini Everest.
Another knock.
It was the child she gave the sweater to. He approached her, a cheeky grin framing his eyes. He had a scarf in his hands.
Another knock.
The mailman – with a packet of kibble endorsed by a bow.
Laura grinned. She kept a candle burning by the window.
Someone would bask in its glow.
🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯
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.
Joy is in the little things.
🕯️❄️🌙
I tread the frost-caked streets
Window panes bathed in snow
Unwrapped gifts, stacked and neat
Flame in hearts aglow.
☃️✨🕯️
A forgotten candle in pitch dark
Its wick stays true, aflame
Its pure light, a burning spark
Remains untouched, the same.
🍫🧸🔥
The flame, it burns, light aglow
Shines on life’s small joys –
Chocolate muffines, soup on a stove
A child’s warm, soft toys.
🌟🍂😊
Beauty beholds in little bites
In life’s treats, though small;
In a toy, a shirt worn right
In simple smiles, for all.
🕯️💫🖤
A single candle in the dark
A steady flame, small, but sparks.
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 marks Nelson Mandela’s passing in 2013.
We may not leave echoes in history the way he did, but we CAN resonate.
📚✏️📚✏️📚✏
Prologue
A normal school morning, sunlight warming an already too-warm classroom – but it had the quiet promise that even small moments are reasons.
For those who ask, “Why do this?”
📚✏️📚✏️📚✏️
“Bye, Miss Kwek…no, bye Mummy.” The little 7-year-old girl offered a little hand swap as she bade goodbye and traversed the corridor.
The classroom’s silence wrapped around me as she left. Nothing but scattered papers and desk chairs.
I sighed. I’d have to spend an hour pushing them in and sweeping–the kids had to rush home for lunch.
Miss Kwek the SuperMum.
Or SuperTeach.
And honestly…I didn’t know if the little girls realised that anymore.
📚✏️📚✏️📚✏️
My first teaching assignment. This music and English teacher offered little ditties.
I taught them occupations with Ernie’s “Who Are The People in the Neighbourhood.”
But…their attention waned, as it often did for seven-year-olds after the first half-hour of breathing.
Unmarked worksheets stared at me from a basket, berating me for neglect.
The empty classroom smelled of faded whiteboard markers. Ernie’s face stared at me from a chart on an easel.
Blank.
Wondering if the constant effort to plan lessons was worth the “Mummy”- or if they’d even remembered him after the song.
📚✏️📚✏️📚✏️
As I put marked exercise books on a bookshelf, my hand met a box with a bump.
I hadn’t noticed it before.
An envelope reared an edge from its corner.
Beckoning.
I drew a breath, my fingers lingering over the edge —
And dropped it again.
📚✏️📚✏️📚✏️
I picked the box, letting the exercise books cascade onto the floor with a thump.
A printed letter, the pristine white paper waiting patiently. Its edges were starting to curl, but a few minutes wouldn’t make a difference.
After those minutes were finally over, I pried the envelope open.
Addressed to me.
“Dear Teacher,
“I like Ernie, and Who Are the People In Your Neighbourhood. But I like the way you sing it. You sound like my Grandma. She had a great voice. She died last year. She used to bring me to school.”
A watermark.
I was about to create a few – but not the factory sort.
“Thanks for the song. I watch Sesame Street every afternoon now. My English has improved. Marilyn.”
So it had.
For all time.
I sat at the desk, a quiet smile starting to stretch across my face.
One that needed Face Yoga.
In case of premature sagging.
There was a reason for Mummy after all.
Despite how dog-tired she was.
📚✏️📚✏️📚✏️
“Mummy” dropped the letter back into the box cautiously –
Its pulse was quickening.
The classroom still had a distinct marker odour – but it teased my nostrils.
It didn’t punch.
📚✏️📚✏️📚✏️
I swept the floor, erased the whiteboard –
And lifted the easel.
Ernie.
And his neighbourhood.
📚✏️📚✏️📚✏️
Mummy had a place in it.
Though her legs were a little tired from walking around.
📚✏️📚✏️📚✏️
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.
Growth happens in cycles.
🌱
Old roots
Clutch the rich soil
Their tendrils have far reach
Stir and unfold, new shoots rise
Emerge.
Reaching
Combing barren soil for new life
Ever search for richness
Raw tendrils sink
And grow.
🌱
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.
The Getting Literal Writing Alcove 