A crowded office break room. A pumpkin pie sits, leftover.
Untouched and waiting, under pale fluorescent light.
The light formed a violet aura- it crowned the pumpkin with violet thorns.
It waited, as patient as a cat waiting for a little mouse to scamper from one hole to another.
No one noticed it, except for me.
One person.
That was all it needed. For now.
🍂
I reached for the pumpkin slice, lifted it to my mouth, then stopped.
A note.
“May this last piece of pie sweeten your day.”
The note outweighed the pie.
A little pie blessing in tiny, but too discernible, writing.
And the office felt full again.
🍂
Then, I remembered.
Saul. The janitor.
“It’s not clean until the last corner’s swept,” was his mantra.
I stopped him and offered him the pie.
It hummed with an invitation.
He paused mid-sweep and grinned.
A small act with a large voice.
And that was enough drumroll.
🍂
I left the office, the plate empty.
But the note remained firmly in my pocket.
Then, a sliver of gratitude-
Unexpected and persistent.
The note remains in my pants pocket, waiting to be reread.
Like gratitude residue that needs no spotlight.
It lingers – in cold, small offices.
🍂
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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.
Meiling was the consummate superwoman–she was her father’s sole caregiver. Her mother, bless her soul, had passed peacefully a decade earlier.
Her apartment was silent, save for the incessant buzzing of phone reminders. Mei Ling lived and breathed a schedule–she had every task planned and accounted for.
But there was one thing she couldn’t fix–
That wall clock.
It had ceased along with her mother. The very day she died.
Time had stopped, but she refused to notice. Schedules were a grief mechanism–they were safer than unwanted memories. Rolodexes, none of which were about her.
So the clock waited, patient as time itself. The hands moved–with ticks that should not have been.
🕰️⌛🩸🪞😔⏳💔👩👧👦✨
11:13 p.m. A barely discernible hum replaced her usual calm demeanour. Outside, the intermittent glow of a streetlight.– it made its way into the corridor.
But with bated breath.
The darkness stretched, eight minutes too long.
Then, seconds.
Punctuated by the same hum—
But louder.
Thudding under her skin, on her bones, syncing with the beat of her heart.
Growing more intense, under her skin.
A lullaby she had long since mired with the clock’s odd ticks. She hadn’t heard it since the clock stopped moving.
Familiar. Sung before.
🕰️⌛🩸🪞😔⏳💔👩👧👦✨
Then, the light returned. The hands of every clock in Meiling’s apartment froze–
1:13.
Then, slow ticks.
Time moved–the wrong way.
Backward. Soft. Steady.
Every tick accused.
Her mobile pinged with a new voice mail.
Sent by her.
“You can’t schedule me.”
The past had stolen her voice.
🕰️⌛🩸🪞😔⏳💔👩👧👦✨
The good daughter was desperate–she grabbed a clock and brought it to Mr. Tan, her estate’s clockmaker. He didn’t just sell clock off the shelf–
He gave them life.
After looking hers over, he went to the back room of his workshop–
And returned with a pocket watch.
“Here,” He thrust it into her hands.
She stared at its gold case.
It gleamed, as if speaking–or had feelings.
She looked at him, nonplussed.
“Time remembers,” was his cryptic answer.
Then, her eyes fell on the mirror behind him.
She looked at–
Herself. Years younger.
Happier.
Schedule-less.
Untouched by grief.
She stared at the pocket watch.
An eight-minute countdown.
Her reflection wasn’t haunting. It was waiting for her.
Eight minutes–to face herself.
🕰️⌛🩸🪞😔⏳💔👩👧👦✨
With a deft move of both hands, Meiling smashed the clock– . Blood trickled down her knuckles.
The air in her apartment was still–consumed by silence.
The clocks started moving as they should–to 1:14 a.m.
Her young reflection smiled through tears in the mirror.
“I remember,” she whispered wanly.
Then, she knew.
Some clocks had to come apart before they could tick.
She had been haunting herself–with her schedules.
Her over-efficient ways.
Almost soulless.
Time had started again–and forgiven her.
She helped her father into the wheelchair—the old man smiled, and grasped her hand.
She was glad to hold it–at least, for now.
🕰️⌛🩸🪞😔⏳💔👩👧👦✨
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When obsession drowns out reason, only the voice remains.
🔊
Adrian Cho was accustomed to working on his own—the sound technician eliminated ambient noise whenever he could. The shuffling of feet or sudden bumps would disrupt his work.
He was in an abandoned shophouse that fateful night, working out audio kinks for a new film. Old shophouses came with echoes—not Adrian’s favourite place to work. Floorboards creaked—unsurprising, since these places were generally weatherbeaten.
So, when murmurs started sounding through the floorboards, he merely passed them over as “age.”
Until they started to mimic his voice.
In whispers too close to thought.
Echoes that should not have been.
And he hadn’t been speaking—not one word.
Ever the stoic sound engineer, Adrian dutifully recorded the sounds over the next few days—they HAD to do with the structure.
But the playbacks were—
ODD.
They revealed something new—each and every time.
Pealed laughter.
Muted whispering.
Then—confessions he made—only in his mind.
Chopped sentences covered in static.
About the dalliances his wife never knew about.
The dissatisfaction with his marriag
But each replay mangled reality—
each more distorted.
Sleep be came an elusive bedfellow—more estranged than his wife.
His logic began to crumble under the sound. Isolating the source of the recordings was the only thing he could think of.
On a sleepless night, the sound almost drove Adrian deranged. He ripped the floorboards apart to confront the incessant murmuring.
No untoward creature, no sentient being.
Just a recording.
Labelled with his name.
He pressed the recorder’s “play” button.
Shrieks from beyond filled the room.
The sound of himself, unmade.
In his voice—one he hardly knew existed.
The uncanny shrieks were loud enough to prompt neighbours to take action.
The police later scoured his apartment—
emptiness louder than fear.
Silence that consumed.
His equipment, running.
An officer heard the playback on the recorder.
A distended voice mixed with static.
“Adrian, stop.”
Adrian was wanted—and listened.
By his mind, or himself—for him to know.
🔊
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If I could chart my life as a map, it would be done with chalk–with some parts erased, rewritten, and finally, merged as one.
I have chartered the mental highway that connects its different parts-some with clarity, others in brain fog that’ refuses to clear.
Each line I draw is jagged. Unclear. It smudges, the ink making the words on the map difficult to read.
Through the smudged ink, chalkdust and jagged lines, I move forward, seeking a self-and drawing that is complete.
✨
A teacher’s map is one that I’ve always wanted to charter–my mum, being a teacher, has drawn one of her own.
I drew mine with some difficulty because the chalk flaked at many points.
Flaky chalk defined the starting point of my map. I had wanted to chart a legal map–to travel along life’s road as a successful litigator.
Then—
My brain received two unwanted visitors-pituitary brain tumours
Introspection and altruism held the chalk–and drew for me.
Charting the Teacher’s map, with the noble goal of shaping lives–became, literally and metaphorically, a more attractive draw.
So it was that I reached the first destinations along my map as a teacher—the National Institute of Education and the Nanyang Technological University.
✨
The road I drew–then travelled on–was not without its bumps and resulting bruises
My next stop on the road was at an all-girl’s convent teaching seven-year-old mademoiselles(the school has a French history).
The bump along the road? They didn’t behave like mademoiselles.
They did as little girls would do–they constantly chattered.
Like raucous boys would, they messed up the classroom–every day.
But they also called me “mummy”.
Then–I knew that the Teacher’s Map would lead to a Treasure Chest.
I travelled along the map to secondary schools.
The next stop was one in the North of Singapore, where I realised that teaching wasn’t just about classroom lesson delivery–it was life lesson delivery.
Part of the map was drawing FOR the students–shaping their confidence as musicians, serving as their lead singer at school rock concert performances, and boosting their linguistic capabilities via English and Literature.
More shaping–and chartering.
This time I drew my map–and maps for other teachers–as an English and Literature subject coordinator.
Some maps were tasks to draw–when conjugating a grammatical sentence was difficult.
When a student wrote a full, five-page essay with a single–just one–period, or full stop, at the end.
When I had to help an abusive student navigate his relationship with his mother.
When some students smoked in class, in full view.
✨
But the teaching map wasn’t the only one I was to charter.
The writing map cried out to this teacher to draw as well.
I had chartered the map to a crossroads.
The teaching map would trace a route of stability, structure and control.
But not satisfaction–
Of creation. Of being in control of one’s voice.
The writing map held that satisfaction.
But not structure or stability.
But I realised that I didn’t have to make that choice–
I drew both.
One map chartered the other.
Their efforts produced the map of a creative writing teacher.
One who got students to produce storyboards.
Who also got students to draw their maps after sitting for the O level examinations.
✨
The maps are still being drawn.
Each is hard to chart or follow on its own..
But both have to work together-
For financial security.
Personal satisfaction.
For the arrival of a whole soul at its destination.
✨
Original Map of the Self memoir by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. Any AI tags are conincidental
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Warm air turns, its cool breath gracing my fingertips.
Asphalt steam rises, white beneath faint sun’s glow.
A crow caws — the cool air’s rattle.
🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️
The leaves whisper, now a guttural rustle.
The crow’s caw, a sharp screech in the ear.
Chimneys clear their throats with fiery puff.
Frost builds on wooden eaves.
🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️
Woodsmoke razes the throat.
Wisps of warm, frost-tinged breath fill the air.
Pine scent turns to rust — the Earth’s belt tightens.
Skin prickles beneath old warmth’s shun.
🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️
Glass panes fog; my form shows — then goes.
A new light berates the cooling twilight.
Crumbling crackle under boots — it comes,
And the Earth welcomes it with pause.
We hear the world as it turns cold.
🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️
Soiled roots, kissed by golden hue.
Leaves cling to iron bars, their recall heavy.
Warm air turns, its cool breath gracing my fingertips.
Asphalt steam rises, white beneath faint sun’s glow.
A crow caws — the cool air’s rattle.
🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️
The leaves whisper, now a guttural rustle.
The crow’s caw, a sharp screech in the ear.
Chimneys clear their throats with fiery puff.
Frost builds on wooden eaves.
🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️
Woodsmoke razes the throat.
Wisps of warm, frost-tinged breath fill the air.
Pine scent turns to rust — the Earth’s belt tightens.
Skin prickles beneath old warmth’s shun.
🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️
Glass panes fog; my form shows — then goes.
A new dawn berates the cooling twilight.
Crumbling crackle under boots — it comes,
And the Earth welcomes it with pause.
🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️🍂❄️🍁❄️🍂❄️
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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.
🌕🍂🎃🌾🎃🍁🌕🎃🍂🌾🎃🍁🌕🍂🎃🌾🎃🍁🌕🎃🍂🌾🎃🍁
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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.
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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.
The Getting Literal Writing Alcove 