It was a blurring of boundaries in the worst way. A report adjusted this time, and no more.
If it escalated, the job turnover in the department would rise – with immediate effect. I had to stop it.
To save my own. It wasn’t about getting anyone into trouble.
So I crafted the email.
That email. It raised the issue, in apparent confidence. I kept my superiors in the BCC loop – it warranted guidance.
Not action.
Written in the hopeful belief that it would preempt and correct – quietly.
I clicked on the send button and went on a mid-morning coffee break.
It was Procedure. That’s all.
Nothing unusual, just a log of a routine slip.
But HE accessed the inbox,through a shared terminal. One which he had delegated access to.
A misdirected forward loop.
And the reaction.
The cardboard box. The desk, cleared.
Him, walking past, giving me that lowered, sideways glance.
It accused. “So this is what you really think of me. You never even asked me anything.”
I would have fixed it. But it’s already on the company’s records.
I only meant to protect.
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False positivity can be grating, sometimes even harmful…but we do need hope when it counts.
Little nuggets of positivity do that.
Optimism is hope – when it matters.
🌱
Paula traversed her little block
Offering kindness, hope dealt small;
Not everybody’s solid rock
Just gentle tidings, peace for all.
✍️ 🌱
She waters the neighbours’ sun-parched plants;
Returns a wallet, thoughtless lost;
She leaves a note, of deeds unsung
Of their goodness, does not boast.
✍️ 🌱
I watch her good deeds, unstated cheer,
And then start to cringe;
Her constant brightness, hope for peers,
Discomfort some, unhinge
✍️ 🌱
I then learn, a tad too late,
That Paula kept a log;
Of past loss borne, that her deeds rebate
And brought light through the fog.
✍️ 🌱
Paula passed, but her notes stay,
Their kindnesses remain;
To lift the pain, the hurt that frays
To take away Life’s stains.
🌱 ✍️
Original poem written by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.
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Society expected perfection from Sandra. But is perfection perfect?
📚✔️❌❓
Ms. Sandra Lee always arrived in class five minutes before her English lesson was to begin. There was no reason for this day to be any different.
The classroom had already risen before she stepped in. The lights were already on, and her students, quiet and standing, ready to greet.
But their morning salutation was not for her.
She’d always had a problem writing in a straight line on a ledger-less chalkboard.
But her name was on it this day.
She already knew the kids – there was no need for it.
It was in a line – written by someone else.
Too straight.
📚✔️❌❓
The students offered their polite greeting – almost too polite.
Their grace, too well-crafted.
Responses – too normal.
Sandra observed the teacher – an uncanny replica of herself, doling out marked homework and instructions.
The students, responding for once without any quiet rebellion.
They had finally accepted her for who she was.
But this was not her. Their politeness to this new her – her own erasure.
📚✔️❌❓
The formulae offered by Sandra’s replacement – herself – were doubtless.
Efficient. Perfect.
The students accepted the model solutions she offered without a single raised hand in protest.
No digression. No lingering questions.
The teaching was excellent, but without an ounce of warmth.
📚✔️❌❓
Then, the letter on her desk.
Thanking her for her service.
The parents were happy with Sandra’s replacement – she taught in the way the students recognized.
There was improvement. Formulae were clocked correctly, according to the letter. She had taught well, it said.
Just not good enough for – herself.
📚✔️❌❓
Sandra cleared her desk, putting her books and now needless worksheets in a box.
She carried it past the classroom and looked in at herself, finally explaining the formulae without a single missed equation.
But as she passed the classroom window, the replacement – her perfect upgrade – asked a question.
Then wrote the wrong sum on the board.
And vanished at the sound of the bell.
📚✔️❌❓
The students with half the needed formulae.
📚✔️❌❓
Original microfiction by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.
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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!
The ritual started because our devotion wasn’t focused – we believed that we could love many at once.
We knew that love in this form was – questionable.
So we confessed – kept translating our romantic transgressions against each other week after week. Our souls attained a feathery lightness after each confession – or so we thought.
It mattered that we were to write down every act of betrayal. The absolution of that was non-negotiable. With ultimate precision, we wrote down each whispered betrayal, each act of dishonesty.
The ritual didn’t concur with logical reasoning. Trust should have denied his presence. Marriage should have become paper for burning.
The ritual didn’t concur with logical reasoning. Trust should have denied his presence. Marriage should have become paper for burning.
Each backhanded alliance.
Each note was absolved – forgiveness was a forgone conclusion, a must.
Our souls felt lighter than before the ritual, nearly weightless. And the notes kept piling – Everest was ashamed.
More than we ever were.
We adhered to the ritual, day after day, month after month.
Year after year.
It never hurt while it happened.
The marriage lingered, open.
We jotted down confessions on arbitrary pieces of paper and ripped them apart, without a second thought.
Maintaining alliances – some straightforward, most not. Absolution, with the ripping of each note, eased each one.
Eased our souls. They became feathery light.
But as the weight of Transgression left us, the toll of others stayed.
Dismissal. Disvalue.
Disfavor.
The ritual had been performed many times before, in different ways.
Confessions just as soul-lightening, and unhinging.
Apologies that came too quickly, soothed for too short a time, and released without meaning or payment.
Children who bore the weight of meaningless absolution – sightless and unheard. Familial relationships formed without familiarity.
Alliances borne out of necessity and distrust.
Recorded, almost too meticulously, in journals, photos and damning letters, decades earlier.
Love had absolved souls that lightened. But stayed.
They each recognised their handwriting, formed at earlier times. Devotion had predecessors, malformed.
It was not our ritual to perform. But confessions without meaning were made.
And souls floated. No anchor.
Drifting ceaselessly, eternally, without respite or affirmation.
Time healed wounds, with their sting continuing to smart and pierce.
The ritual continued. The confessions were stark reminders, laid in black and white, in journals.
Consuming the souls of those who truly loved, attentively and sincerely.
The confessions preserved the relationship – one that remained, in different parts, scattered, yet together.
There was no resistance towards it – it continued, preserving souls with festering wounds.
Knowing resolved – making incomplete, irresolute forms.
They were unclear- the ritual was the only responsibility.
Love did not release. It perpetuated.
A neglected child.
The ritual – and the abject, yet trite confessions – continued. Both partners stayed. Souls obedient, but fractured.
Damaged – yet stable.
The confessions did what they had to do – leaving stable destruction in their wake.
What we have doesn’t need us whole – it needs us there.
We survived the absence and the harsh truths, with the cost of nothing following.
The ritual of shallow confession is pending – our son has married.
The young lady – undamaged, naive, unprotected.
Our elder daughter, too, has married, knowing full well the ritual and its truths.
The young man – equally innocent, faithful, and steady.
Unguarded.
Unaware of the costs of love, the ritual, and its power.
May they never need one.
May they never require truths without notice, recognition, or power.
May they never need confessions without spirit.
May they never need confessions at all.
But the ritual waits -silent.
Sentient, ready to hold.
📄 ✂️ 🕳️
Original story by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.
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It started with a small rose-like patch on his skin. Reddish-brown, almost like a little tattoo that had etched itself on Barry Leong’s right wrist. He glanced at it, barely, then paid it no mind. It itched, very slightly. Nothing worth discussing at the dinner table. Too unnoticeable to interrupt the day.
Barry decided that it could wait – he was simply too busy for rose tattoo patches. Putting food on his hungry family’s table was far more sensible – his wife had just received the dreaded “R” letter in the mail. He was now the sole tender of the family’s financial garden.
Life couldn’t come to a standstill. Barry’s rose tattoo took up more space on his shoulder, very quietly. Just heat-induced expansion. Enlargement too small for his already overwrought mind.
Barry passed. The rose tattoo patch hadn’t overgrown on his skin; in fact, it had shrunk to almost oblivion. But the thorns from the roses had pricked.
Subtly.
Yet cruelly.
Mentally.
In ways Barry had not realized himself. The danger hadn’t been where anyone looked.
The patch had begun small enough to overlook.
To prick and bleed.
To erase.
🌹🧠🩸
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!
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!
We mark Martyr’s Day today – for Mahatma Ghandi, and all who walked selflessly with others who needed them.
For strength that refused applause.
🕊️🌿
He stands
In the midst of –
Lifting wreaths
And muted bows
🕊️🌿
He walked
With us
In the same breath
On the same route
🕊️🌿
For life
Softened
Under watch
For the Soul
🕊️🌿
That saw.
That lauded not.
That stopped.
And evaded
The light.
🕊️🌿
Original poem by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.
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Louisa Lum’s birthday began like any other. Gifts given, but drew a blank. A cake with so many candles, it frightened her.
And of course, flowers. Roses that dulled the midlifer’s spirit with their blush.
Then, there was the pink carnation.
A flower meant to charm. Its coy pink petals enwrapped. To make her heart a little less hard.
Tradition doing its quiet work.
The flower was ordinary. Nothing about it was intimidating, at first glance.
Then, while cleaning its vase, her fingers brushed against a thorn along its stem.
It pricked. She backed away from the vase, and knocked into a chest of drawers behind her.
They sprung open to reveal a stack of letters.
Her father. Someone else – she would rather not have read about.
It was truth, mis-timed. Cruel honesty.
Nothing broke – it wore down. There was a palpable distance between them, even while he was on his deathbed.
And the silence created something new.
The smell of the pink carnation’s petals lifted her nostrils, just as he passed.
And the truth hammered her heart with rusted nails. There had been clarity – but it hadn’t mattered one bit.
Damage done by a carnation’s accuracy, shoving her into a drawer just then.
Irreparable.
The pink flower wilted, leaving nothing in its wake –
Just a stack of letters, that should not have been read.
🌸📜🕯️
Original story for National Carnation Day by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.
Original poem by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.
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The Getting Literal Writing Alcove 