Before International Women’s Day

We celebrate International Women’s Day today.

A day to honour the way women should be honoured.

A woman’s truth remains, waiting for the right post.

🌸💐🌷🌹🌼🌺🌻🌷💐🌸

The night before International Women’s Day settled on Caleb Lim’s study, an evening for perfunctory posture. Posturing was in the wealthy Asian businessman’s DNA; years of company events and dinners and ingrained positioning. In the manner of a suave, well-heeled corporate figure, he typed a carefully worded tribute for his company’s Facebook page. A polished act of respect for the women his organisation couldn’t do without. A message his followers expected, and would admire. Of little consequence. The ceremonial gratitude was necessary. He swept his dismissiveness aside and arranged his goodness in cautiously worded sentences.

He was about to click on the ‘post’ button when the phone on his rosewood table buzzed.

A voice he couldn’t mistake.

His daughter’s.

Disbelief turned to shock. Then hope arrived before reason.

His daughter couldn’t be speaking to him.

She had long since been cremated. After a long bout of depression.

But, the heated words. His insistence that she should know her place as a daughter. Her rudeness. Her utter defiance.

Out of line. As a woman.

But the dead had his number. How, he had no way to know.

That voice – it was Jane’s. But what should have sounded comforting was instead wary.

Too wary.

‘Dad, I’m sorry to bother you…”

The apology always came before anything she ever said to him, especially if it mattered.

That came because isolation taught her displeasing him mattered.

The haunting, soft caution. The almost ghostly tiptoe around his anger with her mere presence.

“I’m so sorry, dad, for calling at the wrong time…”

Jane’s voice was not comforting, but had the soft ring of deference. Every sentence bent, low.

A woman’s bow. Too low.

She spoke as though that taking up his space was her failure.

And he heard it in her manners. His damage.

The receiver hung limp in his hand. She WAS dead. Too much so to be speaking to him.

And yet the voice echoed over the line. The girlish, subservient voice.

The voice he had nurtured.

No, her call didn’t shake his being.

Her voice did. The soft ring of her woman’s voice.

His Facebook tribute to women smiled on his monitor. A false smile.

The public praise he knew too well how to execute.

His words for his wife, then his daughter, were never seasoned with care or kindness, but with sarcasm.

Dismissiveness.

Contempt.

The nearest women to him had been deprived of the shelter they deserved. Of honour, in their home.

His message lit up the monitor without a truthful source.

He sat, his head in his hands. No words of reconciliation would ever reach Jane; he was remorseful.

Too late.

Grief and change couldn’t walk the same aisle.

The truth had arrived long after the sand in his hourglass had finished dripping.

The dead were beyond repair. The living –

Waiting to be fixed.

Addressed.

He clicked on the button.

To delete.

His Facebook timeline refreshed.

A photo of him and Jane, her bright smile giving the monitor the light it needed.

He had sent the right post.

🌸💐🌷🌹🌼🌺🌻🌷💐🌸

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The Window That Stayed Lit

Today is World Energy Efficiency Day. With the rapid depletion of fossil fuels, observance is more than apt.

But too much so?

We do it for survival. But when survival rules, we sometimes forget the world.

🌑✨🌑✨🌑✨🌑✨🌑

Electicia had become a ration-obsessed city; there were few energy resources to share among its needy populace. Fossil fuels had become almost negligible – electric cars had long escorted gas-tank vehicles to junkyards.

Towers blended with the dark sky; the melding prompted unwanted darkness.

But in one tower, a light shone. Nightly, without fail, at 2:30 a.m. From a window that should be dark.

Solitary and purposeful.

Intentional.

Driven by a different energy.

Speculation – then dissatisfaction – began.

“How could they -‘

“They should be evicted by the authorities -“

“Non -compliance -“

🌑✨🌑✨🌑✨🌑✨🌑

Electrician Lenny watched the tower each dusk, without fail. He’d make his rounds and return to face the tower. Each night, never ceasing. A pattern too precise to ignore.

Electric readings from the single room pushed gauges beyond their limits, mercilessly. Suspiciously. Hidden wiring warmed the ground, poking the bases of his already tired feet.

🌑✨🌑✨🌑✨🌑✨🌑

The wiring served as apt warning; Lenny knew that the tower was best left alone. But curiosity triumphed over wise judgment.

He found himself outside the main door of the tower. He pushed, and the hinges gave way almost too freely –

Quieter than expected.

An elderly woman sat, her wrinkles caressed by gentle lamp light.

She was engrossed in the text before her, squinting-electricity was a worthless assistant. The generator was an equally flawed helper.

She looked up at Lenny’s furrowed eyebrows and offered the gentlest of smiles.

Lenny returned it with a lopsided grin of his own. The light? Just the lamp reflected on the window’s glass.

🌑✨🌑✨🌑✨🌑✨🌑

Lenny filed an evaluation report with his company – there had been no violation, no overuse of resources.

As he hauled tired feet back home, he glanced up at the surrounding windows.

Silent buildings, their aura tranquil.

Ink-black.

Just obedient darkness.

A city aware of the little power it held.

Too aware to see the dawn of a new day.

🌑✨🌑✨🌑✨🌑✨🌑

Original microfiction by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.

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A Correction, Not a Confrontation

Accuracy is respect.

📏🖊️✨

Rare Disease Day began like any other.

The escalating temperature outside made the students languid; they were already sweaty from physical education class. Mrs. Lim stepped into

the classroom.

Two words, scrawled on the board.

“Turner’s Syndrome.”

“Syndrome. That’s a disease!” blurted a student. He said it the way one mentions a headache.

The room was silent.

Just an assumption. No harm done.

Or thought.

Mrs. Lim quietly turned to the board.

“Word choice shapes thinking. And thinking shapes behaviour.”

Without addressing the student, she explained the difference between disease and condition.

Clinically. Another vocabulary lesson.

But there were details yet to explain.

📏🖊️✨

“Remember, class,” she smiled. Platform heels raised her above her height, or lack thereof. A conventional blouse covered her small but uniquely stocky frame. “Accuracy is a form of respect, especially with language. Use it wisely.”

Forty pairs of curious eyes fixed on her.

“Turner’s Syndrome is not a medical disease in the way Chicken Pox is, but it is a condition that presents some difficulties for those who have it.”

She tried to reach the highest point of the whiteboard.

Something her 4 foot-11 inch frame wouldn’t allow.

She gripped the edge of the teacher’s desk, bracing herself.

But the class was silent.

📏🖊️✨

The student who offered the remark frowned, then blushed.

It was a correction, not a confrontation.

The room straightened. The students sat up.

Mrs. Lim, ever the consummate professional, smiled warmly.

The students exchanged uncomfortable glances for a minute.

Then the same student returned the smile. The rest of the class looked at Mrs. Lim.

Gazes fixed, cautiously interested.

No one apologised. There was no need to.

📏🖊️✨

Later, alone, she erased the board.

Some words smudge easily.

Some linger.

She left one line on the board:

Be accurate.

Not for herself.

For them.

The lesson proceeded, with the students successfully dissecting the vocabulary in a comprehension passage.

The bell rang, and the students filed out of the class.

The impulsive student remained.

Mrs. Lim quietly gathered her books. She had left a single phrase behind.

“Be accurate.”

Not a category. Nor a laugh.

She had left behind a thought:

Precision is power.

📏🖊️✨

An original story for Rare Diseases Day by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.

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Community Standards

When the light flickers, people behave. When it stops, they explain.

💡🏢💡🏢💡🏢💡🏢💡

Tan here. A long-term resident of Block 345, Chestpeak Avenue.

It’s not a bad place to live. The residents of Block 345 are generally orderly folk who maintain the block well. And I like that they leave everything where it should be.

But that lamp. That idiotic lamp.

The flickering of that idiotic lamp was irritating. Irregular. Inconsistent.

It happened whenever I walked past, but some enjoyed uninterrupted illumination.

That was interesting to note.

Coincidence, of course.

💡🏢💡🏢💡🏢💡🏢💡

Take Mdm Lim, for example. The one who waters others’ plants for them. That light would behave over her.

Now me? I’m not a plant person. I like to keep up with the news.

But I’m a retiree. I can’t afford regular newspapers, so I depend on…external help.

I sometimes…er…borrow the newspapers outside neighbours’ apartments when they’re not watching.

And that darned light would go on and off over me whenever I did.

💡🏢💡🏢💡🏢💡🏢💡

I, Tan, believe that optics must be upheld. I’ve always done this at work.

And at home as well.

Sharing corridors requires community discipline, so I make sure to return the newspapers slightly earlier.

What is borrowed must return mah? Best practice.

Tan always obeys community standards.

💡🏢💡🏢💡🏢💡🏢💡

They finally replaced the silly lamp. See? I said that the wiring was faulty.

Nothing unusual. Just the Town Council and its nonsense.

Things went back to normal since the lamp stopped flickering. Mdm Lim waters her own plants and conserves water for herself now.

Everyone else’s – not so important lah.

Me? Now that the lamp has stopped flickering, I have decided to borrow newspapers permanently.

No returning. For what? Everyone can see anyway.

💡🏢💡🏢💡🏢💡🏢💡

So, everything in order, lah.

It WAS faulty wiring, like I said. Glad they corrected it.

Mdm Lim waters her own plants and conserves water for herself now.

I borrow…but when no one else is in the corridor.

I don’t like that light now. It shows. Too well.

💡🏢💡🏢💡🏢💡🏢💡

Original Singaporean microfiction by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental

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Written Too Straight

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.

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!

Lines in Brown

This day in 1919 marks the Great Boston Molasses Flood, when a molasses storage tank burst in Boston’s East End and consumed 21 lives.

21 lives lost, and undocumented.

While history records the events, it doesn’t record the names.

Some histories cannot be left on paper — they wait to be remembered.

🟤📄🕯️⚖️🟤

Criminalist Eleanor’s job was her haven – she adored the precision and the intimate attention to detail it needed. Years in the Commercial Affairs department of the police force had ingrained foolproof method and reliability – traits that made her renowned.

January 15 took her to an abandoned industrial site – one where tension and chaos were still very much married. Molasses had erupted in waves of brown from industrial containers, drowning 21 workers in viscous sea of dessert thick enough to build another Berlin wall . The atmosphere overwhelmed in a sickening instant.

Molasses lines still trailed along the sides of tanks, creeping from something – unseen. Brown and sticky. Gripping. Unyielding.

Accusing.

But Eleanor was but a monitor of records, not memory. She was tasked with verifying the truth – not on reflection of responsibility.

The sickly-sweet dessert was a trained assassin assailing Eleanor’s nose – the cloying scent wrapped her nostrils with a vengeance. The air bore sweetness where none should be. Time had softened, but not erased it – it didn’t move. But remained almost deathly unsettled.

She had recorded the event before, without missing a beat.

Safely. Accurately.

But the events and dates did not sync. The numbers bore no weight – meaningless. The dates had no breath.

Accuracy had trumped reverence.

The names of the 21 lost souls, dissolved with the viscosity that had enfolded them.

Then, the viscous remains reshaped.

Hardened.

Becoming a tangled mass of brown limbs, melded together in linked chains that could not be broken.

Then they rose, in a circle, surrounding Eleanor.

Approaching her, but not reanching.

21 links, glistening with dessert gleam.

Reminding.

Eleanor stared at the forms, too dumbstruck for words. Mesmerised – but aware enough to find them odd.

None of them spilt forward. None screamed.

She remembered the file that she had put on the table beside her, open to a blank page.

The figures stared, nodding.

And she understood.

The record she had to complete. That she would complete.

And the day she would finally mark with remembrance.

🟤📄🕯️⚖️🟤

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.

Moments Between Years

This new year, let’s remember that life’s in the little things.

☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕

Morning had just broken, but Elsie found her thoughts tracing the kitchen floor.

The first hour of the year was calm, quiet – giving room for pause. Singapore was still, but her apartment was buzzing with the noise of leftover wrappers, party poppers and half-finished cans of beer from the New Year’s Eve party the night before.

A cuckoo bird and its mate did a series of hops on the railing, as if filling the small gaps between the noise. A park lamp flickered, looking bent, as if conforming to the weight of the prior year’s unseen moments.

She strolled to the corner coffeeshop, giving silent nods to people she knew only briefly. Each step she took was a checklist of micro-decisions – taking the scenic route past the river, choosing which text message to reply to, skipping her usual cafe stop because it was too crowded. The new year was a mirror of the year before. The choices she made then rippled quietly into today.

She found herself seated on a park bench at lunch, the flavour of new year leftovers absent on her tongue. Her mind wandered as clouds drifted idly; children laughed, their chuckles filling the void in her soul.

She knew that void. The emptiness of life’s unnoticed textures -children’s laughter, an elderly woman’s chuckle-trumped the resolutions she made a year earlier. The pause before laughter was a reminder that the thought put into laughter – the little details – mattered as much as the laughter itself. Awareness in life’s small acts is what made a difference.

She returned to her apartment, opened a few letters she’d ignored over the new year and sipped her now rancid tea.

But for the first time in a long while, she felt as if she mattered. The clock on the TV console ticked steadily, indifferent to her presence. But she felt -there. Unrushed, with no need to know what happened next. She had already arrived.

She dialled her mother’s number, ready to finally speak to her.

Ready to address the spat they’d had a few weeks earlier.

Ready to meet the year ahead.

Because she was in the moment.

☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕

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Imparting Differences

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.

🌟

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

Whispers of Evergreen

Today is Small Town Election Day – when small communities vote on what matters.

Small voices matter – when sounded together.

🌳

🌿Evergreen was a town at almost perpetual rest – one where activity crawled. Shops opened late; restaurants shut right after dinner.

And its people seemed to tread with the help of walking canes.

A dense forest fringed the edge of the town, its thick shrubbery rustling like gentle whispers. The weight of generations-old trees, leaves brown with age – pressed on one’s shoulders.

Its reputation? For taking what it shouldn’t have.

38-year-old Clara Moon, school teacher and avid history buff, wanted to give these tangled murmurs a more audible voice. She sensed the gravity of stories etched on every tree bark.

She was wilful about it. And notorious for that.

🌳

🌿It was time for Evergreen to make a decision; election fever hit. Townsfolk assembled in droves at the polling station, their voices tinged with raspy excitement. The station’s hall resounded with their whispers.

To preserve – or not.

Developers gathered at the gates, plans in hand. Then, quiet, materialistic murmurs about profit.

Clara’s eye fell on Little Elliot. The child had wandered into the forest, his teletubby legs wobbling after a rabbit. Before long, bramble bushes grasped his ankles.

A hush fell over Evergreen. The forest had opened its mouth for –

Its prey.

Clara bit her lip. This was more than a child losing himself in the forest-it was the forest’s refusal to release him.🌿

🌳🌳

🌿 Clara rushed into the forest, hoping to grab the child before the forest swallowed him completely.

She did discover – not a child, but a sapling grove no one thought existed.

Baby trees shaped like infant animals.

At the periphery of her vision – chainsaws and axes.

Developers and dismissive grimaces.

The trunks of the saplings twisted towards them, like sentinels marching to an errant beat.

Clara’s eyes darted from one sapling to another. They stared back at her, leaves parted, almost pleading.

She wanted to help them. But that meant exposing Evergreen to their truth –

One the backwater town was not ready for.🌿

🌳🌳🌳

🌿Clara was torn.

To preserve? To tell the truth?

Her solution – a new approach.

The savvy schoolteacher arranged tours for a few of the town’s more open-minded residents.

Some backed away when they saw the saplings, their mouths open.

Others reached out to the leaves – and fingered them gently.

Clara faced those who dared touch – and cajoled.

“Such green magic is rare – your children need it in their meals daily, to grow.”

She turned to the others, their mouths still agape.

“They frighten you. But they also protect you – your peace.”

A few days later, the vote passed. Thinner than a blade of grass.

Plight mattered more than a fight. 🌿

🌳🌳🌳🌳

🌿Clara showed the way with soft hands – and won the vote.

The forest had parted its leaves quietly, revealing a clear path.

Not just one leaf or tree – piles of them.

It wasn’t just one sapling that marched – they all did.

To a single beat that played in perfect rhythm -for the greater good. 🌿🌿

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

Glow in the Silence

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.