Becoming History

What we find may cost much more than we know.

📦🕰️🖼️📖

It was another evening of no social calls or friends for Albert Monterio — the introverted historian genuinely preferred archiving subjects for historical research.

Everyone had gone home to their families for the evening — all but him.

The archives were empty — and profoundly silent.

Too silent.

He combed the stoically silent shelves.

In the strange quiet there was a stack of photographs from the 1946 bombardment of Haiphong.

One photograph stood out.

A photo that disobeyed its own era.

An anomaly hiding among sepia images.

And a strange rustling that he shouldn’t have felt.

🔍📷🕵️‍♂️

Albert grabbed a magnifying glass and focused on the odd,
out-of-place mark.

Everything was in ruins.

Pieces of zinc roofing were scattered on the pavements.

Smoke billowed from surrounding debris.

Two soldiers lifted a seriously wounded comrade who was attempting to walk.

Amid it all stood a child, grasping an object that was out of place for its time — a modern smartphone.

Albert shook his head.

Probably some debris the kid picked up, he thought.

But the anomaly only sharpened —
on Logic’s defying path.

🖼️⌛🖌️

A second envelope fell from the archive bookshelf.

A similar photograph.

With him, fully present, in the frame.

The child’s device showed a timestamp — the present day’s date.

The photo shimmered, and tiny sketches appeared at the corners.

A temple he was familiar with — bombed.

A street, newly built, shattering in pieces.

Smoke billowing from the debris.

The young boy showed disaster.

Showed change.

⏳💀📱

And true to that, the photograph —

Changed.

The child’s gaze had shifted —

Through the screen.

Ever so slightly, staring Albert in the face.

And then —

His outline materialising where it should not have been.

Standing, motionless, beside the child’s.

With tomorrow’s date flashing on the screen’s right.

Albert hadn’t been merely observing history — he had become it.

🕰️💔📖

The child’s device showed a timestamp — today’s date.

The time — a minute into the future.

Albert lying slumped in his chair in the archive.

A smile etched on his face.

He had found what he had to.

And become what he had found.

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A Room For The Invisible

Take time to remember the self.

🌑🕯️🪞🖤🏚️??️‍🗨️

Marina Chua was the classic wallflower—at 34, she was perpetually passed over, whether at work or at home.

Home was just as overlooked. After all, no one noticed abandoned terrace houses.

It had a memory like a sieve. One that sorted the maize from the chaff. The essential from the inconsequential.

Even the hallway seemed to erase her, as if the house chose who it wanted to retain–or dispose.

Everyone knew the drab, cookie-cutter house on the street—they didn’t bother with them.

But there was one room that no one remembered existed.

A room. Where shadows swallowed sound. It forgot people, including Marina—but never the walls.

🌑🕯️🪞🖤🏚️??️‍🗨️

It was just another weekend. One Marina spent, as usual, unnoticed- in life, or in love.

Blending in with the walls of the home – and the room.

Being the must-be-in-order administrative assistant that she was, she decided that it was time for a little decluttering.

She started with the room few remembered – that she seldom did herself.

As she started sorting items –

They shifted.

Appearing.

Disappearing.

The house seemed to be misplacing her – like an old receipt.

Her mobile began to forget her passwords and encrypted fingerprints.

The walls and floorboards whispered names that weren’t hers –

Her family members.

Her friends.

But never hers.

They stretched – and pulled back, as if needling her mind.

Testing her mettle.

Corridors rearranged themselves, bending with uncertainty.

Hers.

🌑🕯️🪞🖤🏚️??️‍🗨️

Wallflower though she was, she wasn’t defeated.

Marina decided to find out more about the property she had inherited from her father when he passed all those years ago.

On one of her forays into the home’s many back rooms, she discovered a small, nearly inconspicuous space.

The dust danced in the beam of her mobile.

A hidden alcove.

Lined with decades of family Polaroids, each of a person who had disappeared.

Then-

A blank Polaroid.

Labelled with her name.

An empty slot waiting for her face.

The room wasn’t teasing or frightening just because it could; it was a room waiting.

A predator, hungry for the forgotten.

A hunger she seemed to know.

Fear wrapped around her, a shroud creeping, waiting to strike.

🌑🕯️🪞🖤🏚️??️‍🗨️

She managed to shake the gripping fear off to make sense of the alcove.

And the blank Polaroid.

With her name.

She touched each of the Polaroids and the dusty shelves.

There had to be a way to lock them in place, to keep them from swallowing her.

Then she thought of the little, cherished memories.

Her dog. Her Mum’s signature fried noodles.

Her dad’s cologne, mixed with perspiration, when he returned from work.

Each memory made the room less hungry.

Weighed its menace down.

Finally, the corridors stopped bending. The stretching stopped.

🌑🕯️🪞🖤🏚️??️‍🗨️

As she recalled her dog Benj, her mother’s noodles, and her father carrying her in his arms when he returned from work, the room stilled.

Every recalled detail punched a hole in her darkness.

With each recollection, the walls settled into place.

The holes became larger.

She grasped the life buoys of her memories-her lifelines.

And she knew–the room victimised.

Not those who remembered themselves or their places in the world.

Rather, they wanted the souls who felt-

Invisible.

Forgotten.

But she had won the battle between her mind-

And the room’s predatory instincts.

The holes widened-

Then vanished.

🌑🕯️🪞🖤🏚️??️‍🗨️

Marina left the room, still weary.

Still on edge.

But she chose to report it to the Town Council for its-

For want of a better word-

Defects.

Several weeks passed. She chose to live fully, tapping into her passion-

Cooking.

Sharing meals with friends.

Discussing recipes.

Watching the Food Network Channel or teaching cooking classes.

Then a stall selling “Char Kway Teow” (flat noodles in soy and oyster sauce).

Receiving rave reviews in the Straits Times.

She chose to be seen again, leaving the house to wallow in its own hunger.

Insatiable need to swallow-

Those who felt forgotten.

Not Marina.

Her life was no longer dimmed at the edges.

She remembered it.

Herself.

🌑🕯️🪞🖤🏚️??️‍🗨️

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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 Shadow Queen

November 17. Bells tolled all over Hatfield, not in triumph, but in foreboding.

Shadows strayed where sunlight could not reach.

Elizabeth stood alone in a tight cloak, feeling the weight of the crown she held– and its power.

And the eyes that watched from everywhere–and saw it all.

🖤👑🕯️

Dawn broke with a November chill over Hatfield. The soft tolling of bells ascended with the morning sun — not in victory, but with an ominous note of caution.

Queen Elizabeth’s gaze fell over the castle ramparts. She wrapped herself tighter in her cloak, not from the chill, but from the eyes — of someone unseen.

The pants of an anxious messenger were only too audible as he ran into the room.

“Your Majesty… Queen Mary. She’s… dead.”

A heavy silence consumed Elizabeth’s room.

A raven — typically tied to a pole in a corner of the castle gardens — flew to her window and perched.

A death call to the House of Windsor.

In her chambers, Elizabeth slipped the crown off her head. She gazed at its perfectly set jewels —

Each gleamed.

With glittery foreboding.

And the whispers from the afternoon court —

“A lone queen will succumb.”

Later, in bed,

the voice of her mother haunted her ears — and mind.

“Power costs blood…”

She shot up in bed. Catherine’s voice was too loud for sleep.

She trailed through the corridors of Windsor’s halls. Each step she took was heavy with memory.

And weight.

Of her mother. Of England.

The tapestries darted from one wall to the other, as if touched by someone —

Not her.

Not a courtier.

Not there.

Windsor was testing her mettle.

She turned to face the shadows and spoke.

“If this —” she held the crown — “is mine, then I’m your master.”

The room stilled. The shadows lined up to face her.

The raven cawed once, in a sharp, approving screech.

The messenger burst into her chambers once more.

He ran before her and knelt.

“Your majesty, the council believed you would decline the throne. They’ve prepared another successor.”

A figure entered — in a dark cloak.

Her successor.

It lifted its cloak.

Elizabeth stared herself in the face.

A perfect double.

Herself to fight.

She stepped forward, unafraid.

Her double bowed — in complete homage.

It didn’t just accept her — it revered.

🖤👑🕯️

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The November Games

She did it her way–snd we should too.

☕🍂

November rain knocked on the window and glass door of the Wits Cybercafe. The interior of the cafe combined with the month’s transitional energy; it smelled of cinnamon, damp clothes, and thick espresso.

Nancy noticed another scent—quiet competition.

The delicate pastries that Wits was known for were aligned in a complex jigsaw no one cared to fix.

Yes, the game was afoot.

Nancy wondered if anyone else had noticed the friendly rivalry in the air.

The cafe’s usual coffee-soaked clientele seemed to be part of an absurd contest—whether it was who could gulp their hot coffee the fastest or fold their napkin the quickest.

Every sip of coffee felt like an unspoken contest.

Nancy tested her theory, folding her napkin the wrong way on purpose.

Of course, her rivals applauded with extra zest.

A love song played as piped-in audio, defying the cafe’s competitive vibe.

A stranger’s eyes met hers.

Ready to incarcerate.

Put her on one of the cafe’s chopping boards.

A gaze that held both judgement and irresistible curiosity.

Had she broken an unwritten rule by mistake?

The games paused—a heartbeat suspended.

She sipped her coffee—

In triumphant gulps.

And finished the last with a satisfying burp.

Horrified gasps from her friendly rivals.

Grinning, Nancy swiped her lips with the back of her hand.

Horrified gasps.

But the same stranger gave her a nod of acknowledgement—she had won this round.

She left the cafe, victorious—but slightly confused.

The rain tapped on the windows, giving her a round of quiet applause.

Her triumph, though invisible—

Perfect.

Nancy-style.

🏆☕

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Under the Floorboards

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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The Heart’s Berlin

The Berlin Wall fell this day, November 9th, 1989.

It took just one night for its pieces to shatter.

The walls that surround hearts can take a lifetime to break.

🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱

50-year-old Thomas Weiss stood before a crumbling wall, wielding a hammer he wasn’t sure he wanted to use. His wife, Hannah, and twin sons had resided in the free zone for years–because she wanted to.

The wall had come down in 1989–ten years to this day. The shattered pieces lay on the ground, waiting to come together.

Thomas wondered if they would–but some walls sealed hearts.

And stood taller.

🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱

Youngsters still came to hack at the bricks that hadn’t yet given way, breaking out in raucous hollers as they did.

Thomas watched them, his memories more dislodged with each blow of the hammer. Each cheer he heard felt like an accusation—like Hannah’s last words to him.

He wasn’t sure he envied the wall for coming down.

Before he slammed the door of the family home–sharper than the barbed wire that accompanied the bricks.

A young man spotted him standing, still in a reverie. He stretched out his hand–a small piece of the wall lay in his palm.

Thomas hesitated. He wasn’t sure if it was just unwanted history coming apart, or a piece of his own heart.

🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱

His wife appeared amidst the dust and fallen wall splinters.

Older.

Strange.

The shadow of the wall that was, stood between them–too real.

Freedom felt foreign–the hardest reunions were the ones one didn’t prepare for.

🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱

He dropped his hammer, the crowd’s joy flooding over him. He and Hannah didn’t embrace–but stood together.

Breathing the air of freedom for the first time–

In decades.

Their unity had begun—in silence.

🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱

As dawn broke, the wall had nearly crumbled completely. The crowd had vanished, save for a few stragglers.

The bricks had come apart in just one night in 1989. His peace with Hannah would take a lifetime of rebuilding.

The Berlin wall had finally fallen. The one in his heart–still solid brick.

And had to shatter–within.

🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱

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She Wears The Red Scarf

Today marks the anniversary of a milestone in women’s political power in America—the election of the first woman to Congress. We mirror that femininity in Singapore by celebrating the Samsui Woman, a female labourer commonly seen at construction sites in the 1950s and 60s. Opportunities for women have increased over the years—and her scarf, and spirit, live on. She wields the scarlet scarf of strength.

🧣🇸🇬🧣🇸🇬🧣🇸🇬🧣🇸🇬

The evening air was dense with the usual Singapore humidity–and tales once woven. Despite the tropical overwhelm, Singaporeans walked to the polls.

Outside on a railing was a scarf–red, fluttering in the November wind. It hung a poignant scarlet against the grey twilight. No one saw the woman who donned it, or her dust-streaked blue blouse.

A heavy blouse no wind could lift.

Mdm Ong was a Samsui Woman who lived in Singapore of the 1950s–a construction worker who laid bricks when women weren’t meant to construct. Along with others like her, she built a city that never knew–or wanted to know–her name.

She had toiled when families prayed, hauling beams twice her weight. She out-dreamt her pay.

She returned every Singapore election–not as a ghost, but as a witness.

An elections officer noticed her form in the glass, in a blue samfoo, head bound in a telltale red scarf. She watched as the women of the time filed past to the polling booths, pens ready to mark their chosen candidate.

She blinked, and the Samsui ghost left, leaving only the faint, but comforting scent of earth.

The elections staff sealed the ballot boxes. The scarf fluttered to the ground. The elections officer picked it up, and wore the proud memory around her neck.

🧣🇸🇬🧣🇸🇬🧣🇸🇬🧣🇸🇬

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Tracing with Chalklines

Tracing the lines between purpose and passion.

✨

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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The Keyhole Mysteries Story 2: The Keyhole Journalist

Some stories are written only by the heart.

🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️🖊️

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.

The key to the room, coated in rust, no longer turned.

But curiosity piqued, he gazed through the keyhole in its door–

A girl run over by a truck.

He himself, taking photographs for an article, among a crowd of curious onlookers.

On another night, a man, grasping his heart, collapsed on the ground.

Again himself. His camera, furiously clicking.

One evening, he glimpsed a figure he knew too well–his younger self, standing over a table of articles.

He met his own eyes, across the line of time.

Beckoning him.

He paused–then knew.

His articles had never left him–only waited for him to write–

Anew.

With more heart.

He threw the door open. The room was empty except for one finished article, freshly written, in a typewriter on an old desk.

“Begin again.”

Jun knew that his writing would come to life with a clear, throbbing heartbeat.

That some articles were finished with spirit.

What faded from the eyes came to life–

With soul.

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The Filament Shines

William Long was put out. The disgruntled electrician lacked a social life–the thirty-something-year-old spent most of his days in a garage, fiddling with light bulbs that flickered at will and lamps that emitted buzzing noises that grated on the ears.

Still, he kept the lights on–literally. Not for profit–

But for love.

Of his eleven-year-old daughter, whose giggles had once turned the atmosphere in the garage from mere electric static into sparkling fireworks.

He was a craftsman consumed by glow.

And memory.

Each flicker spoke of her.

The divorce.

No interaction in years.

So he couldn’t keep the garage silent–the quietness hummed, flooding his mind with tears he couldn’t shed.

At least not openly.

💡⚡🔧🛠️✨💡⚡🔧🛠️✨💡💡⚡🔧🛠️✨💡⚡🔧🛠️✨💡💡⚡🔧🛠️✨💡⚡🔧

One evening, the cats and dogs came down in humongous litters.The buzz of half-reparied bulbs flooded the garage. William scrambled from his desk to answer a frantic knock on the door.

He opened it to a teen girl, soaked to the skin. Her parka and umbrella offered no protection.

Something in her eyes stirred something in William.

In her slender young hands was a battered desk lamp.

Dark. Obviously not functioning.

The girl held it up with a sheepish grin.

“Sir, could you get this working again? I’m sorry that I can’t pay you. All I ask is that it works again.”

William noticed how gently she held the lamp.

He took it from her, albeit unwillingly.

As he tinkered with it, he observed her eyes on him.

Watchful and meticulous, as though offering guidance.

With a knowing gentleness.

The lamp flickered as William continued his work, but the girl was a picture of calm.

Finally, a faint hum.

“I know this lamp isn’t the best, ” It was as though she was reading his mind. ” I onlywant it to shine.”

At that moment, William knew what the lamp was for–not its steadiness or quality, but its presence.

💡⚡🔧🛠️✨💡⚡🔧🛠️✨💡💡⚡🔧🛠️✨💡⚡🔧🛠️✨💡💡⚡🔧🛠️✨💡⚡🔧

Some tweaking from the electrician, and steady light.

Though it wasn’t the brightest.

William hissed under his breath, ready to admit defeat. But the teen stepped closer.

She patted him on the shoulder. A familiar touch.

“It’s glowing. That’s all you needed to do for me. All it needed to do. All I needed.”

She left the garage with the lamp, turning back with a nod and a smile that he knew–

But couldn’t place.

Then, on a shelf behind his workbench, a photograph.

Of the girl.

He still didn’t know her. But felt her.

Tugging at his heart in ways too knowing.

Weeks, later, the teen girl returned.

The same knowing presence.

She showed him how she placed the lamp on her desk so she could study.

She left again, not telling him who she was.

Or about the photograph she had left on the shelf.

He smiled, somehow content—

With acceptance–and a little unconfirmed mystery.

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