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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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.

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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.

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

Roots Remember

This day in history, Henry Ford patented the soybean car. Atypical. Even amusing.

The car wasn’t meant to last – it would wither into the soil, with corn growing where the engine once slept.

Sometimes the smallest, unseen roots yield the sweetest harvest.

🍃🍂🍃🍂🍃🍂🍃🍂🍃🍂

If there was one thing Elias Goh had lots of on his hands, it was time. And the retired horticulturist spent it squatting beside stubborn saplings near his Housing Board apartment. The young trees asked for patience, as trees were wont to do.

Elias worked where few cared to look. Neighbors scoffed at the slow-growing saplings, chiding Elias for wasting time and community funds. His daughter asked, “Dad, why all the worthless effort?” But Elias knew that growth pushed back against being hurried.

And then…

A notice that inflamed the skin, in angry, red ink – a redevelopment notice.

The government had marked the land for demolition. Total destruction –

Including his little green labours of love.

Still, Elias, ever stoic, never raised a word in protest. He never wrestled with negative endings. With meticulous fervor, he labeled his saplings and left them behind, along with a set of cryptic instructions.

“Growth is timeless.”

After Elias stopped tending to the unfortunate saplings, they caught the eye of Ah Lam, the assistant groundskeeper. The plants leaves touched together, almost pleading. He remembered Elias’ words :

“Roots matter.”

He took the sapling and replanted it in the estate’s community garden – before any demolishing could reduce it to nothingness.

The onset of El Nina meant the painful and inevitable – a drought.

Yet, the tiny, relocated sapling came to the fore- the fruit it bore , ravishing and juice-filled.

The harvest had come – out of season.

Children began to gather, in droves, beneath the now-revered sapling.

They never knew its planter. The one who nourished it – nameless.

But the lone sapling’s fruit had given him one.

🍃🍂🍃🍂🍃🍂🍃🍂🍃🍂

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.

Veil of Shadows

1964 marks the year President Lyndon B Johnson initiated a War on Poverty, aimed at increasing employment opportunities, revamping education, and boosting healthcare.

While reviews of the polices had a mixed tone, it did decline by about 8%.

Some vows like these, however, remain unfulfilled.

Reprieve and fairness is sought.

Promises spoken. Justice delivered. Echoes that endure.

⚡👁️🗨️🕊️📜🔥

Murmurs of excitement ran through the conference hall as Mayor

Carl Sim launched into the speech his eager audience was craving. A throng of journalists, waiting to fill their pages, gathered in the corner, asking sensitivity breaching questions. Their pens hovered above notepads waiting to serve as canvases.

Everyone was too preoccupied to notice the faint shimmers at the periphery of the room. His palms were slippery with nerves – the room held its breath. Sentient shadows scaled the walls – artists with hidden secrets none wanted to know.

Carl cleared his throat and began his speech, one filled with glowing promises of sweeping changes that would enhance lives.

No one noticed the very slight tilt of their chairs – even as they were sitting on them. Papers fluttered in the windless air-conditioned hall, drifting like white gowns above the ground.

The room was – living. With a heartbeat that didn’t sync with Carl’s. As he spoke, a chill worked its way up his legs through his spine. A cloying smell of crisp, pressed white linen grabbed the air.

And it wasn’t air-conditioning draft.

The paper gowns gathered and filled – with forms from a world unknown.

They were ageless. Visible. Slowly approaching.

Imposing.

The crowd in the room took tentative steps backward, mouths hung wide open.

Then, the room erupted in gasps and whispers.

Screams ricocheted off the walls. Bodies piled against doors, grabbing handles.

Pressing against each other as they tried to exit.

Carl’s pulse raced faster than a Formula One driver’s car. A mix of awe and dread filled his being.

The vows he had made all along, to the millions he had soothed?

Mere words.

The guardians had made their dreaded – and expected – entrance, drifting with logic not to be challenged.

And vindication for words unmaterialised. For people -unwanted.

Then, chaos unfolded. Not haphazardly – but in structured, elegant patterns. Tables had overturned outside the hall -lifts were malfunctioning.Officials around Carl scrambled to protect him, but he remained stoic.

His face – unreadable.

The guardians drifted to the stage, mouths fixed and straightened. Gasps of disbelief filled the room. The smell of smoke and wonder enveloped the crowd.

Carl saw the gnawing gap between his empty promises and the painful realities the people in his town dealt with.

Increasing crime. Inadequate public schooling.

The guardians’ feet traced the steps of the stage.

One by one.

Then, they vanished. Leaving overturned chairs, flickering lights and chaotic whispers in their wake.

The air had an empty heaviness few could articulate.

Mayor Carl knew that some forces of poverty – tense family dynamics, unchanging mindsets – were beyond his control.

As ambiguous as the guardians’ warning of justice.

He carried the weight with him, along with their lingering shadows.

A light flickered in his eyes. Their echo resonated, undying.

⚡👁️🗨️🕊️📜🔥

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Once a year, mothers gather before dawn to fast, pray, and wait.

Sakat Chauth is a Hindu festival not marked by celebration, but by endurance — a quiet vow made on behalf of a child who cannot yet speak for themselves.

No grand promises are asked of the heavens. Only this:

Let the little ones stay.

🕯️🙏🏼🕯️🙏🏼🕯️🙏🏼

A blanket of quiet covered the city. The region of Alumbra was in winter slumber – a go-to for quiet benediction. The bare branches of the trees above were Anita’s soul – it needed refilling.

Anita took purposeful steps towards the shrine on the morning of 8 Jan. Each one was a little echo – a prayer for her three-month-old daughter.

Cancer had consumed the little girl – with recovery standing ahead at a hopeless distance. Sakat Chauth – the Hindu festival of maternal devotion – held significant weight. It was the child’s only reprieve.

She pressed her palms together, enjoying the warmth that slowly grew against the chill.

Memories of gurgles and the tugs of tiny hands tugged at her heart. Each thought of little Ila was like a little ember that warmed her spirit – a spark that lifted it above the frost. She followed the rhythm of her prayers in her mind, as if choreographing a dance of hope.

A cacophony of activity resounded throughout the temple, its ground awash in a tapestry of vibrant colour.

The sacred grounds seemed unaware of the sacred petitions she was about to offer. Shouts and laughter brushed against her ears like wind caressing bare branches.

A bevy of women gathered for the Sakat Chauth, their hands clasped in benevolent reverence. Everyone was lost in thought – even the frost was indifferent to her vigil.

Her hands joined in prayer, Anita whispered her hopes for her child into the chilly January air. Candlelight danced around her, as if in tune with Illa’s need. As the flames swayed in almost perfect unison, the weight her heart hauled grew lighter – she prostrated in a relief she hadn’t felt since her daughter was born. Quiet tears drenched her cheeks.

She felt a reassuring hand on her shoulder, and turned to its source. The mother next to her nodded. “The mother of a child in need knows.”

The two women prostrated again, in complete tandem. The flames continued their dance of quiet hope, warming them with gentle resolution.

Anita left the temple, her heart syncing with the quiet hum of bustling Alumbra. Vidhya, the other mother, followed, her own heartbeat providing a solid, rhythmic harmony. A breeze tossed their plaits gently, carrying with it hope fused with joyful relief.

For Ila. And Meera.

The frost no longer bit – that light had chiselled, and broken through.

🕯️🙏🏼🕯️🙏🏼🕯️🙏🏼

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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.

Seen At Last

Today marks the International Day of Disabilities – and by extension, the Celebration of Differences.

One sees the differences. And it’s all that matters.

🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿

Oppora was a city of contrasts -neighbourhoods of opportunity coexisted with those of strife.

Opporan society was —

Competitive.

To be extraordinary wasn’t an edge – it marked one as different.

Like seventeen-year-old Michael Long.

The pint-sized, scrawny teen often received discounts.

But these weren’t supermarket vouchers-

They were off-the-cuff remarks about height.

And they made him attuned to others who were discounted.

🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿

He saw the sidelines -and who sat painfully on them.

The smallest-sized child in class.

The transparent man who stuttered.

The restaurant that only let in patrons who fit its refined ‘establishment.”

Amusing – yet crushing.

Because the ones who should have noticed didn’t.

The boy’s sandwiches were snatched.

He shook his head.

He strode up to the cashier who had ignored the stuttering man.

“Is he invisible?”

The cashier attended to the next customer.

With a Rolex sitting proudly on his wrist.

🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿

It was a busy weekend at the town’s festival market- everything from wicker baskets to the glitziest wedding dress was on offer.

A well-dressed couple fingered the lilac linen.

With the salesperson chatting in exuberant tones.

Another pair clad in tee-shirts and jeans did the same- much to the salesgirl’s undisguised annoyance.

“Please look, don’t touch,” she directed, her voice two tones too sharp.

Michael let out a wry laugh – and shook his head.

He turned to approach – then hung back.

His father gripped his shoulder, nodding his head.

That tone would still sting the next jeans-clad couple.

🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿

Michael broke free of his father’s grip and strode up to the cashier.

Lipstick even.

Hair perfectly set.

“I think they’d like to try that. They can pay for it.”

The cashier gave him a swift nod- then turned to receive a cheque from the better-dressed pair.

The casually-dressed couple exchanged glances with the youth – and nodded.

Michael’s father beamed.

He couldn’t get the jeans-clad couple their dress.

But his trying got them notice.

🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿

Michael and his family continued their festival tour

The events played on – raucous, indifferent noise.

But he knew that someone had finally been seen – even if he was the only one who saw them.

🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿

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.