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!
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Today, 9 December is International Corruption Day – a day we celebrate the rules and keep in check any bending.
But there are times good intentions bend the rules.
🗝️🕯️📜
9th December. The day her grandma passed. Not a day May would forget – for reasons she’d rather erase from memory.
May was a lawyer – and a law degree was the last thing she wanted on her list of accomplishments. The Toh family – hers – had assigned her the unwanted task of settling her grandma’s estate.
🪞🏚️💨
One she accepted – and regretted.
Grandma Toh.
Bukit Boon’s most upstanding council member had taken bribes.
A newspaper article written with words that shamed.
Bribes. Accusations.
Her grandmother – the woman she held in the highest esteem
May sifted hurriedly through the cluttered basement, flicking the dust off each album with hurried precision.
The dust mites parted to reveal her grandmother’s life – one she never knew.
But each album she uncovered wanted her to know.
The ledger glared at her, the yellowed pages aggressively promoting their secrets.
The pages parted with a silent call.
May’s fingers hovered over them, waiting.
📝💰⚖️
They couldn’t wait for very long.
Inside it were documents filled with names and numbers.
Ones that kept increasing.
Her grandmother’s offshore account had accumulated more money than May had ever thought possible.
A hidden account. Belonging to the Saint of Straight-Lacedness.
May’s eyes hovered over that page of revelation, stunned for a few moments.
The Saint of Straight-Lacedness was also the Devil of Crookery.
📜💌🖐️
May fingered the note – and it stayed in place.
It wouldn’t move.
Frozen by surprise – and understanding.
“Aunty Chong,” it read, “Thanks for paying our rent these past months. We would have been evicted otherwise.”
So the money had gone into a dense, grey corridor.
One where mistakes were as striking as good deeds.
Her grandma’s heart had bent where ethics wouldn’t – and saved.
Whether rightly or wrongly was anyone’s guess.
🏡💛🌗
May left the ledger in the basement – she never showed it to anyone.
The bribes – an offbeat act of integrity.
Out-of-sync, but not hurtful.
Her grandmother was but human.
A mix of dark and light.
Able to compromise.
Doing wrong to protect.
🕯️🗝️💭
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When Mark entered the colonial three-storey he’d inherited from his grandmother on December 7th, the air carried the rustic scent of things not meant to be shared. Etched on the wooden hatch leading up to the attic was a hasty scrawl borne of fury — “Do not open.”
His curiosity knocked out his sense of caution. He lifted the hatch and stepped onto the ladder. The hatch groaned awake, a mouth dropping open, waiting to speak.
Words he wasn’t quite ready for.
It held what every attic did – dust motes dancing over albums and letters left unopened for years. Mark thumbed a diary open. His grandmother’s impatient cursive gave his eyes a sharp poke – a feeling that he’d never known.
The yellowed pages detailed decades of tension between his grandmother and mother – arguments over her “poor” choices, her parental role, and the crossing of social boundaries that made her who she was.
And something else. A letter addressed to his mother. Helen Song.
Its yellowed edge crooking its little finger.
And Mark succumbed.
“Helen –
“I want you to know,” it began, assuring yet breathless, “that I meant the best for you. Never to harm you.”
Mark’s eyes widened. Decades of resentment, intergenerational conflict, and tension made the hairs on his arm bristle – and he was too young to have been part of them. He had unlatched the trap door, expecting dust, mites – perhaps furniture too worn for the ultra-modern living room.
But he found a new road to walk.
At the bottom of a pile of diaries was a photo of his grandmother in the hospital ward where he was born, carrying him over a crib.
On its rails was a placeholder and a card – “Mark Lee.”
Lee was the surname of the Song family’s chauffeur.
He found a photo of his mother laughing with a young man, dressed in nothing but khakis and a singlet.
Mark’s eye fell on his Rolex, its dials suddenly spinning backwards.
The diary in Mark Song’s hand dropped to the floor.
📜
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We may not leave echoes in history the way he did, but we CAN resonate.
📚✏️📚✏️📚✏
Prologue
A normal school morning, sunlight warming an already too-warm classroom – but it had the quiet promise that even small moments are reasons.
For those who ask, “Why do this?”
📚✏️📚✏️📚✏️
“Bye, Miss Kwek…no, bye Mummy.” The little 7-year-old girl offered a little hand swap as she bade goodbye and traversed the corridor.
The classroom’s silence wrapped around me as she left. Nothing but scattered papers and desk chairs.
I sighed. I’d have to spend an hour pushing them in and sweeping–the kids had to rush home for lunch.
Miss Kwek the SuperMum.
Or SuperTeach.
And honestly…I didn’t know if the little girls realised that anymore.
📚✏️📚✏️📚✏️
My first teaching assignment. This music and English teacher offered little ditties.
I taught them occupations with Ernie’s “Who Are The People in the Neighbourhood.”
But…their attention waned, as it often did for seven-year-olds after the first half-hour of breathing.
Unmarked worksheets stared at me from a basket, berating me for neglect.
The empty classroom smelled of faded whiteboard markers. Ernie’s face stared at me from a chart on an easel.
Blank.
Wondering if the constant effort to plan lessons was worth the “Mummy”- or if they’d even remembered him after the song.
📚✏️📚✏️📚✏️
As I put marked exercise books on a bookshelf, my hand met a box with a bump.
I hadn’t noticed it before.
An envelope reared an edge from its corner.
Beckoning.
I drew a breath, my fingers lingering over the edge —
And dropped it again.
📚✏️📚✏️📚✏️
I picked the box, letting the exercise books cascade onto the floor with a thump.
A printed letter, the pristine white paper waiting patiently. Its edges were starting to curl, but a few minutes wouldn’t make a difference.
After those minutes were finally over, I pried the envelope open.
Addressed to me.
“Dear Teacher,
“I like Ernie, and Who Are the People In Your Neighbourhood. But I like the way you sing it. You sound like my Grandma. She had a great voice. She died last year. She used to bring me to school.”
A watermark.
I was about to create a few – but not the factory sort.
“Thanks for the song. I watch Sesame Street every afternoon now. My English has improved. Marilyn.”
So it had.
For all time.
I sat at the desk, a quiet smile starting to stretch across my face.
One that needed Face Yoga.
In case of premature sagging.
There was a reason for Mummy after all.
Despite how dog-tired she was.
📚✏️📚✏️📚✏️
“Mummy” dropped the letter back into the box cautiously –
Its pulse was quickening.
The classroom still had a distinct marker odour – but it teased my nostrils.
It didn’t punch.
📚✏️📚✏️📚✏️
I swept the floor, erased the whiteboard –
And lifted the easel.
Ernie.
And his neighbourhood.
📚✏️📚✏️📚✏️
Mummy had a place in it.
Though her legs were a little tired from walking around.
📚✏️📚✏️📚✏️
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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.
🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿
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Long before rivers were charted and kingdoms recorded on maps, Sumatra’s waters carried more than trade — they carried whispers of ambition, power, and memory. In the mud and currents of a forgotten riverbank, history waits for those who dare to listen.
Some stones do more than survive centuries. Some remember.
History speaks. Listen well.
🪨
The river swelled, covering Aria’s knees. The avid scholar had risked life for art, braving the torrents of the Sumatran river in the midst of the July-August monsoon.
A relic of the Srivijayan empire — the first maritime kingdom of Sumatra — was the goal. With torch in hand, she ploughed through the mud, the river’s plaintive cries rising to a near crescendo.
🪨
Her hands mired in mud, Aria’s fingers felt their way along rocks and their crevices — until they touched a half-buried stone slab.
The Kedukan Bukit inscription covered its surface.
Then, strangeness.
A feeling of being surveilled washed over Aria — almost as if the Sumatran river itself was keeping close tabs on her.
Then —
“Aria. Seek no more.”
A lost voice.
Aria’s fingers wrapped tighter around the base of her torch.
🪨
Her foot hit the base of a sharp stone.
On it, an inscription —
In ancient Javanese.
She shone her torch on the faded outlines of the script, trying to wrestle with a language she only knew through sessions with the lecturers at her university.
But she knew enough to pause.
In shock.
The rock was transcribing on its own.
Scripting her mind.
Mapping her ambitions.
Echoing her doubts.
Mirroring her obsessions.
The rock seemed alive — and knew too well who sought it.
And then she knew — echoes of the past weren’t just echoes — they lived with those who sought them.
🪨
Aria slipped her torch into her knapsack and grabbed the stone.
It refused —
To —
Budge.
She tried again —
It refused —
To —
Budge.
She stepped back —
The stone was history, and it commanded.
Demanded humility.
Solace.
Not ownership.
She left the river, and the slab, standing.
Glancing at her — waiting.
🪨
A week later, Aria returned — no slab.
But a stone.
With a new carving.
Glowing —
Changing.
Speaking.
Her initials, etched faintly.
History still called — because she
respected.
Heard.
Was still hearing.
🪨
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We all have our moments – young or old – when that dark green shadow threatens to overwhelm. And we choose if it wins. 🌙✨🌙✨🌙 Liora could bring everything on her canvas to life—the deer on the lawn, the dogs breaking into a run by the lake, or the oranges in a food bowl. Her brushstrokes made everything too real. But her skill meant nothing. Not to everyone who treated her sister, Selene, as if she were God’s gift to the art world. Liora was nondescript—plain, always underdressed and preferred jeans to the floral dresses Selene always wore. She seemed to grow dim in her sister’s light, no matter the certainty of her talent. Whispers and glances—all about the trendiness of Selene’s latest dress. All eyes were always on the eye-catching colour of her hair or the portraits that put Rembrandt to shame. The list was endless, and she was never on it. 📦🕸️📦🕸️📦 Liora was decluttering the attic one afternoon—one of the many tasks her mother assigned, since she hardly received party invitations. Selene was far too busy organising her party schedule. While heaving boxes up a rickety ladder, Liora’s head bumped the ceiling. And there were too many bumps along its surface to be just plasterboard. Intrigued, she forgot the pain and groped the plasterboard with her fingers. It lifted—too easily. Her usually inactive limbs took her up the ladder and into a room—one she’d never seen before. Dust-caked windows greeted her as she stepped into what was an undiscovered attic, along with a heavily musty odor. Cobwebs, along with their residents, danced at every corner. But she wasn’t alone. Something followed. A shadow. Over time, Liora realised that its quest was selective. It came when Liora came to the attic to cry. When she felt that Selene got more attention. It lurked, waiting for acknowledgement—like her. 🎉🎈🎉🎈🎉 The shadow stepped into the attic, large. Almost tangible. Over the next days, windows banged, furniture flew across the floor—in tandem with Liora’s sadness or jealousy. Liora’s heart—fully alive. Selene’s birthday party was the next day—as usual, a party marked her elevated teen social status. Liora stayed in her room—she and Selene’s iffy clique didn’t move at the same pace. The Shadow decided to attend on Liora’s behalf. It moved with Liora’s emotions, tossing decorations, turning the volume knob of the stereo, and flipping objects. It crept into the party, responding to the green colour of Liora’s T-shirt. And the guests knew. Lights flickered, and the boombox boomed—really boomed—much to the chagrin of the guests. Then, it hit Liora. She had to control it—before it controlled everything else. Her sister’s attention. Her own reputation. “Get out.” Her voice sudden. Loud. 🖤👁️🖤👁️🖤 The shadow froze at Liora’s outburst, taken aback. It shrunk. Liora caught her breath. It only moved – when she faltered. Grew-when she shrank. She centred herself and eyed it firmly. The room reverted—the lights steadied. Objects returned to their places. And it didn’t escape her sister’s notice. She put her hand on Liora’s shoulder. Liora merely nodded, but didn’t look at her. With her eyes on the Shadow, she spoke. “It’s my turn.” It stepped back. And without a word, returned to the attic. Calm. No longer forbidding. Selene stood next to her and nodded. Liora had faced her mirror. And thwarted it. 🌙✨🌙✨🌙 An awkward stillness filled the room—then faded. An exchange of glances confused murmurs among the guests. But all was in place. Liora breathed deeply, coming into her own strength. Her shadow—gone. Only present if Liora refused to be. Selene patted her shoulder and turned to her guests. She walked into the hall, strides purposeful. The shadow waited in the attic. Answering—only if she failed to remember. 🌙✨🌙✨🌙
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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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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.
🌑🕯️🪞🖤🏚️??️🗨️
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.
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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