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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Meiling was the consummate superwoman–she was her father’s sole caregiver. Her mother, bless her soul, had passed peacefully a decade earlier.
Her apartment was silent, save for the incessant buzzing of phone reminders. Mei Ling lived and breathed a schedule–she had every task planned and accounted for.
But there was one thing she couldn’t fix–
That wall clock.
It had ceased along with her mother. The very day she died.
Time had stopped, but she refused to notice. Schedules were a grief mechanism–they were safer than unwanted memories. Rolodexes, none of which were about her.
So the clock waited, patient as time itself. The hands moved–with ticks that should not have been.
🕰️⌛🩸🪞😔⏳💔👩👧👦✨
11:13 p.m. A barely discernible hum replaced her usual calm demeanour. Outside, the intermittent glow of a streetlight.– it made its way into the corridor.
But with bated breath.
The darkness stretched, eight minutes too long.
Then, seconds.
Punctuated by the same hum—
But louder.
Thudding under her skin, on her bones, syncing with the beat of her heart.
Growing more intense, under her skin.
A lullaby she had long since mired with the clock’s odd ticks. She hadn’t heard it since the clock stopped moving.
Familiar. Sung before.
🕰️⌛🩸🪞😔⏳💔👩👧👦✨
Then, the light returned. The hands of every clock in Meiling’s apartment froze–
1:13.
Then, slow ticks.
Time moved–the wrong way.
Backward. Soft. Steady.
Every tick accused.
Her mobile pinged with a new voice mail.
Sent by her.
“You can’t schedule me.”
The past had stolen her voice.
🕰️⌛🩸🪞😔⏳💔👩👧👦✨
The good daughter was desperate–she grabbed a clock and brought it to Mr. Tan, her estate’s clockmaker. He didn’t just sell clock off the shelf–
He gave them life.
After looking hers over, he went to the back room of his workshop–
And returned with a pocket watch.
“Here,” He thrust it into her hands.
She stared at its gold case.
It gleamed, as if speaking–or had feelings.
She looked at him, nonplussed.
“Time remembers,” was his cryptic answer.
Then, her eyes fell on the mirror behind him.
She looked at–
Herself. Years younger.
Happier.
Schedule-less.
Untouched by grief.
She stared at the pocket watch.
An eight-minute countdown.
Her reflection wasn’t haunting. It was waiting for her.
Eight minutes–to face herself.
🕰️⌛🩸🪞😔⏳💔👩👧👦✨
With a deft move of both hands, Meiling smashed the clock– . Blood trickled down her knuckles.
The air in her apartment was still–consumed by silence.
The clocks started moving as they should–to 1:14 a.m.
Her young reflection smiled through tears in the mirror.
“I remember,” she whispered wanly.
Then, she knew.
Some clocks had to come apart before they could tick.
She had been haunting herself–with her schedules.
Her over-efficient ways.
Almost soulless.
Time had started again–and forgiven her.
She helped her father into the wheelchair—the old man smiled, and grasped her hand.
She was glad to hold it–at least, for now.
🕰️⌛🩸🪞😔⏳💔👩👧👦✨
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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 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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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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All Souls’ Day blanketed the pavements and roads in velvet black and the dim light of street lamps; anything but a typical day for a little pet dog.
Snowball stationed herself at her home’s bay window, hoping to unsettle the
patrons at the coffee shop opposite with her insistent, barking overtures.
She didn’t have mischief in mind that day; instead, she stood at the window, each paw trembling, hackles raised.
🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤
The air froze with biting cold; atypical for Singapore, a country with heat and
humidity as its middle name.
A chill numbed the air indoors; the smell of damp leaves pervaded the air. I
concentrated on my book review, for the first time donning an outdated cotton
sweater.
Then—the low, persistent growls.
Snowball had positioned herself in front of my bedroom wall, paws stiff, nails
clicking on the floor.
An almost-human whisper grazed my ear. My breath caught, and my jaw dropped. as it looked around.
🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤
The little West Highland Terrier lunged at the wall. A long silence followed.
Too long.
Then, a faint shimmer—the ambiguous outline of a silhouette.
Lost.
Caught between Heaven and Earth.
Asking—
Just for a name.
My heartbeat synced with its pulse—
One that echoed for a presence.
The little dog had guided—
And found.
🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤
“Snowball. It’s alright. No need.”
Her cue not to bark.
She obeyed and lay down, finally calm.
The room felt—
Lighter.
Warmer, with the whisper now unheard.
But the chill was a permanent guest.
Teasing a little dog wasn’t the name of the lost soul’s game—
It had asked the little terrier for guidance.
To where it belonged.
The whisper left. But at night, Snowball still faced the wall–and heard the clicks.
🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤
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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.
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Marilyn had just moved into the remote, backwater town of Scaresdale– not willingly.
The teen’s life was a jigsaw puzzle she was trying to put together within a new frame– and new town.
She and her family had just finished freeing a row of cartons of their contents–
Finally.
Some time to explore.
Hide and Go Seek occupied the children–
It was time for Marilyn to do some exploring of her own.
Somehow, the attic had become her center of attention.
An irresistible magnet.
She stepped in, and saw–
A door.
After fiddling about with it for 10 minutes, it was time to put up the white flag.
Then, a shadow beneath it caught her eye.
Sounds of movement within the space– it had to be a room– next door.
A wooden door– locked.
A curious beam of light from the shaft below.
Marylin’s hands tugged at the stubborn handle.
It didn’t budge.
She peered through the keyhole.
A flash of red.
🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒
Rapid motion. Too quick. Too final.
An odd shape.
Familiar– yet not.
It recoiled from her vision–
As if knowing it had been seen.
🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒
Marilyn froze, unsure whether to open the door–
Or run for her life.
The shadow broke apart in her mind, filling the empty spaces-
With dread.
That she couldn’t name.
The air pressed harder, swallowing her.
Her breath seemed to strangle– not relieve.
The room shrank, sandwiching her between its walls.
🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒
The shadow enlarged, morphing into different shapes.
Then, distorted, creeping sounds below the door.
It crept up in different spaces–
Dark corners of the room.
On the glass.
On the television screen.
🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒
The walls pulsed with voiceless whispers–
Terrifyingly quiet.
Beyond the keyhole–
Arms overlapping.
A smell of lavender perfume–too familiar.
Two shadows–
Close to her in age.
Too familial.
Clear– in her mind.
🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑
Marilyn bounced a step back from the keyhole, a wrench around her mind.
The familiar, familial shadows.
The lavender perfume she knew too well.
The arms wrapping. Too close.
The scenes replayed in a mental tape recorder–
Gone awry.
🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑
Marylin’s hand hovered above the doorknob–
But didn’t turn it.
Her finger stayed in place.
Numb.
Should she?
The family.
Her eye caught a photograph of them on the wall.
All smiles at her 6th-year birthday party.
The glass was cracked.
🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑
The room felt–
Smaller.
Cramped.
Beyond the keyhole–
The familiar shadows still moved, too close.
The whispering of the walls grew louder.
Her mind swiveled–
To open the door,
Not.
A dark heaviness descended on her shoulders.
Her heart throbbed, an erratic rhythm.
Figures in the photograph she knew–
And loved.
This.
Her fingers wrapped around the door knob–
But couldn’t pull.
Cold sweat dripped down her fingers.
She had seen too much.
Ready–
To snap.
🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑
The teenager couldn’t move.
She stood still, unable to speak.
Beyond the keyhole, the shadows diminished.
Finally.
But not in her mind.
The smell of the familiar perfume lingered in the air–
The scent too cloying.
The imprint remained.
Covered in mental dust.
A stain that wouldn’t vanish no matter how much remover she used.
Never entirely swept away.
The print wrapped itself around her mind–
When it stopped to see.
🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒
Marilyn visited the house years later-
In her litigator’s capacity.
Her father had bequeathed it to her.
He felt he owed it.
A debt he could never repay in full.
The other familiar figure–
Too present.
At get-togethers. Family events.
Always kind.
Offering hugs and love.
Even support when she needed it.
But never comfort.
She had seen too much–
Through that keyhole–
But thankfully–
Didn’t snap.
🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔑🔒🗝️🕳️🔑🔒
Original keyhole mystery by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.
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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.
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.
The Getting Literal Writing Alcove 