It’s World Coconut Day, so we give credence to a fruit that is the lifeblood of the tropics. The juice within is refreshing– but tempting to a grieving heart.
Grief can consume you.
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Henri was hungry; the call of island coconuts was too strong, even at midnight. He cracked the too-soft shell with a practised swing of his axe.
It cracked open. Too quickly. And–
A tremor of recognition shivered from within.
The white liquid moved–slightly.
A faint whisper—and memory.
His grandfather’s smile. And voice.
“Henri…”
His name whispered, strained, billowing through the palms like smoke through the frigid air. The hair on his scrawny arms stood–yet, it was a sound he longed to hear.
The voice cracked with a soft plea.
“Drink deep. The only way to end the strife.”
He took a first sip, then stopped, as though guilt had sealed his lips.
The coconut water bore odd, trembling ripples– it had the pulse of something–
Living.
Waiting.
He looked at the cup towards his lips, then stopped.
And again.
Each lift brought the cup closer to his lips.
Each time the ripples grew stronger, thickening.
Shimmering.
A hush filled the room– it was pregnant with an unacceptable–yet irresistible–promise.
Henri succumbed to the husk’s call–his young form collapsed against a tree. Its branches were outstretched, waiting to catch him.
The husk trembled violently, beating like a trapped heart.
Henri stiffened. His body began to hollow. His skin–too tight, sinking inward.
Fingers– Bent. Out of place.
Something inside the husk seemed to be answering Death’s call. Henri’s fingers curled around its emptiness, its voice braiding with his into a single, indistinguishable sound.
The husk had found its echo.
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Wine bottle labels. Pieces of white paper, gracing hour-glass-shaped green glass. Marcy’s life.
The avid collector of rare wines was a recluse who was more than slightly off-the-wall–the smell of her eccentric apartment was cloying, filled with the scent of grapes. Shelves were lined with prides of her collections, caked with layers of dust. Marcy wore her refined palate like a proud peacock. She could name the wines she sipped blindfolded–and that was a waste. She memorised the scent of every grape she’d kissed.
Life became less of a rut when a mysterious, unmarked bottle arrived on her doorstep with a simple note–handwritten in looping cursive, curling like chimney smoke. The red liquid within the bottle gleamed like red rubies, as if it knew the secrets within her heart. She took the first sip–alone, yet not quite. It slid over her tongue, sweet, persistent, like a memory tugging at her soul.
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The wine had a familiar flavour—but she couldn’t quite place it.
Then, a faint, airy breath—her own voice.
Chanting a long-forgotten mantra.
“Crave the taste, lose in haste.”
Marcy set her glass on the table, almost spilling the wine over in her start. Was it the flavour of cured grapes? Or grapes and alcohol–
In her mind?
“Crave the taste, lose in haste…”
A photo above the fireplace. Of herself, as a little girl, pig tails uncut.
Firm. Without the feel of a hairbrush.
With a naive, untainted smile.
Crave the taste.
Lose in haste.
The little girl swirled in a whirlpool of mental smog–and vanished.
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Marcy raised a trembling hand, reaching once again for the fated glass. The bottle of wine made suggestions. Beckoned.
Its surface shimmered–a secret untold.
She lifted it to her lips and took in its smoky aroma.
Along with something too familiar. A little grating.
She swooned a little as a picture of herself, a child, surfaced at its brim.
The warmth of happiness, naivete and sunlight, streaming through her window.
Casting a glow on her soft skin, yet unblemished.
The wine swirled beneath her tongue. a drink soothing in its forbidden form.
And then…Marcy, the child.
Crave the taste….lose the haste.
Her innocent form hazy, against the taste of succulence.
Marcy gazed at her childhood self fading–gradually, in each glass section of the window.
She reached.
No more.
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Marcy’s fingers slipped, but her reflexes weren’t slow–yet. She held on to the wine glass.
Tighter.
A lingering, cloying scent filled the room.
The wine bottle stood, watchful.
Mocking.
Daring her to take another sip.
Marcy fingered the glass, her desire for another taste almost insatiable–but paused.
Fear began its grip.
She caught sight of her reflection in the glass window.
Too stretched.
The lights on the ceiling sparked on and off.
Her shadow, once still on the floor, grew longer.
The sweetness of the wine cloyed, thicker, on her tongue.
Her reflection in the window started to haze over.
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Marcy raised her glass to her lips, ready for a final sip.
The bottle seemed to breathe; the wine swirled with a life of its own.
She paused, the longing for the taste of the old wine almost drowning.
She caught sight of her image in the glass window–only its legs.
The lights above her clicked on and off, the rate increasing.
The reflection in the glass window had shrunk–to its feet.
She was being consumed.
She stared at the wine bottle.
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Then, at the image in the mirror.
The feet had vanished.
The label on the wine bottle read: “Red Nook.”
With the letters O more rounded than she had first seen them.
On it, a picture of a charming chateau, its branches curved.
Almost smiling.
The wine glass fell to the floor, shattering into pieces.
Marcy?
Marcy no longer.
Vanished.
She had sipped, sinned–and succumbed.
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Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.
Each August, Taoists and Buddhists mark the Hungry Ghost Festival—a nod to their ancestors, with offerings of food, incense and paper money.
Wandering, hungry souls are included in those offerings–and remembrance for our own.
🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚
Light from burning incense candles danced on the tree-lined, Singaporean streets of Sembing, Singapore, guiding footseteps–
Along with the Unseen.
They burned in human-crafted clusters, their smoke curling in waves, opening an unobstructed, tree-lined path.
Shadows stretched across the pavements, the candles their trustworthy sentinels–guardians of eternal devotion.
🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚
20-year-old Alvin Cheng watched as his Father scattered prayer sheets near the incense bin, his eyes tracing the flickering lights of the candles.
“Boy, offer a joss stick to our ancestors.” It was Alvin’s turn to burn one for his grandfather.
Alvin’s hesitant hands reached for the incense stick and a ream of paper money–the currency of the ones who had left.
He bore the weight of forgotten ancestors –and his young shoulders sank uncomfortably.
🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚
He threw the paper money into the bin, the flames consuming each note with ethereal gusto.
The streets echoed with promises once made.
He appeared, his form gently pressing against the trees. He stopped at the bin, eyes turned to Alvin, quietly pleading without words.
With a spectral hunger that needed acknowledging. He turned his pale face to the packet of chicken rice on the grass, his face etched with longing.
🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚
It was a look that vanquished Alvin’s Gen Z scepticism–and fear.
The spectre was seeking vengeance, or the petrified gazes of those who still lived—it simply wanted to eat.
A place.
A name.
The young sceptic took the joss stick from his father’s outstretched hand.
He lit it and placed it at the side of the pavement.
The spirit drifted over and hovered.
Its spectral form gleamed.
The light from the candles danced with its fresh glow.
Alvin placed the packet of chicken rice in front of joss sticks. The aromatic scent of succulent chicken, herbs and spices wafted in the air, teasing his nostrils.
And the spirit’s.
It gazed at Alvin, the pale, yet unclear features of its face slowly bending-upturning in a faint smile.
🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚
The ghost drifted away from the candle, hovering near the incense bin.
Tapping his father’s shoulder–almost with urgency.
Its features came together, now vivid, striking.
Alvin gazed at them–they were
too familiar.
But beamed with generational kindness.
In that instant, he knew the offering of chicken rice wasn’t mere kindness–it was piety.
The elderly spirit faded–but not out of the young man’s mind.
“Stay full, Ah Kong (grandpa).”
For the deceased–unknown and familiar.
🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚🕯️🍚
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Please find a book of my horror microfiction, Echoes in the Dark, free for download here.
No flower was supposed to bloom in the barren soil.
Yet, a single Black Rose blossomed every winter, its petals pressing too closely against the window of widower Bob Vance.
Eleanor Rise was a seamstress with a relationship with the dead was—
Beyond the pale.
Eleanor had a seeing eye–her left. It discerned shadows that wore gowns–not with exquisite sheer–and far from elegant.
They fit.
Like coffins.
The skilled embroiderer knew not only her craft–she understood the lost souls of those who had crossed the inevitable bridge.
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Late that evening, the rose’s shadow lengthened, almost stalking, across the workshop. Candlelight flickered, forming its long shape.
A man entered Eleanor’s workshop, face covered in tears.
Bob Vance. The recent widower.
“I have something to ask, Eleanor, and I must know.” Distress was in his quivering voice.
With his distress came shadows–darkness that only Eleanor could discern.
Then, whispers.
With a frosty chill.
“You’ve tried to bring back the past, haven’t you?” Her eyes passed over him, wary.
He touched his quivering fingertips, not meeting her gaze.
Abruptly, he rose. “Thank you for your time.” An almost indiscernible mumble, and he stalked out of the room.
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Bob returned to his mansion, its detailed, arched windows shuttered and shadowed.
Casting furtive glances around his garden, he planted a small thorn–one from the black rose in Eleanor’s store–and began to tend it.
It grew.
Petals, black.
Beautiful.
Thorns–unweidly. Sharp.
And whispers began.
Short. Just barely discernible.
The mirrors in Bob’s home didn’t just reflect–they came to life.
At least, the reflections within them did.
Chairs in the dining room were–
Misplaced.
As the roses’ petals drifted onto the wooden floor, there was a faint whisper.
Almost a taunt.
“You called?”
Bob’s mother, who had come to assist with his laundry, laid eyes on the dark flower.
A shrill cry.
The plate she carried clattered on the wooden floor.
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Night turned to dawn in Bob’s mansion.
The whispers grew louder.
The silverware Bob laid on the table changed positions on the dining table when he laid eyes on them.
Bob had an inkling of the reasons for the events.
He tried to uproot the single black flower in his garden.
But the plant remained rooted.
Defiant.
Its petals dropped.
Protesting.
Scattering themselves across the floor–each time he cleared them.
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At his mother’s insistence, Bob resigned himself to leaving the rose alone.
But he still heard whispers in the hallway.
He turned to look, expecting quiet.
After all, he’d left it alone.
But in the mirror, a face.
A stretched smile.
His.
And hers.
One.
The rose lingered in his garden, petals fiercely rooted in the soil.
Elegant.
Black.
Faint whispers.
“Still here.”
Across town, another black rose pressed against a window’s glass.
Eleanor Rise passed it with a grim nod.
Unheard, they grow.
🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights on! 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.
Today is International Left-Handed Day–a day for those who are left-handed to raise it proudly.
In a world where the right-handed steer the course.
The left hand rises when the right hand stays still.
🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️
Adam Chong sat in the back of the auditorium of Greenridge High, glad that his pale green leather jacket merged with its grass-green walls. He was glad for the distance between himself and the speaker in front; had enough of subtle bias.
His jacket.
The pale green tweed coats of the rest.
Open bias.
Taunts.
Pushes from bullies, caustic words spilling out of their mouths in a merciless fountain.
He was seen–way too much.
His left hand generated a spotlight that was way too glaring.
It mutated him. Differentiated him in a world where only the rights held sway.
Just once, he wanted to return a punch, in more ways than one.
His left hand trembled, its fingers moving with lives of their own.
Not from fear, but his defiance.
In the world of the Rights, the Lefts rebelled.
Secretly.
🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️
An abrupt block of his view.
A popular crowd of Righties sat in the seats in front of him.
Their stalwartian faces set, uniforms neatly pressed.
Priceless Go wristwatches decorating their wrists–ornaments of intimidation.
They blocked his lecturer. He needed the guru’s notes for the next day’s exam.
The group slouched in their seats casually, each a tall shadow in the darkened room.
Each surrounded his seat.
His pen twirled between his fingertips of his left hand in unspoken defiance.
Then, whispers of “leftie…leftie…”
🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️
Adam looked at his nondescript Casio, still blinking in his left hand.
He could either take it off–or suffer a beating and residual TikTok shame.
Shame he had suffered for the three years he had studied in Greedridge High.
Looks of avoidance and pity from other students in the school hall.
The first whack.
The instant, live broadcast on TikTok.
His left hand wasn’t a flaw–it was a left hook of glinting steel, waiting to strike.
One that was no longer silent. No longer afraid.
🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️
Adam stood, his small form a gripping shadow lining the pale green wall.
His Casio stayed firmly on his left hand.
The world was right-handed. He couldn’t change that.
But it could never see his left coming.
He raised it. Proud.
🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️🖐️
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights on! 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.
This story contains images that may disturb some, but is meant to teach, not glorify harm.
A little piece de resistance for Steak and Zuchcchini day.
Beware when the pursuit of greatness cuts too deep.
🍴🔪🥄🍽️🥢🔪🍴🍴🔪🥄🍽️🥢🔪🍴🍴🔪🥄🍽️🥢🔪🍴
I remember Mama Tree. She was once my whole life.
I was hers.
Entwined.
En-branched.
We worshipped nature’s balance. The balance in life.
And I remember that logger. The one who took Mama’s life.
Butchered her trunk.
My trunk.
And we became…
Butcher blocks.
Festering in the corner of Marrow and Vine.
You’d find it in a cosy corner of a gentrified district…one for the epicurians.
But few knew that we were its prisoners.
Forever trapped as witnesses to the violence of blades.
The ears that heard the cries of cut meat.
And the wallowing of marrow.
The taunts of Chef Calder Lim as he prepared his piece de resistance–reversed-aged sirloin on zucchini slices–
Rare.
🍴🔪🥄🍽️🥢🔪🍴🍴🔪🥄🍽️🥢🔪🍴🍴🔪🥄🍽️🥢🔪🍴
“Everyone!” Calder’s grating voice boomed through the kitchen.
His Sous Chef, Justine Chew, shot him a look dirtier than a diaper.
Ignoring the almost-malevolent stare, Calder held up a cut of meat.
Red.
Angry.
Eerie.
Almost diabolical.
A cut of lab-grown steak, which I just knew wasn’t animal.
Just…not.
The enormous walk-in fridge became a coffin.
A zucchini morgue.
And it didn’t ring with the vegan in Justine. She slammed the fridge door, squirming.
She drew her cutting board. Calder’s signature dish..at the expense of her soul.
She raised her cleaver over a slab of wagyu.
And stopped.
She was supposed to be alone in the kitchen.
But…
Whispers.
“Why chop?” The cry was faint.
Pleading.
She chalked it up to exhaustion…she had pulled an all-nighter to prepare for the next day’s culinary exam.
She hit the books after dinner. It was another long night.
One marked by an eerie green shade.
Her head rested on the table.
Green roots tugging.
And tugging.
They entrenched her in their centre.
🍴🔪🥄🍽️🥢🔪🍴🍴🔪🥄🍽️🥢🔪🍴🍴🔪🥄🍽️🥢🔪🍴
And Justine wasn’t the only one—
Rooted.
Calder, Head Chef, had begun losing his head–and his hands.
Steak ala Palm (his) became part of the day’s menu after his knife sliced into his hand mid-service.
He had placed it on the griddle, together with the other sizzling steaks.
And I, the block, found my strength growing.
And growing.
With the blood from Calder’s steaks.
The zucchinis became my watchmen.
They twisted.
Absorbed Calder’s trauma.
Losing their softness.
Justine knew she had to act—before anyone lost themselves.
She found herself at Marrow Vine’s tiny library, tucked in musty attic.
There, a tome. Covered in layers of dust.
Her mouth fell open.
Marrow Vine.
Built on sacred land.
The last Head Chef.
Vanished.
The last entry—
“The Zucchini watches you.”
🍴🔪🥄🍽️🥢🔪🍴🍴🔪🥄🍽️🥢🔪🍴🍴🔪🥄🍽️🥢🔪🍴
The day came. Calder’s big reveal. His human-sirloin steak zucchini combo.
A hit with the guests.
Until one bit into a zucchini.
That screamed.
The doors of the restaurant slammed shut.
Themselves.
I luminesced. A telepathic connection–
With Calder.
He began to stew.
Literally.
Besides the steaks.
Justine stood by, back against the wall, trembling.
I didn’t have to tell her.
She either joined us…or became a joint.
🍴🔪🥄🍽️🥢🔪🍴🍴🔪🥄🍽️🥢🔪🍴🍴🔪🥄🍽️🥢🔪🍴
Justine didn’t take.
With one fell blow from a cleaver, she smashed me in two.
She grabbed LPG from under a stove.
Poured the fluid over the floor.
Struck a match.
And ran.
I wasn’t all chopped up.
I was repurposed again.
A chic kitchen island in Justine’s new cooking show.
That whispered—
“It’s not about the finest steak and zucchini–it’s in restraint.”
🍴🔪🥄🍽️🥢🔪🍴🍴🔪🥄🍽️🥢🔪🍴🍴🔪🥄🍽️🥢🔪🍴
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights on! 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.
We celebrate women who make their own way today, with a little one or two in tow—it’s Single Working Women’s Day today.
Being a working man or woman is never easy…being a single parent can exacerbate the pressure.
So we honour the women (and men) who make it through life with grit–and cute, small packages.
👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻👻
Janine Low’s walk-up apartment was quiet—the quiet of the unknown. The park and street in front of it were lifeless sketches on a canvas: they waited for human additions.
But it at least prevented the procrastination monster from growling—the silent surroundings brought the overworked HR executive a few hours on the online clock while her six-year-old son, Nicholas, recharged his used-up rambunctiousness with sleep.
Single motherhood in metropolitan Singapore was no walk in the park. The loud groans of the HR inbox competed with Nicholas’ endless skateboarding streaks. She typed while the flat whispered.
And relationships were a gladiator cage for the single mother. Her ex’s constant texts “to talk” about their son were constant battles of the Lows.
Work was worse. Fellow HR executive Maddy couldn’t resist the limelight—the credit-stealing aficionado often told the management about work that had been done before she could.
Then, there was the apartment just above. Vacant. A supposed den of zen – yet something kept her up like Nicholas’ metronome on edge.
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Ever the responsible adult single mother, Janine tried to “logic” everything to Nicholas. Chat GPT became her unofficial guru– everything from why flats made noises at night to what happens when children talk to invisible friends.
Busy as she was, she tried to sound out the neighbour upstairs– no one ever did.
At her wit’s end, she approached the building manager.
Another vague reply.
“Oh, her ah.. that apartment…empty since COVID struck. She left…..chiong ah (hurried).
Nicholas didn’t make things much better.
Janine arched over his young shoulder over breakfast one morning. He was occupied by what most 6-year-olds were–stick drawings.
Except that his was–
Of a lady.
Too real.
Janine recognised her at once– she’d never described her to Nicholas.
The lady from the vacant apartment.
The boy merely smiled and looked up.
“She doesn’t like it when you peep.”
Again, childhood fantasy was her comfort rationale.
Until she began to hear noises at night.
Humming.
Ethereal singing.
Footsteps shuffling.
Things started to move.
She left her bedroom slippers turned to the bed- they pointed to the bedroom door in the morning.
It had been locked to prevent Nicholas from skateboard spiralling.
He sketched again the next morning– this time with a caption below the drawing.
“She’s watching.”
Work was a stress bomb that tore her hair out further. Maddy continued her climb up the corporate ladder– kicking the rungs beneath. Her credibility slipped–sleep eluded.
A trusted colleague, Lisa, pulled her aside in the bathroom.
“Hey, is everything all right? You’re looking pale. It’s not just stress is it?”
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Things that would go wrong did.
Printers jammed.
Another proposal vanished.
She thought of the humming she’d heard.
It sounded faintly like–
A lullaby.
From her childhood.
Nicholas brought her another drawing that night.
Her jaw dropped.
One of–
Herself.
With the lady upstairs holding her shoulder.
But the single mother didn’t let that faze her. Something was bleeding through.
And she needed to stem it.
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Janine was exhausted–not by stress, but by the unknown pressing down on her and Nicholas.
She couldn’t just ignore what was happening.
She needed someone’s ears–Lisa’s, the building manager’s–even her ex-mother-in-law’s–but wasn’t sure which would hear–
Without setting off alarm bells that wouldn’t stop ringing.
She plucked up whatever courage she still had and crept upstairs.
Through the dank and darkened corridors of an untouched floor.
The door to the empty apartment was as expected–dust-covered, with paint chipped in too many places. An old shrine stood near it–the tenant hadn’t cleared the altar before she passed–
In the home.
With trembling fingers, she tapped it gently.
No one answered.
She was about to turn away when a whisper pierced the still air.
“Janine…”
A soft click.
Something moved.
A note. Slipped under the doormat.
“Beware….of IT?”
Before she couldn’t figure out what IT meant, the note dissolved–
Into nothing.
She kept typing the word “it” in the document she was working on at work the next day–she couldn’t help herself.
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Then, strange happenings.
In her favour.
Every time Maddy tried to claim her credit, the CC chain would vanish.
Each time she vented about cancelled leave, the system would auto-approve hers.
It seemed like a trade-off with the unknown–one that made her cringe.
But something sparked.
IT was PRIDE. A compelling force.
That stopped the need–
to ask.
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She returned to the apartment that night–
The door was ajar.]
The home felt warm. Strangely welcoming.
On an old table was a sketch of Nicholas–smiling.
Next to him was herself. Calm. A proud mother.
Back at work, she found that Maddy had done the unthinkable–tendered her resignation.
She deleted the word “it” from her working document.
And it retyped.
“I heard, ah.”
The sign off.
“Your neighbour, Ho Kwee (friendly ghost). “
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If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights on! 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.
This story is a response to the alerts following the Tsunami that struck Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula yesterday.
A response to the need to tackle climate change.
Listen–when it calls.
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The 2035 oceans were a crystal blue–watchful, ready to lap over unsuspecting coastal dwellers at a moment’s notice.
The waves had stopped their sentient whispers–ones they had sent out decades ago, when they had fallen on closed ears.. Now, they sent frenzied alerts.
About them drawing far back–gathering breath. Low tide came with blinking mobile screens, their owners’ soft skins still caressed by the sun.
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Maia couldn’t hear the tide–she mapped waves and tide lines by touch and the skills of a well-honed nose.
The cartographer made up for what she couldn’t hear with a trait only she had–she knew the ocean.
She smelled sea salt long before waves appeared.
Its texts haunting vibrations on glass.
Their instructions.
Their warnings.
Which none heeded when she gave them.
Pish.
Tosh.
Their inane static was her countdown.
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She got up on July 30th to the ping of another cryptic text.
Grainy and wavy.
“7 breaths left.”
The subtle threat pushed her to carve it it driftwood. Power was fading; cell towers were losing their stability.
The words weren’t prophecy–just the result of poor carbon footprints on the beach.
Higher ground.
She ran to it–not to escape, but to heed.
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A wait of ten hours. Then, a seismic shift beneath 30 feet of water.
The sea bellowed. Then pulled back.
Hermit crabs crawling for their lives on a too-vast shore.
Then–they stuck.
Overwhelming the people Maia’s village, all in mid-prayer.
All swept away–clutching salt-screened phones.
The message: “Zero breaths. Tag. You’re it.”
There was a final ping that filtered through the clouds:
“You did not listen.”
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Ten years later, in a classroom built on high ground, children examined a piece of driftwood during a science lesson.
It was hot–three degrees hotter than a decade earlier.
The teacher held up the driftwood.
“Does anyone remember Maia?”
A raised hand.
Tentative.
“Wasn’t she the cartographer who tried to tell our village about the Tsunami of 2004? It swallowed the village. No one listened.”
Then, a few whispers in the class.
” She smelled the wave before it crashed.”
Outside, a figure, unseen.
A fingertip pressed against a glass window.
The teacher’s screen pings–faintly.
“You heard–remember.”
Maps work–read them.
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If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights on! 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.
It was a typical July afternoon in Singapore–the sort that smelt like Kopi O and a crowded train platform.
50-year-old Deanna Ling stood in place in front of the turnstile in the MRT station.
Her fingers still held warmth from her breakfast coffee, but the world around her was–
Frigid.
A moving wave of blank stares that was too cold.
She was a statue in a city that ran on milliseconds–everything moved faster than her breathing.
Her ticket wouldn’t scan–it had anchored her to the platform.
It had worked before. Before the call.
Perhaps she had tapped it a second–
Too slowly.
The turnstile gate beeped.
Again.
And again.
And again.
The line of people behind her lengthened-weaving, a line of blurred faces that refused to stop.
The light on the turnstile blinked. And the world blinked faster than the throbbing in her head.
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The scenes outside the train’s windows swapped from tree to building–the Flash was running circles around them.
The whirl was a series of too-quick pants blowing in Deanna’s ears.
The train was breathing too quickly–moving too fast for her to align with its steps.
She sat in her seat, unable to move a muscle. It had left her seat– and her–behind.
The crowd in the train gathered around her, a whirlpool moving in nanoseconds.
Someone dropped a bao. No passenger noted. It disappeared faster than it hit the ground.
The train stopped.
Inertia lingered–for just a second.
A quick sigh of air, then…
A human tsunami made its way through the door.
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Then–mental negatives.
Herself, in the hospital room.
The doctor’s words were a verbal blur–like the scenery outside her train.
Her mother, on a bed. Her pacemaker had stopped.
Never restarted.
They moved to the operating theatre–too fast for tears to form.
She walked out carrying her mother’s coat. Not her mother.
Her ribs gave in. She melted onto the floor.
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The next human wave rushed in, along with a decibel crash.
Over her.
Someone jostled her up.
“Are you alright?” A quick whisper.
She nodded. The train had to move.
She rose, in pieces.
But able to stand.
Her legs couldn’t work. The crowd did it for her.
And it kept going.
So did she–faster than her tears.
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If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights on! 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.
Today is Wine and Cheese day– the perfect day to celebrate our guilty pleasures.
So it is that we tell a story in its honor.
Where there is wine and cheese, a critic won’t be far behind- and he will learn– when it comes to serving judgment, time will come to taste.
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Le Caveau de Minuit was a picture of ordinariness– a restaurant situated in the misty hills of a forgotten European Village bearing a name that Lisette couldn’t pronounce. The village with no name was spartan– few houses, few people, and even fewer chances to do what Lisette loved most of all– taste testing at restaurants.
Ordinary.
Maddening.
She arrived in front of the ruined door of the restaurant, ready to wield her critique’s knife and fork. She had seen and heard about such restaurants many times before– unseen guests making themselves at home at tables, floorboards that creaked under the weight of the invisible, and curtains that shut in synchrony, an eerie orchestra performing for no audience.
“There’s no fear that a good brie can’t cure.” she consoled herself, taking a tentative step through the door.
But it was small consolation. Fit to eat?
She wasn’t sure.he arrived in front of the ruined door of the restaurant, ready to wield her critique’s knife and fork. She had seen and heard about such restaurants many times before– unseen guests making themselves at home at tables, floorboards that creaked under the weight of the invisible, and curtains that shut in synchrony, an eerie orchestra performing for no audience.
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She strode with confident cynicism into the sparse dining room. At the long dining table, its edges hewn and uneven, sat a motley crowd of three.
Three oddities.
Each looked-
Grave.
Yet the restaurant was no stranger to wine pairing. Pairing had been done– each of these guests sat with tailored wine and cheese.
Tailored to their quirks.
In front of Mavis was cheese–
Broken. Her wine looked–
Sour. Rancid.
The wine next to Barry was covered with film.
Unwanted froth. The cheese was like the words he spoke–
Tough.
Not chewable.
Samantha sat with wine that was–
Sweet.
Too saccharine.
And the cheese with her was–
Faux.
A sample put in a display case.
Lisette wasn’t left out. Her wine was a smoky red. Her cheese?
Veined blue.
That bled.
Ever so slightly.
The sommelier provided service– with a cryptic difference.
He spoke in riddles that an unamused Lisette dared not decipher.
The establishment had an owner– one whose presence was felt rather than seen.
Oddly felt.
Only whispering through walls.
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The food came before them, each dish stranger than the last.
A dish of escargot whispered.
“Eat me,” one invited.
Grilled fish moved, writhing in pain.
“I’m burned,” it cried as it announced.
Then the guests themselves began to change.
Mavis began to shatter.
Broken.
Discouraged.
Like her cheese.
Bob’s skin hardened.
Too hard.
Wrinkled.
Flaky.
Like the cheese before him.
A white substance began to cover Samantha– she began to smell
like an overstretched bakery.
Wonderful was covered by icing sugar, way too sweet.
Lisette herself started to develop visions– visions of herself crushing a weakened soul with reviews far from rave.
White film caked her tongue.
It was dried.
Without the softening touch of water.
Her voice developed a second layer.
Too coarse.
Like sandpaper that grated when carelessly used.
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Lisette recoiled as the cheese in front of her bled.
Her wine hadn’t aged.
It recalled.
The bitter beverage stung the eyes before it hit the tongue.
The cheese?
It was sour, cultured from the chefs whose careers were no more.
Ruined.
By her.
The walls with their endless whispers.
“You’ve crushed.”
“You’ve soured.”
It was the host.
Her angst-ridden soul.
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Lisette bolted for the door.
Which swung shut.
Locked.
She caught sight of herself in the mirror.
With a sommelier’s apron.
Ill-fitting.
She had to serve.
A new critic.
His arrival?
Looped.
His tongue?
Cutting.
Gaps in the heart that would not close.
Like Lisette’s.
She learned a lesson that all critics someday face–when serving judgment, remember time will come to taste.
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If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights on! 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 