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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Some curiosities are carved in stone—and they never forget.
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The boys scrambled across the rocks of the cavern, wet from the rising tide. The smell of hewn stone pervaded the air—dust waiting to be returned to life.
The walls had taken on a luminous sheen—more vibrant than they should have been after thousands of years. Carvings of livestock—bison, horses, stags—had been etched mid-stride, as if the animals were unaware of being stalked. The sound of echoing hooves.
No one was moving.
A nervous chuckle seemed to come from Marvin, one of the inquisitive teens. “Look—it’s like they’re watching us.”
The others exchanged hesitant glances, then turned their heads to him. They were silent.
For too long.
“Marvin,” Nicholas had furrows on his brow.
And those furrows weren’t typical.
The laughter echoed around the cavern.
“Did you just laugh?”
“It wasn’t me,” He swore. But his face had contorted into a too-wide grin.
One he tried to control—vainly.
Then, the walls stirred.
Shadows rippled around the bison’s hooves. They pounded in echo—but nothing moved.
The carvings shimmered in the light of the boys’ lanterns—as if the creatures had noticed.
The hooves echoed—faster.
The boys tried to stand, gripping the stones around them a little too hard.
“Hello?” Nicholas’s question bore a panicked ring.
“Hello!” An echo—not Nicholas’ voice.
Then—fur. On the hooves of the etched bison.
The bison’s muscles.
Twitching.
The paintings on the wall turned.
Antlers poised.
At the boys.
Who wanted to know—too much.
The boys quickly backed out of the cavern. As they did, the bison returned to their etched poses.
Heard.
The tide receded—but the hooves still pounded, for those who dared to listen.
🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎 🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎 🐎🐎🐎🐎🐎
Have you known curiosity to stir the bison, figuratively? Do share in the comments.
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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.
🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷
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.
🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷
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.
🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷
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.
🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷🧀🍷
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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You are who you are–no matter what you wear. Michelle Liew
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Lennox Tan was–queer. To preserve the status quo, he wore his truth beneath layers of tailored silence–because he hadn’t fully come out of the closet.
But silence wasn’t enough to stem the tide of taunts. Lennox wasn’t one to back down from challenges–especially those delivered as veiled prejudice.
The department was overdue for a break–so it decided on a staycation at Singapore’s Swissotel Resort.
With a luxurious suite no one wanted to sleep in–alone.
He approached his manager.
“Paul,” he swallowed, hard, then let determination give him a push. “I’ll sleep in the Mirror Room…if no one else wants to.”
“You sure?” Paul glossed him over with a smirk. “Wouldn’t you have a ‘happier’ holiday if someone shared it?”
That made his decision.
He returned Paul’s smirk with one of his own. “Absolute joy on my own, Paul, absolute joy.”
🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞
Lennox stepped into the Mirror Room- alone.
The hotel room was the epitome of luxury–a state-of-the-art television set, a full mini bar with every cocktail known to man and a plush, way-too-comfy king-sized bed. All set against a Victorian Gothic backdrop, complete with ornate pillars and a balcony that would have made Romeo elated.
Opulent, too opulent. Odd. Lennox could hear whispers of unease in the air.
Perhaps it was all that luxury. Or the way the mirrors seemed to follow him around.
Surrounding him, closing in.
Or the whispers. Ones that played like a distorted podcast on repeat. Phrases that he had heard before. His father’s voice, in dissonant Mandarin, telling him to leave the home. Classmates who congratulated him on his ‘happiness.’ Girls who passed him by and told him, “ni hen mei (you’re beautiful).”.
He caught sight of his reflection in one of the mirrors.
He turned–and jumped.
The mirror showed who he was, and who he had buried.
He was in a glamorous sequin jacket dancing with someone he’d met at a Pride Parade.
Then, splinters. A cobweb of fractures.
His reflection vanished.
🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞
Lennox paced around the room, eyes open with panic. Why was his reflection in all those mirrors? Why was he wearing that jacket?
The reflections stepped out of the mirrors, encircling him. Furious. Their fingers, bleeding.
They pointed to the closet. “You’ve hidden in there for years, Always shaving what you couldn’t accept. Denying.”
He did the only thing that made sense.
He begged.
He caught sight of his mom and dad in one of the mirrors.
“I couldn’t tell them. I had to survive.”
The screaming? Ignored. They closed in, building a tight wall.
Pride wasn’t his sanctuary. It was his prison.
🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞
He woke up in the hallway, cowering from the weight of his nightmare. He leaned against the wall, hauling himself up.
The room door was open.
He stepped in gingerly. The same mirrors lay around the room.
Still threatening. Accusing.
A chambermaid passed by. He ran out and grabbed her by the shoulder.
“You must have passed me several times. Did I go in?”
She shrugged, eyeing him up and down. “No. I left you alone. Figured that you’d had a night of it. None of my business.” She walked off, whistling.
Lennox swallowed, hard. He stepped in, again.
To see smiling versions of himself in the mirror.
His mom and dad’s reflections appeared. He gazed at them, worry filling his eyes.
They didn’t speak. But looked him over, their gazes filled with curiosity. His mother reached for him in a virtual embrace. His father seemed to reach for his shoulder, hesitant.
Some mirrors didn’t show the truth–Lennox knew that it was up to him to decide what his reflection was.
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Back home, he threw open his closet. he took out his neatly pressed suits, folded them, and put them aside.
In a few plastic bags, all unopened, were tight tees he had bought some time ago.
He threw away the wrapping they came with.
Then, a few dresses. Also bought some time earlier. He couldn’t wear them –yet.
But he did hang them in the closet. They were—beautiful. They complemented him.
Then–the wigs. All in packages. He tore one open, and put it on.
It felt–comfortable.
Then, he caught sight of a family photograph. One of himself, having graduated with a business degree.
His aunts and uncles, surrounding his parents, with warm smiles of congratulations.
He couldn’t wear it–yet.
But he would, in time. When they would learn to surround him with smiles.
🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞
Lennox heard the sound of a car pulling up in the driveway. Then, the car door opening.
His parents, returning from a day of shopping.
He gulped, and sat on the bed.
His eyes fell on the tight tees in the closet.
🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞
With a flourish, he grabbed one and put it on. Along with his favourite pair of skin- tight jeans.
Slowly, he raised his head. And looked at himself.
He saw himself–but only half-smiling.
But he was ready…for something else.
He ran downstairs and greeted his parents. His nonplussed father looked at him, eyes wide.
“Mum. Dad. There’s something I need to tell you.”
He guided them gently into the kitchen and closed the door.
The sounds of shouts, and sobs.
They stopped…after a long while.
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Lennox stayed in the Mirror Room at the company’s convention the following year, his suitcase filled with suits.
And a few cocktail dresses.
“Lennox, are you ready? It’s almost time for the presentation.”
He looked at the reflections in the mirrors.
All smiling.
He reached for the wig. Then, a pair of heels resting quietly in the corner of this suitcase.
He looked at himself with pride. His outfit was complete.
The smiles turned up even further.
Were the reflections in the mirrors approving? He didn’t know. He didn’t look at them again.
He was Lennox–no matter how he looked, whatever he wore.
He stood in front of the mirror but looked past it.
The smiles were unimportant–the reflections, negligible.
He was proud. Complete. And human.
He called out to his colleague.
🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞🌫️🪞
f 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.
Chloe flung the door to room 721 open, eager to rest her blister-ridden legs on an available bed. It was usually not easy to get anything past her–sharp as a tack, she’d actually noticed that 721 wasn’t on the booking list. But she was simply too jet-lagged to care. The bellhop’s lacklustre posture said it all–it probably wasn’t a great room, but sufficient for a night’s needed shuteye.
“No record of your booking, ma’am, but there’s a key waiting.” He paused, and eyed her keenly. “That room isn’t usually booked–but always seems to have a guest.”
The lights of 721 were starved of electricity–the yellow light wasn’t possible to read by. A musty, old carpet reeked of cigarette smoke–Chole covered her nose with her hand. A photo of a woman caught her eye–she had grief etched in her gaze. She stared out the hotel room’s window, her thoughts flooding her dark cavern with misplaced echoes.
Exhaustion won. The intrepid journalist was far too tired to bother about the room’s habitation standards. Her head touched the pillow…and something changed.
When she woke, she wasn’t in bed. But in the photo.
Her hand, unmistakable, holding the camera. The flash must have gone off.
The camera sat on her chest when she woke, humming softly.
And a note. Fluttering loosely. “You’re next.” Was scribbled in backward ink.
She couldn’t remember penning the smudged detail…but it was hers.
Chloe grabbed the room key and stuffed her overnight clothes into her bag, hands groping everywhere. Her feet rushed her to the receptionist’s desk.
“Hi Miss, do you want a room?” The receptionist on duty was the same as the night before.
Eyes wide open, she placed the room key on the desk. The receptionist flipped it over to check the tag. “Miss, did you take the wrong key? There’s never been a Room 721.”
Chloe grabbed her bag and turned to leave—and her eyes caught sight of a Bulletin Board with photos: “Missing guests of Room 721–for archival. Do not reassign.”
Among them was one–of her. Taken years earlier, at the beach, just before the Tsunami hit.
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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.
Lina’s fingers wound around the photograph, clutching it. Hard. She couldn’t get past the resemblance. The man in the photo. Future Eric.
But how?
The air in the apartment had never been warm, but it was now ice in her lungs.The cold clenched her troat. Her eyes widened, pupils dilating, as Eric stared at the picture without a word. His tiny fingers caressed its aged surface. Slow. Deliberate. Almost reverent.
A little too lovingly.
He shouldn’t have known that face. Shouldn’t have any idea who it was. But his eyes darkened–they were too old for a child’s.
Then he whispered softly:
“I remember now.”
It was not his voice. Not entirely.
************************************************
The little boy started to speak–unclearly.
About things he shouldn’t have known. He described his mother’s room, how she laughed–how she bawled ceaselessly when they “came for her.” His voice sounded far away, as if he was recalling a dream.
“She begged them not to take me,” Eric murmured. “But they don’t listen.”
His voice shifted, as though two of him were speaking at once. One was the little boy in front of her–the other was someone ancient. Menacing.
The baby monitor came to life again. This time, the whispering wasn’t far away–it was right next to her ear.
She stumbled back. The closet door gaped open, like a ravenous mouth, spilling shadows into the room. A breath of cold air rushed out of it, along with a scent of damp earth and something–rotten. Eric didn’t look at her anymore. He was looking past her.
************************************************
Lina grabbed Eric, ready to run–but the little boy resisted.
He smiled a smile that was a mix of innocence and knowing.
“Mom.” His voice was a soft plea and a commanding threat. “She’s here.”
Then, her name. In urgent, resounding whispers. “Sophie Lew. Sophie Lew.”
They rose, becoming deafening–“SOPHIE LEW!”
The photograph in her grasp had changed. It was no longer Eric, but a grainy picture of her–Sophie.
Screams. Her screams.
The closet slammed shut.
************************************************
Lina shook the six-year-old awake. But he never remembered anything.
The once-angry scratches on his arms were gone. In dawn’s light, something seemed different.
The apartment felt–lighter. The whispers had stopped. But the silence was worse.
Her missing person file was now–empty. She, Sophie, was free. As if someone had taken her place.
************************************************
Lina’s breath came in punctured gasps. She backed away from the file, hands quivering. The truth pressed down on her, a heavy stone slab. Wrapping her. Suffocating.
She had answers to who the missing girl was– but she did not want to believe them.
Eric stretched, rising from bed. As if nothing had happened. “Mom, what’s wrong?”
She tried to speak, but her throat ran dry. She stared at Eric, open-mouthed. She had no words.
And the apartment was quiet. Too still.
Then, the baby monitor came to life. Dissonant, but familiar.
Lina swiveled, and Eric was standing in front of her, his eyes wide.
But his lips were not moving.
************************************************
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The Getting Literal Writing Alcove 