Lines in Brown

This day in 1919 marks the Great Boston Molasses Flood, when a molasses storage tank burst in Boston’s East End and consumed 21 lives.

21 lives lost, and undocumented.

While history records the events, it doesn’t record the names.

Some histories cannot be left on paper — they wait to be remembered.

🟤📄🕯️⚖️🟤

Criminalist Eleanor’s job was her haven – she adored the precision and the intimate attention to detail it needed. Years in the Commercial Affairs department of the police force had ingrained foolproof method and reliability – traits that made her renowned.

January 15 took her to an abandoned industrial site – one where tension and chaos were still very much married. Molasses had erupted in waves of brown from industrial containers, drowning 21 workers in viscous sea of dessert thick enough to build another Berlin wall . The atmosphere overwhelmed in a sickening instant.

Molasses lines still trailed along the sides of tanks, creeping from something – unseen. Brown and sticky. Gripping. Unyielding.

Accusing.

But Eleanor was but a monitor of records, not memory. She was tasked with verifying the truth – not on reflection of responsibility.

The sickly-sweet dessert was a trained assassin assailing Eleanor’s nose – the cloying scent wrapped her nostrils with a vengeance. The air bore sweetness where none should be. Time had softened, but not erased it – it didn’t move. But remained almost deathly unsettled.

She had recorded the event before, without missing a beat.

Safely. Accurately.

But the events and dates did not sync. The numbers bore no weight – meaningless. The dates had no breath.

Accuracy had trumped reverence.

The names of the 21 lost souls, dissolved with the viscosity that had enfolded them.

Then, the viscous remains reshaped.

Hardened.

Becoming a tangled mass of brown limbs, melded together in linked chains that could not be broken.

Then they rose, in a circle, surrounding Eleanor.

Approaching her, but not reanching.

21 links, glistening with dessert gleam.

Reminding.

Eleanor stared at the forms, too dumbstruck for words. Mesmerised – but aware enough to find them odd.

None of them spilt forward. None screamed.

She remembered the file that she had put on the table beside her, open to a blank page.

The figures stared, nodding.

And she understood.

The record she had to complete. That she would complete.

And the day she would finally mark with remembrance.

🟤📄🕯️⚖️🟤

Original story by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.

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Roots Remember

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

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

Sometimes the smallest, unseen roots yield the sweetest harvest.

🍃🍂🍃🍂🍃🍂🍃🍂🍃🍂

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

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

And then…

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

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

Including his little green labours of love.

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

“Growth is timeless.”

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

“Roots matter.”

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

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

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

The harvest had come – out of season.

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

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

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

🍃🍂🍃🍂🍃🍂🍃🍂🍃🍂

Original story by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.

If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!

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

Veil of Shadows

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

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

Some vows like these, however, remain unfulfilled.

Reprieve and fairness is sought.

Promises spoken. Justice delivered. Echoes that endure.

⚡👁️🗨️🕊️📜🔥

Murmurs of excitement ran through the conference hall as Mayor

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

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

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

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

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

And it wasn’t air-conditioning draft.

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

They were ageless. Visible. Slowly approaching.

Imposing.

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

Then, the room erupted in gasps and whispers.

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

Pressing against each other as they tried to exit.

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

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

Mere words.

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

And vindication for words unmaterialised. For people -unwanted.

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

His face – unreadable.

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

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

Increasing crime. Inadequate public schooling.

The guardians’ feet traced the steps of the stage.

One by one.

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

The air had an empty heaviness few could articulate.

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

As ambiguous as the guardians’ warning of justice.

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

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

⚡👁️🗨️🕊️📜🔥

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

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

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

Let the little ones stay.

🕯️🙏🏼🕯️🙏🏼🕯️🙏🏼

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For Ila. And Meera.

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

🕯️🙏🏼🕯️🙏🏼🕯️🙏🏼

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Moments Between Years

This new year, let’s remember that life’s in the little things.

☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕

Morning had just broken, but Elsie found her thoughts tracing the kitchen floor.

The first hour of the year was calm, quiet – giving room for pause. Singapore was still, but her apartment was buzzing with the noise of leftover wrappers, party poppers and half-finished cans of beer from the New Year’s Eve party the night before.

A cuckoo bird and its mate did a series of hops on the railing, as if filling the small gaps between the noise. A park lamp flickered, looking bent, as if conforming to the weight of the prior year’s unseen moments.

She strolled to the corner coffeeshop, giving silent nods to people she knew only briefly. Each step she took was a checklist of micro-decisions – taking the scenic route past the river, choosing which text message to reply to, skipping her usual cafe stop because it was too crowded. The new year was a mirror of the year before. The choices she made then rippled quietly into today.

She found herself seated on a park bench at lunch, the flavour of new year leftovers absent on her tongue. Her mind wandered as clouds drifted idly; children laughed, their chuckles filling the void in her soul.

She knew that void. The emptiness of life’s unnoticed textures -children’s laughter, an elderly woman’s chuckle-trumped the resolutions she made a year earlier. The pause before laughter was a reminder that the thought put into laughter – the little details – mattered as much as the laughter itself. Awareness in life’s small acts is what made a difference.

She returned to her apartment, opened a few letters she’d ignored over the new year and sipped her now rancid tea.

But for the first time in a long while, she felt as if she mattered. The clock on the TV console ticked steadily, indifferent to her presence. But she felt -there. Unrushed, with no need to know what happened next. She had already arrived.

She dialled her mother’s number, ready to finally speak to her.

Ready to address the spat they’d had a few weeks earlier.

Ready to meet the year ahead.

Because she was in the moment.

☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕

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Through the Cosmic Lens

Today is observed in Christian Tradition as the Feast of the Holy Innocents – we observe the beauty of innocence this Yuletide.

Innocence that power consumes too easily.

Knowledge, power and recognition – at what cost?

✨🪐✨🪐✨🪐✨🪐✨🪐

Jeremy Tong was a recluse – he preferred the company of the universe, stars, and all, to the inane chatter of people. The young astronomer sought to map the universe’s canvas.

To be the astronomer with knowledge uncapped.

He set up a telescope on the edge of a cliff. It could trace constellations – what was beyond the universe.

The stars blinked every night, their curiosity becoming insatiable.

And Jeremy’s telescope glared at him with its cheeky lens.

The device picked up readings – what it was supposed to do. But these were – odd. The stars felt – alive. Too alive and aware.

✨🪐✨🪐✨🪐✨🪐✨🪐

The young astronomer was fiddling with his cosmic toy one fateful evening when the lens fogged over and became – strange.

It showed images – not of stars in their renowned patterns, but of how life was to unfold.

He saw himself, a midlife astronomer, scanning newspaper headlines. Seeking recognition.

Visions of himself as an old man gnawed at his mind’s recesses – peering at the sky, wondering what the vast black horizon lay in front of him.

HIS life.

Glimpses of the future burned into his mind – and not painlessly. Each image cut off a piece of him, as if he had surrendered himself to the cosmos.

The line between his reality and the universe blurred.

✨🪐✨🪐✨🪐✨🪐✨🪐

The telescope’s lens pulled back and enlarged, almost beckoning. In its lens – a sentient being. Waiting for him. It watched him, demanding his complete faithfulness. Complete belief.

For infinite knowledge in return.

The pulse of infinite minds throbbed in his veins, each beat wrenching a part of his soul.

He drew back from the lens, aghast. It dawned – knowledge wasn’t just making observations through lens – it was a transaction.

✨🪐✨🪐✨🪐✨🪐✨🪐

He angled his head for another look – and paused. One more glance that meant infinite knowledge.

The lens’s eternal ownership.

That final glance held both intimidation and promise.

“Come…or vanish.” The stars seemed to whisper, almost giggling.

The freedom of life – or the universe’s secret manual.

He peeked at the lens once more – and saw himself reflected in infinity.

✨🪐✨🪐✨🪐✨🪐✨🪐

The telescope remained on the observation deck, its lens waiting –

For others who craved discovery.

Who were aware of the cost of knowledge – but willing to pay.

The cliff stood, still sentient, still quiet.

Guarding its secrets.

Secrets best kept behind locked doors.

It rose. Patient. Hungry.

Another astronomer peered through the open mouth of its lens.

✨🪐✨🪐✨🪐✨🪐✨🪐

Original story by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental

If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!

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The Ledger of Waves

Today marks the day of the 2004 Tsunami that struck the shores of several countries worldwide.

Leaving devastation.

Loss.

A weight that must be remembered.

🌊🌊🌊🌊

I watched, my waves tense, as children left chocolate wrappers on the pristine sand. Fishermen lingered at the shore, ignoring the curious dolphins poking their noses into their nets. I regarded them coldly – patient and endless, as they pursued their selfish joys.

Waiting.

They were close. Too close.

The tension caused my wavy hands to clench, ready to unleash. The veins in them were about to burst. I found myself listening to my rising impatience.

I pulled back further, gathering myself. My form stretched across horizons, waiting to release. There were the lovers. The thoughtless fishermen. The wrapper-throwing children. I recall bearing the careless weight of their ways. Each mistake, each inconsiderate act, each denial – bore into my waves.

My spindly, watery hands stilled. Grey covered the skies, along with a blanket of silence. The wind stopped blowing on my cue. Thunder growled softly, ready when I was. I stayed upright, silent, as all on the distant shores laughed without care. I waited, testing their false confidence. Nothing they did – wasted food, offensive plastic bottles – escaped my notice. I stood poised.

Ready for the inevitable.

Meanwhile, plastic bottles lay, unrisen corpses, on the shore. An angry crowd of thunderclods gathered, silent, in the background. In my watery hands were dangerous nets, uneaten food, dead fish – ready to return to those who owned them.

I carried their forgotten burdens. Each small, yet costly mistake.

Their responsibility. In my grasp.

My dirty blue fingers painfully remembered each transgression. Each misstep cut my sides.

Still, I lingered, patient, endless. Responsibility cavorted, unaware, on the trash-ridden shore.

I remembered. Always remembered. So would they.

🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊

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Imparting Differences

Today is the International Day of Human Solidarity – one when a jigsaw becomes completely fitted.

When walls part, and partitions close.

When differences meet, magic happens.

🌟

The city of Parting was – parted. There were many parts, true to its name.

Every district spoke a different language. And within each language, a separate dialect.

Rules veered like cars as they steered from street to street. Neighbours saw each other – only with their eyes. Glances fleeted, lasting shorter than seconds.

🐾

Kevin frowned at George’s odd dances. Harry squirmed at Sheila’s crooked smile – one fixed on her face due to facial paralysis from an accident.

They laughed at Juno – he wrote, but climbing Everest was easier than reading.

But the little child smiled like an angel.

Then, the Mayor threw them a ball into a curve that was already curvy.

The Day of Differences. A town holiday.

To mark the day and make it as COMFORTABLE for the edgy as he could, he PAIRED the townsfolk.

Two worlds collided in a day.

Leila, the quiet librarian, frowned at George’s heady dance moves. Tom, the straightlaced mathematician, baulked at Ben’s cheeky eyebrow raising.

The differences sounded louder than cymbals.

Hearts listened, though minds ignored.

✨

The diversity blanketed Parting – now Imparting – and beyond.

Leila held Dance Appreciation Days at the town library – with George’s help. Ben spun records at the radio station with the help of a metronome that Tom assembled – after a mouthful of quirky complaints.

And containers were no longer separate – the differences melted hard plastic partitions.

Into nothingness.

🌟

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Whispers of Evergreen

Today is Small Town Election Day – when small communities vote on what matters.

Small voices matter – when sounded together.

🌳

🌿Evergreen was a town at almost perpetual rest – one where activity crawled. Shops opened late; restaurants shut right after dinner.

And its people seemed to tread with the help of walking canes.

A dense forest fringed the edge of the town, its thick shrubbery rustling like gentle whispers. The weight of generations-old trees, leaves brown with age – pressed on one’s shoulders.

Its reputation? For taking what it shouldn’t have.

38-year-old Clara Moon, school teacher and avid history buff, wanted to give these tangled murmurs a more audible voice. She sensed the gravity of stories etched on every tree bark.

She was wilful about it. And notorious for that.

🌳

🌿It was time for Evergreen to make a decision; election fever hit. Townsfolk assembled in droves at the polling station, their voices tinged with raspy excitement. The station’s hall resounded with their whispers.

To preserve – or not.

Developers gathered at the gates, plans in hand. Then, quiet, materialistic murmurs about profit.

Clara’s eye fell on Little Elliot. The child had wandered into the forest, his teletubby legs wobbling after a rabbit. Before long, bramble bushes grasped his ankles.

A hush fell over Evergreen. The forest had opened its mouth for –

Its prey.

Clara bit her lip. This was more than a child losing himself in the forest-it was the forest’s refusal to release him.🌿

🌳🌳

🌿 Clara rushed into the forest, hoping to grab the child before the forest swallowed him completely.

She did discover – not a child, but a sapling grove no one thought existed.

Baby trees shaped like infant animals.

At the periphery of her vision – chainsaws and axes.

Developers and dismissive grimaces.

The trunks of the saplings twisted towards them, like sentinels marching to an errant beat.

Clara’s eyes darted from one sapling to another. They stared back at her, leaves parted, almost pleading.

She wanted to help them. But that meant exposing Evergreen to their truth –

One the backwater town was not ready for.🌿

🌳🌳🌳

🌿Clara was torn.

To preserve? To tell the truth?

Her solution – a new approach.

The savvy schoolteacher arranged tours for a few of the town’s more open-minded residents.

Some backed away when they saw the saplings, their mouths open.

Others reached out to the leaves – and fingered them gently.

Clara faced those who dared touch – and cajoled.

“Such green magic is rare – your children need it in their meals daily, to grow.”

She turned to the others, their mouths still agape.

“They frighten you. But they also protect you – your peace.”

A few days later, the vote passed. Thinner than a blade of grass.

Plight mattered more than a fight. 🌿

🌳🌳🌳🌳

🌿Clara showed the way with soft hands – and won the vote.

The forest had parted its leaves quietly, revealing a clear path.

Not just one leaf or tree – piles of them.

It wasn’t just one sapling that marched – they all did.

To a single beat that played in perfect rhythm -for the greater good. 🌿🌿

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Glow in the Silence

It takes one to burn…and the flame spreads.

🕯

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.

🕯🕯🕯🕯🕯
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