Adventure
The Box
I slide my key into the lock of my front door. It's been a long day at work. Another unsolved murder in this big city, another column for me to write. I lock the door behind me and head to the kitchen. I pull my notes from my bag, setting them out before I grab a tv dinner to heat up in the microwave. A strange droning noise interrupts me. I stand still and listen. It's right outside my door. I tiptoe back and peek through my peephole as the sound fades away. No one is there so I open the door, picking up the cardboard box that had been left behind. Surprisingly light despite its size, I carry it to my table. I know I didn't order anything and I stayed late at work tonight. I open the box to find a strange photograph of a brunette woman walking down a street. I don't recognize her. It's when I flip over the photo that I grab my phone and dial my contact at the police department.
By Michelle Weir4 years ago in Fiction
From Under the Blue Sun
Universe: Kalazus Location: S’abdi; unknown Time: Year 308, first human paron (app. 308 years post-industrialization) S’abdi, the realm of spirits. It’s stretching cerulean plains born of the blue comet, its cities built by the father of the angels. In the southern center lies Kharoshka, city of Basur - the incarnations born of the magic of the foretold blue sun. Its cobblestone streets and buildings grey with once living rock was a canvas for all of the vivid and vibrant beings that stumbled across its path.
By Eddie Salva4 years ago in Fiction
Amara.
Gwendolyn walked down the scanty sidewalk, a depleting cup of warm coffee in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other. It was like any other evening- the air was cool and the breeze scattered dead leaves onto the street. She tossed her cup into a trash bin nearby and took a long drag, watching a group of high school kids as they walked past. Their laughter rang into the air, the sound sickly sweet and it gave her a headache. There was a time she envied their innocence. Born to a mother that endured an abusive relationship until her death, Gwendolyn was stripped of her childhood from an early age. Thinking back, how she had wished to live a normal life, go to school, get a job. Now, as she watched the neighbourhood children grow into young adults, she wondered if she would have been happy either way. Life was okay for some, shitty for most. If she'd had the opportunity to make her own choices, would her life have turned out a bit different?
By Parti Pris4 years ago in Fiction
Ode to the Inspiration that Launched it All
My name was on it, but not much else. The heroic soul who went out of their pretty little way to save my package from the clutches of a conniving postman who desperately tried to get a peek as she claimed neighbors should look out for each other. “Is that why a piece of your press-on is stuck under the tape,” I said, not honestly expecting an answer despite her immediate and silent eye roll as I shut the door in her face. I gather the box in a box is a better defense, although looking at it, I couldn’t imagine what I ordered that would need a thick iron casing. A five-by-four-inch cask with no label stamp or company name. Without my address under my elegantly stenciled title, it’s no wonder it sat in the lobby of my building with a Thieving Thelma. Where’s the handle, latch, or thin flush line that indicated this wasn’t a poorly measured, unfinished die? Sharp edges and corners left me looking at it like an oversized Rubric’s Cube lacking the where with all of a first move. Amid contemplating whether a box cutter blade would be thin enough to probe for a hidden prompt built within, it snapped open so hard the twenty-pounder leaped against gravity’s direct order, landing in a thud that left scratched on the lazily done wood finish. “I’m calling Chelsey.”
By Willem Indigo4 years ago in Fiction
Ancestral
There was a certain mystique about the box that lay in front of me. One that I couldn't get over. I had to know what was inside of it, there was no second thought about it. I had already decided if it was a bomb or some sort of chemical agent meant to dispatch me, that I would be ok with that. What did I have to live for anyhow?
By Michael Butler4 years ago in Fiction
