Microfiction
Firecrackers at Number 7
For Mikeydred's July prompt Singapore celebrates racial harmony in July....we remember that disharmony comes at a cost. 🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨🧨
By Michelle Liew Tsui-Linabout a year ago in Fiction
I Once Saw Myself in a Stranger
It happened on a rainy Thursday afternoon—the kind of rain that softens the edges of the city and makes everything feel suspended, like the world is holding its breath. I was walking home from the café, my umbrella barely shielding me from the drizzle, lost in thought about the chaos in my life. The weight of things unsaid, moments missed, and roads not taken pressed down on me like the clouds above.
By Jawad Khanabout a year ago in Fiction
Thursdays Are for Ghosts
The first time I noticed her was the week after the funeral. A Thursday, to be exact. I was in the kitchen, stirring a cup of tea I hadn’t meant to make, in a house too quiet for comfort. The sugar clinked gently against the mug like footsteps on tile. I wasn’t thinking of her, not directly, not consciously. But there she was. A shape in the hallway mirror—quick, soft, and impossibly familiar.
By Jawad Khanabout a year ago in Fiction
The Clockmaker's Garden
There was a village at the edge of the world where time stood still—not metaphorically, but truly. The sun always hovered in the same place. The shadows never grew longer. The leaves on the trees were forever green, and not a single wrinkle ever touched the faces of the people who lived there. Some called it a paradise. But not Mira. Mira had lived her entire life in this frozen place, where no one aged and nothing ever changed. The village was clean and calm, the people kind and quiet, but it all felt... trapped. Like living inside a snow globe where someone forgot to shake the magic. You see, the village had once been ruled by time like anywhere else. Until the day the Clockmaker came. No one remembered where he came from, or how he had arrived. But he built a tower at the village center—a tall, spiraling thing made of stone and bronze, topped with a golden clock that ticked louder than the wind. Then, one day, he stopped the clock. And when the clock stopped, so did time. People were amazed. No one got older. No one died. Food never spoiled. Days were always sunny. And for a while, it truly was a paradise. But after years, something changed—not outside, but inside the people. They stopped dreaming of new things. They stopped planting new trees. They stopped falling in love. They stopped asking, "What if?" Mira was different. Even as a child, she asked questions no one liked answering. “Why don’t we celebrate birthdays?” “What happens if the clock breaks?” “What’s beyond the hills?” The villagers would smile politely and say, “Don’t worry, dear. Everything is exactly as it should be.” But Mira wasn’t convinced. Especially not after the day she found the seed. It was buried beneath the soil behind her grandmother’s cottage, wrapped in cloth and tied with red thread. The cloth was old—older than the village’s stillness. On it, written in fading ink, were five words: "Plant me when time aches." Mira didn’t know what it meant, but she kept the seed. Years passed—or they should have—and Mira grew older in her heart, even if her body never changed. She read every book the village had. She asked questions the elders refused to answer. She even climbed the clocktower once, but found the door bolted shut with a glowing blue lock she couldn’t break. Until one night, something happened that had never happened before. She saw a petal fall. A single pink petal, drifting down from a tree in the village square. It didn’t make sense. Nothing changed here. Nothing moved unless someone moved it. But that petal had fallen on its own. As if the tree had breathed. That night, she went to her grandmother’s garden with a lantern and trembling hands. She dug a small hole in the earth and placed the old seed in it. As soon as the dirt touched the seed, the ground shivered—just a little. Not enough for anyone else to notice. But Mira did. She watered it with tears. Not because she was sad, but because she suddenly felt something for the first time in a long, long while: hope. The next morning, a small green shoot had emerged. And the day after that, a bud. And a few days later, a flower bloomed—vibrant and golden, with petals that shimmered like sunlight. People began to whisper. Nothing had grown in the village since time stopped. No new flower had bloomed in decades. But there it was, glowing softly like a candle in the fog. When the elders saw it, they panicked. They tore it from the ground. They warned Mira not to interfere again. They told her she was risking everything. That peace must be protected. That the Clockmaker would not approve. But Mira didn’t stop. She remembered what the cloth had said. “Plant me when time aches.” And time was aching. The people were stuck. Their laughter was thin. Their eyes were dull. Peace without change had become a prison with invisible walls. So Mira planted more seeds—some from old apples, some from forgotten flower pots, some even stolen from the locked archives beneath the school. And each time, something bloomed. Small things at first: daisies, dandelions, bluebells. Then vines. Then fruit. Then trees with golden bark that hummed when the wind passed through. And slowly… people changed. Some cried without knowing why. Some remembered dreams they’d buried. Some started writing poems again. Children drew things they’d never seen—skies full of color, mountains beyond the village, oceans they only imagined. And then the unthinkable happened. The clock in the tower ticked. Just once. But loud enough that everyone heard it. That night, Mira returned to the tower. The door that had once been sealed was cracked open. Inside, the gears groaned, stiff from stillness. Dust floated in the beams of moonlight. At the top of the stairs stood the Clockmaker. But he wasn’t what she expected. He looked like an old man made of wood and brass, with eyes like candle flames. His hands were tools. His spine was a coil. And on his chest was a key, long since wound down. “You have brought time back,” he said, his voice the sound of creaking floorboards. “Why did you stop it?” Mira asked. “Because the world was full of pain,” he replied. “And I thought stillness would bring peace. But peace without change… is silence.” She stepped forward. “And silence without growth... is death.” The Clockmaker nodded. “Then finish what you’ve started.” He handed her the key from his chest. She placed it in the clock. And turned it. The clock roared to life. The gears spun. The bell rang. Time surged through the village like a warm wind. The sun moved for the first time in a hundred years. Shadows danced. Trees swayed. Children grew. Laughter returned—not the polite kind, but the wild, uncontrollable kind. People wept and hugged and aged. And in the middle of the village stood Mira, now older, a little grayer, but glowing with life. She never became queen. She didn’t want to. Instead, she planted more gardens. One for every lost year. One for every forgotten dream. And people joined her. Because now… time moved. But so did hope. The End.
By Lucien Hollow about a year ago in Fiction
The Lantern of Whispering Trees
by Yahya Asim In a remote village nestled between the emerald folds of two great hills, there stood a forest known as the Whispering Trees. Locals spoke of it with reverence and caution. They said the trees could talk—not with mouths, but with murmurs carried in the wind. Only those who truly listened could understand their secrets.
By Yahya Asimabout a year ago in Fiction
Animal Farm (George Orwell) - Chapter- 9 (Novel)
As the harsh winter passes and spring arrives on Animal Farm, the animals' hardships intensify, yet their hope struggles to survive. The animals, especially the hardworking ones like Boxer and Clover, work tirelessly to rebuild the windmill, which was destroyed in the brutal Battle of the Windmill. Despite their exhaustion and lack of food, they press forward with faith in the promise of a better future.
By Echoes of Lifeabout a year ago in Fiction
Face mask
His face is coated in blood. His teeth, normally slightly yellow, look white against the background of viscera. His eyes have a mad sheen to them. Blue-grey, and huge behind those glasses. Scrawny hands reach for my throat. Fingers hooked like claws. Knuckles sharp. Nails blunt. Bitten and grimy as they are, I flinch away. The fact he wants to kill me is less of a concern, in this moment, than the fact he probably hasn't washed his hands since he last went to the toilet. His rage cranks up another notch, eyes flashing, mouth twisted in a snarl. I've offended him. My revulsion stamped on my face so clear even he couldn't miss it. * I jerk awake, tangled in sweaty sheets, panting like I've been running. Should I run? Where would I go? I can't face That Bitch if I moved back home. I'd never hear the end of it. She'd been so sure this guy was an axe murderer. If I told her everything I've seen, and all the stuff I've learned about him, she'd feel justified in her protective nagging. It's still quiet. No noises from his room. Not since I heard him being sick. That was over a week ago. The longer he maintains his silence, the more unnerved I feel. Did I go too far? It was funny at first. Hearing him through the wall. Gagging and retching. It's less funny now. A whole lot less. I'm jumping at shadows. Part of me wants him to come out of his room, and go back to the way things were. The rest of me wants this whole ugly and bizarre situation to come to a head. One way or another. All of me wants to sleep with a knife under my pillow, and a lock on the door.
By L.C. Schäferabout a year ago in Fiction
She Waits For the Key to Be Given. Content Warning.
There weren't many reasons to sleep anymore. Pure necessity, sure, but beyond that, it wasn't an enjoyable time. Cali didn't find sleep restful. Her little townhome didn't feel like safety anymore, but thanks to a mortgage, she was locked in. Her home was a series of half-done things; a half-eaten dinner that sat next to her spot on the couch. Her sink was full of half-washed dishes soaking the dried on mess. Half her bed was covered in half-folded laundry. Her phone was full of never-sent texts, half written and half-forgotten.
By Autumn Stewabout a year ago in Fiction
