Mystery
INTERVIEW WITH A HOOKER (3)
“Honey, I wasn’t thinking of ending our conversation; I’m really enjoying it. However, every time I make the slightest move, the bartender has to pick his tongue up off the counter and I can just imagine, from the expressions on the men’s faces behind me that I see in the mirror, what’s going through their little minds. I like you; you’re somewhat like Cool Hands—not your looks—the way you come across—I feel I can trust you. Since the night is still young, if you don’t mind, I thought we could go someplace more private.
By Len Sherman8 months ago in Fiction
THE MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES
George McWhirter Fotheringay was not the kind of man anyone would expect to possess miraculous powers. He was small, with bright red hair, freckles, sharp brown eyes, and a habit of twisting the ends of his moustache when arguing. He worked as a clerk at Gomshott’s and enjoyed proving people wrong. Until the age of thirty, he did not believe in miracles at all. In fact, he strongly argued that miracles were impossible. His strange discovery happened one evening while he was debating the subject in the bar of the Long Dragon.
By Amelia Miller8 months ago in Fiction
Did The Tarot Cards Predict Love?
Did The Tarot Cards Predict Love? In a quiet village, where the moonlight draped softly over cobblestone paths, there lived a woman named Clara. She found peace in a small garden, surrounded by fragrant blooms, a sanctuary where she could listen to the whispers of her heart.
By ♿ V+ Marie381Uk 8 months ago in Fiction
Before the Sun Arrived
The first morning it happened, Mara thought it was a trick of the streetlamp. She woke before her alarm, before the garbage trucks, before the first commuter train dragged its metallic sigh across the edge of town. The sky outside her bedroom window was still a dark, uncommitted blue. The kind of blue that hasn’t decided whether to become morning.
By Flower InBloom8 months ago in Fiction
The Day the Internet Went Silent
The Day the Internet Went Silent At exactly 9:17 a.m., the world stopped refreshing. No notifications chimed. No emails arrived. No feeds updated. Phones, once warm with constant use, cooled in the hands of confused people everywhere. At first, everyone assumed it was temporary—a glitch, a slow network, a routine outage. But minutes turned into hours, and the silence grew loud. Amara noticed it while waiting for her morning coffee. The café was usually alive with tapping screens and distracted faces, but today people were looking up—really looking. A man near the window stared at his reflection instead of scrolling. A woman laughed nervously, unsure what to do with her hands. Amara checked her phone again. Nothing. “No service?” the barista asked. “Everything service,” Amara replied. “That’s the problem.” Across the city, servers blinked into stillness. Satellites continued their silent orbit, but data no longer flowed. Social media platforms froze mid-thought. Livestreams ended in unfinished sentences. Influencers vanished. Markets paused. The digital heartbeat of the planet flatlined. By noon, panic arrived. News stations couldn’t broadcast. Emergency alerts didn’t send. Governments attempted to coordinate through landlines and radios like it was another century. No one knew if this was an attack, a failure, or something worse. Amara walked home instead of ordering a ride. On the street, she passed neighbors she had lived beside for years but never spoken to. Today, they nodded. One waved. Another smiled. It felt strange—and unfamiliar—being seen. At home, Amara opened her laptop out of habit. The screen glowed, empty and obedient. No updates. No comments. No metrics measuring her worth. She closed it gently, as if not to wake something fragile. That afternoon, people began to talk. Without timelines to argue on, disagreements happened face-to-face. Without cameras ready to capture outrage, emotions softened faster. Children played outside longer. Strangers asked real questions. Some cried—grieving lost work, lost income, lost identity. Others felt relief they couldn’t explain. Amara sat on her balcony as the sun dipped low, painting the sky in colors no filter could improve. She realized she hadn’t been bored once. That night, the city was darker than usual. Smart lights didn’t respond. Streaming services were gone. But candles appeared in windows. Laughter drifted through open doors. Someone played a guitar, poorly but proudly. For the first time in years, the world was unrecorded. The internet returned three days later. No announcement. No explanation. Just a sudden flood of missed messages, delayed outrage, and resurrected noise. People rushed back, desperate to know what they’d missed. But something had changed. Amara noticed it immediately. Posts felt louder. Angrier. Smaller. She scrolled for five minutes, then locked her phone. Outside, someone was still playing guitar. She stepped away from the screen and joined them. Because for three quiet days, the world remembered how to exist without being watched—and some memories were too valuable to upload.
By Marie Kromah8 months ago in Fiction
The Baby in the Break Room
At 9:00 a.m., the siren sang its polite two notes—ding, ding—and the building returned its practiced silence. Mara set her mug on the corner of her desk where the ring stain had been carefully outlined with a thin strip of tape. She’d done it on her first day, back when she thought it mattered.
By Flower InBloom8 months ago in Fiction
The Last Memory: Chapters 3
Chapter Three The day had grown long and though the conversation with Pam was a nice change of pace after being alone in the cabin, Trenton was ready to go to bed. She had plans to go out and get a job the following day so she could start saving up money for her own place, and the excitement of that alone made her ready to rest up before the big day.
By Nicole Higginbotham-Hogue8 months ago in Fiction
