Series
Moth
I keep folding things. If folding things could make a barrier, I'd lay my fresh-scented origami between my heart and the grief threatening to crush it, and never hurt again. I fold and fold and fold, because it's the simple and repetitive day to day things that help me pretend I'm sane. I fold trousers for a husband who already left. Clean shirts for a boy with a gaunt face I hardly recognise. Tiny socks for a baby that giggles, as if the world wasn't broken, and everything lost. Trousers for a man who isn't my husband, but who is sitting in his chair. I don't have the energy to tell him to move. Liza stares at him with empty eyes, like scales. Glittering. Weighing him up. Is he handsome? Does she want his attention? Should she be angry that he's sitting there, where her father should be? Does she mind if he slips into that role? She doesn't sigh. She walks away. Her bedroom door clicks. Towels. Tablecloths. Shopping lists. Receipts. I fold them so that I don't fold. Because I'm as fragile and dusty as a moths wing and, and I might crumble clean away. Isaiah made tea again. The house stays neat and soft, like it’s hiding bruises. Isaiah keeps it clean without me asking. I stab myself with the memory of her, because the pain is solid and all I have left. When it fades, I'm numb, and maybe that's ok, too. The thought of her, thrown, tangled and broken on the ground. Wicked little hooves dancing above her, maybe. I flit from that thought to another very like it. The simple joy that had shone in her face all morning was fading rapidly. That glow, born of a birthday, and a surprise, and her beloved ponies... Already gone. Memories are better. Memories hurt, but not like that. Flit flit flit. Fold fold. Bang bang banging against the pane of glass, with my other children on the other side. They wait for me to say something normal. Right the axis. Consult the map and take them by the hand. Bang bang bang. I settle on a surface that matches me, and sigh into stillness. Pillows threaten to swallow me. I settle myself in my own cocoon, perhaps never to break free of it. That can happen. Can't it?
By L.C. Schäferabout a year ago in Fiction
Vulture
I'm not sure when I stopped loving her. Maybe it was when our little girl died. Maybe before that. When that lodger moved in. Maybe it was when I walked in on the two of them. Oh, not like that. No, she was crying you see. It was the day we got the news about Loretta. He had put his arms round her, and I walked in He didn't pull back, or look guilty. He gave me this helpless, dopey expression over the top of her head. It said, "women, am I right?" In that moment, I was still a fairly happy man. Whole Living a normal life, in a normal world. I didn't know the reason yet. For those tears. Once I learned, though, something about his reaction seemed off. He'd been living with us a while, treated almost like family. Clearly thought well enough of the children to get a thoughtful birthday gift. Yet he didn't seem upset at all. Falling out of love can be just as sneaky as falling into it. Little by little, creeping up on you, until one day you open your eyes and there's a new emotion you weren't expecting. So, like I said, I don't know when I started stopping. But I do remember the day I realised I felt only contempt. When we first met, she had all these rippling waves of shining dark hair. As men we are supposed to ogle other bits of women's bodies, but I was quite taken with all that hair. I never admitted it to any of my friends. They'd have laughed. Wouldn't have got it. Truth is, I loved the way it felt. The way it smelled. The way it trailed across my face sometimes. The way it sprung up into ringlets when she washed it. She put these little drops of oil in it, braided it, and fastened it up on top of her head before bed. Seeing behind the curtain how she managed it, didn't make me like it less. After we had kids, she was going to cut it short. Too much hassle to care for it. It's not very manly, I know, but I pouted. I begged her not to cut it off. She smiled at me, and kissed me. Kept washing, and combing, and oiling, and braiding... For me. Seeing that bun on top of her head at bedtime caused a catch, an ache, somewhere behind my ribs. One night sometime after our little Loretta died, and I'd found her weeping in the arms of that smarmy lodger... We were having sex, and that bun was wobbling away on top of her head. It annoyed me. It looked silly. I realised I was only going through the motions and I didn't really want to be doing this. Didn't want to be anywhere near her. That was the moment I realised I had no love left for her. I could have wondered when it leaked away, but that would have been depressing. Grief had been eating away at me, and then when I finally got a brief moment of respite from its incessant gnawing, the love I'd expected to be there underneath was gone. The love and pain we both felt for the child taken from us should have bound us together. Maybe we'd been counting on that. The distance between us grew, with neither of us knowing how to cross it. Always with the backdrop of wide eyes and worried faces of our other children. Bobby, being so little, seemed least affected. Liza and Ellison had a permant question mark hovering in their expressions. What now? I thought it might work again between the two of us. Flourish, you know. Spark. It took a while to accept that it probably wouldn't. It took a while longer before I could make myself admit to myself that I should leave. Longer still before I could break the news. I wondered if she would turn to the lodger after I was gone, and realised I hardly cared. Coward that I am, I did the telling and the leaving on the same day. The lodger lurked in the wings, in the corner of my vision. Circling, ready to pick clean what I left behind. I sneered, but I did it after I'd turned away so we could ignore each other.
By L.C. Schäferabout a year ago in Fiction
Episode 10: Reunion
When I woke up, the lights hummed like they’d forgotten how to sleep. They weren’t warm lights. Not the buttery kind you get in kitchens or the soft ones in motel bathrooms that make even broken people look romantic. These lights were silver. Hard. Surgical. The kind that show everything.
By Paper Lanternabout a year ago in Fiction
Building Unbreakable Trust in Your Relationship.
Maya sat on the balcony, cradling her coffee cup like it was the only thing holding her together. The morning was quiet, but her heart wasn’t. The last six months had been a whirlwind—of love, fear, and more questions than answers. And it all began with a man named Zayan.
By Muhammad Saeedabout a year ago in Fiction
A Wallet Full of Time
Leo Chen measured his life in minutes. Not minutes lived—minutes billed. As a mergers & acquisitions analyst at Sterling & Grey, his value was calculated in six-minute increments, the smallest unit on the firm’s time-tracking software. 14-hour days bled into weekends. His fiancée, Maya, had left six months ago, telling him, "You’re selling time you don’t own, Leo." He hadn’t understood. Not then.
By Habibullahabout a year ago in Fiction
Dom & Don: The Story. AI-Generated.
The story of Dominique and Donovan is quite sad. Dom and Don were always best friends, and no matter what happened, they stuck together. They first met on the first day of Grade 8 when they were both new students. They instantly clicked, and over time, their parents became friends too. Eventually, their families grew so close that they all began living together in an old five-bedroom, five-bathroom house owned by Dominique’s grandfather.
By Anonymous Writerabout a year ago in Fiction
Redemption, A Broken Souls Chronicle - Part 2. Content Warning.
The sound of crushing metal echoed through Hal's mind. He backed his truck away from her smashed vehicle and sped down the highway, ignoring the damage to his vehicle.. His work was done here, and he was certain the crash killed Lili. Elation washed over him as he picked up speed, knowing she’d never mess up his plans again.
By KA Stefana about a year ago in Fiction
