Short Story
Please Don't Leave The Light On. Top Story - August 2025.
Straight, strong, and mud-like coffee keeps us going as we navigate the blinding white, hard-packed gravel road, heading north. We have crossed the sixtieth parallel and use peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches thickly spread on rye bread, along with long strands of red licorice, to stave off hunger without stopping for breaks. For amusement, I stick one end of a string in my mouth, and he takes the other end. We chew it until our cheeks touch. No worries about refrigerating a sandwich with mayonnaise in it, in these cold, below-zero temperatures. The quart-sized stainless thermos of java is shared between us; I drink from the lid, and he slurps out of his oversize Alaska Railroad mug. I've never drunk so much coffee in my life, but we want to get to Anchorage and are driving nonstop from the Lower 48. It's a good thing we both have young bladders and can hold off for five to six hours before taking a potty break.
By Andrea Corwin about a year ago in Fiction
A Message In The Dark. Runner-Up in Leave the Light On Challenge.
In the fourth grade, we had a class excursion to the beach. Miss Page found an old bottle, and we all stood around in awe as she pulled an old piece of note paper out of it. Its corners were frayed, and it was stained as if it had been soaked in tea. Its mysterious author was from Brazil. A boy, also in the fourth grade, greeted us from half a world away, and I could not wrap my little mind around this miraculous coincidence. That was the best day ever.
By Dean Bainbridgeabout a year ago in Fiction
The Day My Grandfather Stopped Time
I always thought my grandfather was just… ordinary. Old, quiet, and a little forgetful. But one rainy afternoon, he showed me something I’ll never forget. He took my hand and led me to the attic—a place I had never dared enter. Dust danced in the light as he opened a small, wooden box. Inside were dozens of old photographs, each labeled with a date. “This,” he said, “is how I stopped time.” I laughed. “Stopped time? Grandpa, you’re being dramatic.” He smiled but didn’t answer. Instead, he handed me a photo. It was me, sitting in the living room at age five, smiling at something I couldn’t see. “Look closer,” he said. And I did. Hidden in the background, almost invisible, was a tiny shadow… smiling at me. He explained that in every photo, there was a moment frozen that no one else could see—a second where happiness was so pure it could outlast the years. He had been capturing them all his life. That day, I understood: time doesn’t really stop. Memories do. And sometimes, the simplest moments are the ones worth holding forever. I left the attic with a strange sense of peace. Because even if the world moves on, the magic of ordinary life never disappears.
By Haileyesusabout a year ago in Fiction
Shadows on the Edge of Tomorrow
By Nadeem Shah The rain had a way of softening the city’s edges. Buildings that normally looked sharp and unforgiving now blurred into a watercolor of gray and silver. Streetlights bled into the puddles, their glow stretching out in ripples with every raindrop that fell.
By Nadeem Shah about a year ago in Fiction
Shadows on the Edge of Tomorrow
By Nadeem Shah The rain had a way of softening the city’s edges. Buildings that normally looked sharp and unforgiving now blurred into a watercolor of gray and silver. Streetlights bled into the puddles, their glow stretching out in ripples with every raindrop that fell.
By Nadeem Shah about a year ago in Fiction
