Short Story

The House With the Red Gate
It is a saying that an old woman lives in the house with the red gate on the edge of Buraq Street. No one remembers when she arrived, or if she ever did. The house smells of cinnamon and old pages, and the wind chimes only sound when no one’s looking.
By Muhammad Abdullahabout a year ago in Fiction
The Driving Force of Healing
Today is the day. I’m going to get back behind the wheel. I don’t want to, but I have to. I can’t be a fully functioning adult if I just give up on driving, can I?
By Sandy Gillmanabout a year ago in Fiction
The 30-Day Love Challenge That Changed My Life
I didn’t expect a simple challenge to change everything. In fact, I didn’t expect anything at all. My heart had been quiet for months—maybe years—after too many disappointments, too many false starts, and too many days of wondering if love was something only other people got to feel fully. I was surviving. I was functioning. I was smiling when necessary. But deep inside, something was missing.
By Adrian-Razvan Ispasabout a year ago in Fiction
The Girl Who Planted Sunflowers in the Graveyard
In a garden of graves, she planted hope. Most people in town tried to ignore the graveyard. It sat just off the main road, tucked behind the shuttered textile mill, surrounded by a rusted iron fence that hadn’t been painted since anyone could remember. The stones leaned like tired shoulders, many of them nameless, some split in half by frost and time. Nobody had been buried there in decades. Nobody visited—except her.
By yasir zebabout a year ago in Fiction
New Amusement at the State Fair. Top Story - July 2025.
“Did you hear that there is a new amusement show at the state fair?” “A brand new attraction at the state fair!” “What is it?”
By Amos Gladeabout a year ago in Fiction
The Rain That Falls Upwards
It began on a quiet Tuesday. The kind of day where nothing feels urgent, and the world spins gently, as if half-asleep. In the small town of Elmsbrook, where time moved like syrup and the sky rarely argued with the earth, something peculiar happened. It rained. But not downwards. At first, no one noticed. A single raindrop hovered near the ground, quivering like a thought about to be spoken. Then, in a moment of quiet rebellion, it rose. Not with the force of wind, nor the dance of heat. It simply… ascended. Silently. Delicately. Children laughed, thinking it a trick. Grown-ups squinted and blamed mirrors or migraines. But when entire puddles began lifting from the streets like reversed waterfalls, the town went still. Umbrellas lay unopened. People stood in silence, watching their reflections drift away into the clouds. A World Turned Softly Upside Down Reality began to shift, not with violence but with gentleness. Leaves floated from the ground back to the trees. Paper bills escaped wallets and flew toward the sky like butterflies seeking freedom. The church bell no longer rang—it hummed, as if unsure of its role in this newly quiet world. In the local bakery, flour rose from sacks and danced midair. In the library, forgotten books flew open, releasing words that drifted like fog. And across the park, a poet named Lina sat on a wooden bench, pen in hand, watching ink rise from her page. Her poem had just one line: "What does the sky remember that the earth forgets?" Lina and the Stranger As the rain continued to fall upwards, a stranger arrived. No one saw him enter, yet there he stood—beneath an invisible umbrella, untouched by the strange phenomenon. His coat was stitched with stardust, his shoes quiet as dusk. Lina was the first to speak. “You’re not from here, are you?” He smiled, but his eyes held storms. “No. But neither are you, not anymore. You’re one of the few who still sees poetry in strange things.” She hesitated. “Why is this happening?” The stranger looked at the rising rain. “Because sometimes, the world must unwrite itself. So it can be read again.” Lina stared at the sky, now full of puddles and poems. She understood—not with logic, but with a part of her heart she thought had long gone silent. The Town Begins to Listen As hours passed, Elmsbrook changed. Not in its buildings or streets, but in its people. They began to whisper again. To wonder. To watch. Shopkeepers started gifting items “just because.” Neighbors who hadn’t spoken in years shared coffee under weightless rain. Children lay on rooftops, catching droplets in their palms. Old couples danced in gardens, feet never touching the grass. And through it all, Lina wrote—her notebook pages lifting, but never flying away. She wrote of memories buried in silence. Of love letters never sent. Of dreams that didn’t fit the rules. Each word she wrote seemed to steady the world, like sewing threads into a loose garment. When the Rain Returned to Earth After seven days, the rain paused mid-air. Not a drop moved. Then, in a single breath, it reversed direction. Slowly, softly, gravity returned. But Elmsbrook was not the same. The puddles did not reform. The air was clearer. The silence was no longer empty—it was sacred. A silence full of meaning, like a page waiting for the right word. Lina closed her notebook and stood. The stranger was gone, leaving behind only a silver feather tucked beneath the bench. She smiled. Not everything needed an explanation. Some mysteries weren’t meant to be solved, only felt. Epilogue: The Town That Remembered Even now, years later, Elmsbrook remains a place of odd beauty. People speak softer there. They greet the wind like an old friend. And every so often, when the sky turns a certain shade of violet, someone looks up and whispers: “Do you remember the rain that fell upwards?” And someone always answers, “Yes. It made everything… right again.”
By Asad Khanabout a year ago in Fiction
The Jasmine Promise
The morning mist still clung to the trees when Prince Indrajit and his sister Princess Indravati arrived at the ashram of Subramanyam, the legendary teacher of kings. The old guru welcomed them with folded hands, his white beard glowing in the dawn light. Behind him stood his son Prasanna - tall, broad-shouldered, with eyes that seemed to hold all the wisdom of his father's teachings. As Indrajit formally requested tutelage, Indravati found herself unable to look away from Prasanna. There was something in the way he stood - not like the stiff-backed warriors at court, but with an easy grace that spoke of quiet confidence. When their eyes met, she felt her breath catch in a way no palace suitor had ever made her feel. Even as her brother led her away, she glanced back three times, and each time found Prasanna still watching her. The next morning, as Indrajit began his lessons, Indravati's handmaiden Pramila approached Prasanna with a bouquet of night-blooming jasmine. "From the princess," she whispered, glancing around nervously. "She said you'd understand the meaning." The flowers' heady perfume surrounded Prasanna as he brought them to his face, his heart pounding. That evening, he pressed a carefully folded poem between the same flowers and had them returned to Indravati's chambers. For weeks, this secret dance continued. During the day, Indravati would sit with her brother during lessons, her eyes constantly drifting to where Prasanna tended the ashram's gardens. In stolen moments when no one was watching, they exchanged whispers by the old banyan tree, their fingers brushing as they passed notes hidden in flower petals. On the final day of training, as the sun set in a blaze of orange and purple, Indravati found Prasanna alone by the river. "I'll speak to my father tonight," she promised, her small hand gripping his. "We'll be married before the monsoon comes." Prasanna's joy was tempered by fear. "Your father is a king, and I'm just a scholar's son. What if he refuses?" Indravati lifted her chin with royal determination. "Then we'll leave together. I won't lose you." But fate had other plans. That very night, King Veerabahu summoned his daughter to the throne room. "Prince Vikraman of the northern kingdom has asked for your hand," he declared proudly. "I've already given my word." The blood drained from Indravati's face, but royal duty kept her protest locked behind clenched teeth. When word reached Prasanna, he collapsed beneath their banyan tree, a dagger glinting in his hand. "If I can't have her," he whispered to the uncaring night, "then let my life end here." Meanwhile, at the palace gates, a handsome stranger calling himself Anandan rescued Pramila from a charging elephant during the wedding preparations. As he carried her to safety, neither realized how their lives would soon intertwine with their masters'. On the eve of the wedding, as tradition demanded, Indravati and her bridesmaids visited the Durga temple in the forest. Hidden behind the towering statue of the goddess, Prasanna waited with a breaking heart, determined to see his love one final time. What he saw instead made his blood run cold - Indravati, alone before the idol, raising a ceremonial dagger to her own throat. "No!" He burst from hiding, grabbing her wrist just in time. The dagger clattered to the stone floor as they clung to each other, tears mingling. Suddenly, the temple doors burst open. There stood Anandan, the mysterious stranger, his disguise now discarded. "Stop this foolishness!" he commanded. "The obstacle isn't the king's promise, but Prince Vikraman's claim. Convince him to withdraw, and your path is clear." Indravati shook her head in despair. "How? I've never even met the man!" With a dramatic flourish, Anandan removed his traveler's cloak to reveal royal silks beneath. "Because Prince Vikraman stands before you." The truth unfolded like a lotus blooming - Vikraman had come in disguise to understand why the princess resisted their marriage. Seeing her true love for Prasanna, he refused to be the cause of their suffering. "No union begun with broken hearts can prosper," he declared. The next morning, a stunned King Veerabahu listened as Vikraman himself pleaded Prasanna and Indravati's case. Moved by such selflessness, the king gave his blessing. As the conch shells sounded their joy throughout the kingdom, two weddings were celebrated - one for the princess and her scholar, another for the noble prince and Pramila, whose courage had matched his own. Years later, when travelers passed the old banyan tree, they would sometimes see an aging couple sitting in its shade - a still-graceful woman leaning against a man whose eyes still sparkled with wisdom and love. And if the moonlight was just right, one might glimpse the ghostly shapes of two young lovers dancing among the flowers, their joy finally complete. Thus they proved that no promise is stronger than compassion, no law greater than love.
By Alice Talesabout a year ago in Fiction
Illicit Affairs
There once was a woman who met a man who was no good for her. They both knew it, but he pursued it. It started subtly, with an excuse to send an email here and a text about something work-related there. She was easy to talk to and refreshingly outgoing. He lived in a world walled in by religion and grossly lacking four-letter words. The dangerous thing- the real problem, if you will- was that they each made the other feel existence. Seen and heard. The banter was perfectly timed. The things they found they had in common seemed otherworldly. She knew it was doomed, but couldn't stop herself from looking at her phone and hoping he'd be in there somewhere. It was harmless.
By Christa Leighabout a year ago in Fiction
Hot Dirigible
Tallulah felt the thick braids of the whicker basket through the soles of her running shoes. She imagined it matched the thick braids in her long blond hair. She was not sure about getting into a hot air balloon when she first arrived at the field near the Fort Crittenden Dam Park. She almost chickened out, but once they were up in the air she found the view utterly breathtaking. She could see the entire valley from their height.
By Amos Gladeabout a year ago in Fiction
The Echo of Violet
Her presence was quiet, almost imperceptible, like the aftertaste of a song. Not the notes themselves, but the feelings they left behind once the music had stopped. She wasn’t a person, not really. But she was everywhere I went, every turn of my day, like a shadow that never quite fit into the light.
By Mr Aliabout a year ago in Fiction
Where Were You? . Runner-Up in The Second First Time Challenge.
Halcyon was one of those things no one comprehended as it was happening, or we didn’t want to comprehend. Couldn’t comprehend. I watch Director Ehler in the recording of the press conference that inevitably accompanies the new footage of Janus, and I don’t recognize my colleague of twenty-five years. He is younger, yes, but still grey, and slim, and himself. After comprehending, he was older. Greyer. Slimmer. Part of him died with Halcyon.
By Rosie Ford about a year ago in Fiction
Blocked
Bonnie slowly walked to her car, each step exhausting and sending new waves of pain echoing from her feet. When she finally got inside her car and closed the door, she sat there for a long moment. Then the tears came strolling down her face, and though they were unbidden, Bonnie didn’t stop them. Instead, a sob broke through her lips as she placed her forehead on her steering wheel, her body already shaking.
By Rebecca Pattonabout a year ago in Fiction