Short Story
The Break Up
He kicked the pebble in front of him and did his best to keep the threatening tears safely behind his eyes. Despite walking alone, one never knew who could turn the corner and use the treacherous tears against him later. Link pulled out his phone and reread the worst text message he had ever received:
By Leah Suzanne Dewey4 months ago in Fiction
The Day Ah Never Went Home. Winner in You Had to Be There.
It wis the summer of 2001 an' Ah wis 21 an' living away frae home for the first time. Ah had met a woman, who would become mah wife, online an' Ah flew frae Glasgow tae London tae see her a couple of times. Ah say Glasgow but Ah actually took flights frae Prestwick Airport, which is about 45 minutes by train ootside o' Glasgow, an' arrived at Stansted Airport, which wis about 45 minutes ootside o' London by train. Frae Liverpool Street Station Ah then travelled, wae the woman who kindly met me, tae Ilford, Essex. It wis the furthest Ah'd ever travelled without mah mum, dad, brother an' sister. It felt like a big deal, even if tae many people it wis just ordinary travel. Ah wisnae a sheltered boy by any stretch an' before Ah had met Ruth, Ah had experienced a lot, but this wis the first major bit o' travelling Ah had done on mah own. The third time Ah visited Ah stayed longer an' then didnae go back. In fact, it is noo 2026 an' Ah still havenae ever gone back home. No really anyway. Ruth wis 33 an' Ah wis 21, so Ah wis like the cat who had got the cream. Ah had nae interest in girls mah own age. Back tae Ilford an' the blossoming relationship between Ruth an' me. As a newcomer tae that neck o' the woods, having only been tae London once when Ah wis very wee, we decided tae go tae Green Park. At that point Ah didnae even know there wis a Green Park. The smallest o' the Royal Parks, it isnae quite as fancy as the bigger names like Hyde or Richmond Park. Still, it is a beautiful 16 hectares o' mature trees an' plenty o' spaces for sitting an' whiling away the hours. Before getting the train frae Ilford tae Liverpool Street an' then tae the side o' the city where Green Park sat, Ruth had done some bargain hunting in a local supermarket. She bought some wee bits an' pieces for a modest picnic. She wis a single parent wae disabilities, an' Ah wis a student. Ah cannae remember whit wis in her bag o' treats aside frae pastrami she had bought under the impression Ah'd had it often due tae mah deeply rooted Italian heritage. Both maternal grandparents were Italian immigrants. Ah had never tried pastrami before. It wis one o' the few cold cut cured meats Ah hadnae. Mainly because it wis more o' an American phenomenon. Whit's no tae love about cooked cured beef slices? Back tae Green Park. Despite it being the smallest, it still felt pretty big. The sun wis brightening things an' shining doon. Though Ah dinnae mind the details, Ah remember that we had a wonderful time just sitting, snacking an' drinking some fizzy juice or bottled water an' people watching. We would look at the other park visitors that day an' take turns imagining whit their life stories were. One gentleman wis on his first date wae his new girlfriend, one couple were in trouble an' trying tae fix their issues, another were trying for a baby. There wis the salesman who wis gearing up tae secure a big contract an' the couple who had been together for 24 years, which is ironically how long Ruth an' Ah will have been married in September. It wisnae a fancy romantic picnic. We didnae dae anything wild or illicit. We didnae even drink any alcohol. We just sat, chatted an' wrote the life stories o' the passersby. It wis one o' mah favourite days frae the early stages o' oor friendship an' relationship. One o' mah favourite days in life in general, though there have been more since. A lot more.
By Paul Stewart4 months ago in Fiction
Here Comes The Sun
It was one of the most inexplicable experiences of Tyler’s life that the most intimate night he had yet to experience involved him lying there, fully clothed, sand ruining a pair of jeans that retailed for a small car payment. She lay next to him, black hair with the hint of a natural curl hanging over exposed shoulders, uncaring that her black Bardot was certainly full of sand, an oddly formal choice to sneak out in that Tyler failed to notice until years after the fact.
By Matthew J. Fromm4 months ago in Fiction
The Cat And The Crow: A Meeting
Introduction The Reiki Cat Ladyshares many wonderful cat images on Facebook and you can follow here here: This one was by Marina Groth. "The Meeting" from the "Crow with a Cat in the City" series and I felt there had to be a story here.
By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred 4 months ago in Fiction
The Mailbox
Joe grabbed the can of bug repellent off the top shelf of the hall closet and donned his jacket. Too cold in late October to just go outside without it. He shook the can slightly to test the contents. Good. It sloshed just enough. No need to buy another can until spring.
By Robert Helwig4 months ago in Fiction
Something in Your Light
Aquaria missed the artistic engineer, who breathed life into his designs, singing his poetry, and giving her a lighthouse soul. She still missed her original clockwork gears from the 1890’s that rotated the beacon light inside the crystalline, multi-faceted, glass Fresnel lens. Like a giant diamond, it reflected light from all the sharp cuts. Sometimes for fun she made the light pulse against the night sky, bright as a sun then like a dim star in the distance. One night local boy Ray Olson was lurking around the lighthouse. Aquaria did her pulsing light display, catching him in a brilliant burst. He ran all the way home. "You've got some imagination. Serves you right," said his mother. But the stories grew and people wondered. "There is something strange about our Aquaria Lighthouse," people in the village would say. "It's haunted." Because she was more than stone and mortar, she missed the personal human element from the times when the lightkeepers wrote by hand in her logbook. When she felt an intuitive connection with people, she warmed the air and floor around them. But only her beloved singing engineer had been intuitive enough to sense the connections. Through the decades, mystical tales about her became part of the local village lore. Aquaria enjoyed hearing the whispered stories. She felt a connection, and she sent warmth into the air around the storytellers. Aquaria’s flashing lighthouse beacon was updated from oil wicks to electricity in the 1930s. Then in the 1980’s she was automated further. Even her logbooks were kept on a computer instead of handwritten. She was decommissioned in 2020, but on her ground floor sat the old computer from back in the 1980s used for the keepers’ daily logbook entries. It was still plugged in and sometimes the old processors made whirring noises during the night when there was no one around to hear it. No one else knew Aquaria had gained access to this technology. Now the lighthouse with a soul even wrote stories on it that no one read. Ghost stories and myths surrounded the slender tower topped by a glass lantern, sitting on a bluff hundreds of feet above the sea. Aquaria's beacon was no longer used, but her fame as a beautiful lady of the sea continued. One night a local person driving along the coastline pulled off the road to watch the stars and the moonlit waves. He swore he saw Aquaria shine her beacon and sweep it across the sea and rocky headlands. The villagers shook their heads and looked at him with sideways eyes when he told them his story. They shared secret glances with each other, raising their eyebrows. Another time someone visited the ground floor of the lighthouse after dark. They thought they saw flickers of amber on the monitor screen when they came into the ground floor room. More rumors of a ghost began to circulate. One hundred and thirty years after Aquaria’s light first shined, tourists often said, “It is almost as if Aquaria is alive with her own personality.” She became a legend. The stories grew. One night a group of teenagers sneaked along the trails to her tower at night. They wanted to find out if there really was a ghost. Their skin tingled when they got close. “Did you hear something?” “No, silly, it is only a wild animal in the bushes.” The clever nerd of the group found a way to open the door to the ground floor of the lighthouse tower. Inside, they looked around. It was like time traveling to the past. “Wow, I bet that’s the same stove they had in the 1890s,” said a young girl’s voice. In one corner sat a black, wood-fired Franklin warming stove. Nearby was a table with a wooden box holding antique books. They spotted the boxy old computer from the 1980s sitting next to the old books. "Old stuff next to the computer. But the computer is at least 40 years old too. Wow." The group felt the impact of the passage of decades and different eras. They paused to process the feelings evoked by this “This is so cool.” “Let me see.” “Get out of my way.” The kids elbowed each other to get a closer look. “Let’s fire this up,” said one of the boys. He pushed the computer’s Power button. They found a 5 ½ inch floppy disk under the dusty computer. “I can’t believe this,” said a girl wearing a baseball cap backward. The squat monitor on top of the CPU box lit up with amber-colored text and numbers rolling and blinking. The group's computer nerd read the scrolling text. "It is a 246. Mid-1980s. Classic." The group stared at this historic machine from about 40 years ago. The girl in the baseball cap found the old plastic mouse and plugged it in. Then she pushed the huge floppy disc into the port. A document appeared on the screen. The air and floor around them started to warm up, but they didn’t notice. At the top, the title said, “The Legend of Aquaria Lighthouse.” The teenagers clustered around the monitor, reading the amber-toned letters that contrasted with the black background. "Who wrote this?" The computer nerd wrinkled his forehead and lifted one eyebrow. The others giggled at his comical face. Then they began reading. Aquaria was created with love by a lonely, artistic engineer, who had the heart of a poet. He imagined infusing her graceful white tower and lantern with life in his passion for her beauty. To him, she was a graceful lady in white, ready to dance with the ocean breezes. When he was nearly finished building her, he sat in the lantern room, high above the sea, like a lover with his beloved, writing poetry about her and singing this song to her. Through the ocean mist, Shining and sun-kissed, Flashing lighted tower, At the midnight hour. Perfumed by salty air, Foggy cloaks you wear, You almost seem alive Each time that I arrive. Something in your light Technology at night Has personality Beyond what I can see.
By M Uzair Khan (UK)4 months ago in Fiction
