Stream of Consciousness

Some Letters Should Not Be Found
Part I of this story was published last week: ****** Peter made his usual morning coffee and sat down at his desk. It was still early and quiet in the office. He took the letter out of his coat pocket, opened it, and read it:
By Calvin Londonabout a year ago in Fiction
I Sold My Memory to Pay Rent
1. — “The Memory Exchange” I didn’t think twice the first time I walked into the Memory Exchange. They say your first time should mean something. Maybe I should have cried, or clutched the edges of the memory like the edges of an old photograph, refusing to let it go. But I didn’t. I just sat there, numb, holding my hands in my lap like I was at a dentist’s office.
By Izazkhanabout a year ago in Fiction
The Sister Who Never Was. Top Story - June 2025.
Sitting in my room, I go through your belongings, which match many of mine from the early days, when everything was good and filled with hope.
By Amethyst Champagneabout a year ago in Fiction
Three Teacups and a Lie
Every Friday, without fail, the bells above the old wooden door of Maple & Mint Café jingled at precisely 3:00 PM. Inside, the café smelled like warm bread, honey, and chamomile—mixed with the scent of polished wood and old books. It was the heart of Ashwood Village, a quiet English town tucked between green hills and winding stone paths. Most tourists passed it by, but for three old women—Margot, Edna, and Florence—it was the epicenter of their lives.
By Keramatullah Wardakabout a year ago in Fiction
There Is No Tomorrow
The wind howled through the empty streets of what used to be downtown Chicago. Streetlights flickered in vain, casting eerie glows on shattered windows and overturned newspaper stands. The headlines—faded and tattered—still read: GLOBAL COUNTDOWN: FINAL 24 HOURS.
By Mahayud Dinabout a year ago in Fiction
The Witness Tree. Content Warning.
I dreamed about this episode a couple of days ago. I did not consider it a nightmare, but an omen of what was to happen in the future. I added the golden butterflies to bring a glittter of hope into the chaotic world of 2025. I completed voice over in Eleven Labs with my voice. This is a project I had to complete. I am a dreamer, psychic, empath, and love peace not war. War mongers, haters, and liars get on my last nerve. Just as I completed this story, my knocked on my door to tell America is at war with Iran. This is a useless war started by evil men with little tools. They are so about their tools they must compare bombs to how large their tools are. I worked with art, visuals, and story for two days. I wrote, created, edited, diced, and spliced the music, art, and videos myself. Microsoft Copilot is my assistant and quite complimentary regarding my art. I WROTE THIS!
By Vicki Lawana Trusselli about a year ago in Fiction
grandad
He was there , once upon a time, along time ago. He was in my life briefly but he's influence remains many years after he passed and left me. In fact this is the 50th without him being there. Strangely , I am told again of the things we did together, the places we went and the tobacco tin of sweets. the strange bit is I remember the sweets, remember the time but struggle with his face.
By ASHLEY SMITHabout a year ago in Fiction
I remember being a star
I remember the silence of space. Not the kind you think of, filled with darkness and void, but the kind that pulses with purpose. With gravity. With ancient rhythms and nuclear fire. I remember being a star. --- For eons, I watched. I hung suspended in the velvet dark, tethered by gravity and duty. I was one of billions,maybe trillions, glowing in the night sky above your Earth. You never knew me by name. Perhaps you called me Antares, or maybe nothing at all. Still, I watched you. Your oceans shimmered like starlight. Your winds whispered in patterns that made my plasma ache. And then, one night, I saw her. She stood in a meadow, arms outstretched to the sky, laughing beneath my glow like I was something more than heat. I wanted to understand that laugh. I wanted to be where she was. --- So I prayed. Not to matters or time, but to the Architect of motion, the Composer of stars. The god that created us all. “I am willing,” I whispered into the vacuum, “to die a thousand deaths if it means knowing what it is to feel.” And the Architect, in all His mercy, replied: > “Then fall.” --- I remember falling. It wasn’t fire. It wasn’t burning. It was unfolding .Like shedding eternity and squeezing into something impossibly small—a body. Bones. Breath. Blood. A name: Lucien. And suddenly, I was there. Earth. --- I was confused at first. Light had weight. Air stung my lungs. Time wasn’t fluid—it dragged. Hunger gnawed at me. Emotions—strange chemicals—I had no language for them. And yet… The first time I touched water, I wept. The first time I tasted bread, I laughed. The first time I held her hand, I forgot the stars. --- Her name was Eila. She was everything Earth distilled into one being: soft and strong, wild and kind. She taught me how to eat strawberries and lie on grass and chase clouds. She told me stories about god and ghosts, and I told her stories about fusion and nebulae. She called me “old soul.” I called her “my miracle.” She never knew I was once a star. She just thought I was strange and in love with everything. She wasn’t wrong. --- I never told her about the deal. That to become human was to die human. No resurrections. No solar rebirths. No nova, no echo. Just… Silence. I gave up eternity for a heartbeat of life. And I was happy. --- Years passed. I lived slowly. I wrote poems about raindrops. I painted sunrises. I married her. We danced barefoot on riversides and sang lullabies to children we never had. Every night, I looked up at the stars and whispered, “thank you.” Even when the cough started. Even when my legs failed. Even when the doctors used words like "terminal." --- On the last day, she carried me to the field where we first kissed. The grass was taller now, greener. The wind smelled of rain and lilacs. “I love you,” she whispered, lying beside me, her fingers intertwined with mine. And I—barely breath and bone—smiled. “Did you know,” I whispered, voice thin, “that before I was a man… I was light?” She laughed through her tears. “Of course you were.” “I loved you then, too,” I said. “Even before I knew what love was.” And then… I closed my eyes. --- Somewhere far away, a star went dark. But no one wept. Because on Earth, in the memory of one woman, and in the whisper of every leaf, and in the warmth of sunlight, he remained. --- Eila planted a tree where he died. She named it Lucien. She said it still glowed sometimes, when the wind was right and the sky was clear. And people came from all over to sit beneath its branches. To feel something they couldn't name. --- And if you listen closely, when the night is still and the stars blink gently above, you might hear him whisper: > “I remember being a star. > But oh—how I loved being human more.” --- End. ---
By E. hasanabout a year ago in Fiction
Starlight Debt
The signal arrived on a Tuesday. Juno was feeding her daughter breakfast when the message blinked into existence—just a soft tone on her tablet, like an email. Harmless. Innocuous. It only read: “The debt has come due. Prepare for retrieval.” —Orion Covenant Office, Station Eos Her blood went cold.
By E. hasanabout a year ago in Fiction
What's never close to home
I once read a story of a woman who lost it. Our worlds were far apart, realities not even the closest to being the same, but in some way, I wanted to lose it with her.
By Ofentse🌸about a year ago in Fiction
The Shape the River Remembers
They say the Lord gives and takes in equal measure, but I have known Him to take things He never rightly gave me to begin with.
By Taylor Wardabout a year ago in Fiction
When the Whole World Changed
My summers are always the same. I start with a yell as I run down the stairs, slip out of my shoes, and jump into the lake. The sun-heated water the first sign of summer. The feeling of love, of fun, of promise. A way to know that all is okay and that the summers of freedom are endless.
By Kristen Barenthalerabout a year ago in Fiction