Tag: fiction

Scarecrow

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The scarecrow was the first change I made when I moved into my new home. I had no intention to maintain the vegetable garden my predecessor had cultivated, so why not cultivate friendship?

It was heavier than I thought it would be, likely from the rain. As I stood on the ladder, hoisting the sodden body off the post, I saw the first crow land in a tree nearby. I don’t think they were ever scared of it. They were simply clever enough to see that they were unwanted.

I had planned to tear the scarecrow apart to dispose of it in pieces over time. Then I thought about the legacy of rain that thing had withstood and the mould likely hiding inside, and left it to rot against the fence at the far side of the property.

The post was a separate issue. It had been cemented in, and the wood had been treated so it did not show signs of weakening or rot. I put it down the list of jobs that needed doing, and placed a piece of bread at its base as a peace offering.

The next day, the bread was missing and I saw two crows in the tree. Where the bread had been was a single button. It was blue and plastic, but unscratched and shiny. I picked it up and replaced it with a handful of peanuts. A chorus of caws sounded, that I interpreted as approving.

The gifts continued to be a novelty, for a time. Coins, buttons, an earring, pens.

The glass eye was the end of that time.

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Instructions

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Do you ever start a project, like cooking or sewing where you read the instructions, then forget them the moment you put them down? Confidently starting, then having to unfold the pamphlet, reopen the book, or pull the packet out from the bin?

It’s incredibly frustrating, so this time, Theo concentrates. He cleans his hands, makes what little space he can on the table, and opens the book. He finds the current step, reads through the rest and closes the book.

Then he focuses on the next step, with unblinking eyes and a steady hand.

Then he

Shit.

Theo grumbles to himself, rolls his eyes, and reaches for Gray’s Anatomy for the fourth time.

Memento Mori

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She brought him a hot drink
to place among other cups,
cold and filled to the brim.
Easily distracted, despite reminders,
he never drank enough to kill him.

She asked him to drive to the shops
while she stayed late at work,
to fetch dinner – maybe steaks.
But he ordered delivery
and never noticed the cut brakes.

She left him at home with traps on the stairs,
trusting his inattention to not notice
a roller-skate, toy cars, balls and a sled.
She returned to see it all unmoved,
He never came down from bed.

The life insurance would give her a new life,
free of boredom, drudgery, tedium.
Free from a husband who paid no attention.
But her plan was destined to fail:
her husband had forgotten to pay the premium.

Two Sentence Stories (part 25)

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Hearing the birds landing on the roof, Joe smiled at his perfected business model: selling people pet birds that were trained to return to him.

Sleeping soundly, Joe did not smell the smoke or feel the flames that spread from the device tied to the pigeon’s leg.

The seating chart was terrible and made no sense to anyone but the host, who insisted everyone take their seat and raise a toast.

Michael, Olivia, Liam, Omar, Charles and Helen all raised their glasses.

Three Sentence Stories (part 13)

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My neighbour started a new business of renting out his goats to clear weeds from overgrown properties. Seeing his success, I based mine off the same model.

Pigs really will eat anything, and housing can get overcrowded.

In the grocery aisle’s blindspot, the conman poured a puddle of water, disposed of the bottle, and carefully laid down.

Moments later, the manager helped him melodramatically hobble into the office to await the ambulance, though the conman insisted he could take a taxi to the hospital if given funds to cover the trip and bills.

When the ambulance finally arrived, they found the conman with a broken kneecap and the manager apologetic that there weren’t cameras in the aisle or his office.

Tourist Attraction

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The temple was famous for the sound produced when the wind blew through. A faint kind of wail, almost like choral singing.

Sarah stayed as long as her tour allowed, but the sounds of other tourists kept her from hearing it clearly. She’d hoped to record some of the sound for herself. Her frustration must have been visible, because the tour guide offered to bring her back after hours if she paid extra. Sarah immediately agreed.

Standing in the courtyard that evening, Sarah was finally able to hear the sound without interruption. It was not a continuous noise as she’d thought. It rose and fell in intensity, but not in relation to the speed of the wind. In a moment of stillness, the noise continued, much fainter.

There were words within it.

Help me

Hel-

Sarah woke in darkness, the only light from a vent above which flickered open when the wind blew. Around her, starving figures screamed towards snatched glances at the sky. Below her lay the bodies of those who had fallen silent.

Sarah screamed.

Unheeded

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There is power in the unheeded.

Agreements hidden in the introduction to a recipe, skipped over and agreed without perusal. You have agreed to take on the burden of that witch’s anxiety, shared between you and anyone else who makes her kale and zucchini bread. It had 3 reviews and was on the second page of the search results. Consider medication.

Minutes of your life are stolen between the last time you looked at your watch and when you look at your car’s clock. You’re certain it didn’t take you five minutes to put on your shoes and walk to the car. You are right. You have personally added two weeks to the lich’s lifespan.

The dreams you forget are the best ones. You probably didn’t deserve them, anyway. Gregory the Night Thief deserves them. You deserve restless sleep and dry mouth.

Actually, that might be the anxiety talking.

You should share that recipe.

Covers

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It was a simple but clever display, Marsha thought. A dozen sculptures, all hollow, made of cloth and glue. Each looked like it was fabric draped over a famous sculpture – the kind of works the museum could never dream of housing.

It was a popular display too. People enjoyed guessing which sculpture was meant to be underneath. Marsha’s favourite guess was from the middle aged man who insisted to his teenage daughter that the outline of Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’ was one of those Ronald McDonald sculptures they used to put on benches.

There was concern about damage from the public. Being hollow, the sculptures were fragile and very light. They were also unsteady: the artist gave them uneven bases, where the fabric did not quite reach the ground. This let the audience see that there was nothing underneath, but meant that some were a little wobbly.

Marsha was locking up that night. She collected her purse from the office, then walked through the gallery to the exit. She held her keys in her hand – Marsha’s manager already locked the doors an hour ago when she turned the main lights out. Marsha had stayed behind to count the till and close up the gift shop. In the dim light from the front door and the exit signs, walking through the room of draped figures felt like passing a ballroom of frozen ghosts.

Entering the room, Marsha felt something was wrong.

Halfway through, she realised what the problem was.

She continued at the same pace, trying not to let any outward signs show. She forced herself to hum, rather than hyperventilate or cry out.

Trembling, she unlocked the front door, looking at her reflection to see if anything approached her from behind. Once she was outside and the door was locked again, Marsha bent down and pretended to tie up a zippered boot.

There were now 13 sculptures – one more than there should be. And from her low vantage point, Marsha could see there was nothing under any of them. Someone must have snuck in their own work, she deduced.

Now that she knew it wasn’t an intruder hiding under a sheet, Marsha stood up and looked more carefully. She had to press her face against the glass, cupping her hands around her face to block out the streetlights.

Scanning the familiar shapes, Marsha frowned. It was obvious immediately, because it was so plain. Slightly shorter than the others, it was an outline of a person standing straight, with their arms at their sides. A less-skilled copycat, then. Not the artist adding a late contribution.

Marsha got her phone out of her purse to take a photo. Looking through the screen, she gasped. It looked closer.

Looking up from the phone, she was certain it was. The sculpture was now placed at the edge of the entry carpet.

Marsha took one step back. The figure took one step forward.

Marsha ran, and did not look back to see if it followed.

The next morning there were twelve sculptures again, and Marsha did not offer to lock up for the duration of the exhibition.

Direction

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Ethan was immediately obsessed with the ballerina. He sat too far back to make out her features, but her fluid movements, weightless leaps and unceasing smile reached him from across the theatre.

Rose was delighted that he had enjoyed the show, as he had been so reluctant to attend when she suggested it. She laughed when he approached the ticket booth to purchase tickets for the next night’s performance. She stopped when he purchased only one.

Ethan hardly noticed Rose’s swift withdrawal from him. He only wanted to see her.

The programme had only her first name: Marion. 

The next night, Ethan sat as close to the front as possible, waiting for the lights to dim before darting forward four rows to place himself in an empty seat in the front row.

His fear of being ousted was immediately forgotten when Marion glided onto the stage. Ethan was still not quite able to see her face clearly. Though as close as possible, it seemed that the orchestra pit pushed the front row back further than normal. Still, her smile was apparent to all, her movements in perfect tempo.

The only annoyance to Ethan was that some member of the orchestra was using a metronome. The clicking was faint, but noticeable in the lulls.

After the performance, Ethan joined the dozens of fans waiting at the doors of the theatre for the Marion to sign autographs and greet her fans. A cheer erupted when she appeared at a balcony above them, smiling as an attendant worriedly kept her from the edge. She stood only at the edge of the doorway, the light behind her crafting a perfect silhouette. She even waved perfectly, turned her gaze to each person below.

Ethan gasped when she looked at him. He knew it was different than it was for anyone else. Years from now, he knew she would recall seeing him for the first time. She would laugh about gazing at him a moment longer than all the others and sigh as she spoke about knowing he was the one.

He just had to give her the chance.

It took weeks to learn the choreography of the theatre itself. What is seen on stage is only a fraction of the machine hidden behind sets and curtains. But Ethan was patient. He learned who did not pay attention and who could be paid to lack attention. He learned which hallways went to the dressing rooms, then learned that Marion’s room was next to the producer’s office.

Ethan would save her from that impropriety, he decided. The producer, from what he saw, kept busy. He was always in the rafters, demanding lighting and any hanging props be moved.

Ethan did not see Marion in that time, except on stage and at the balcony attached to her room. He decided that he would need to approach her before her performance, and before she was somehow transported past her fans without being spotted.

As he approached the door, the producer was in the rafters, dealing with a light Ethan had shifted.

It wasn’t locked, as though Marion had known he’d need to enter quietly. He wondered if she was already packed, waiting to be saved.

He found her asleep at her vanity. She had fallen forward as though modelling sleep. Ethan called her name softly. Marion remained still.

Ethan knew what to do. He walked forward confidently and embraced her.

As Ethan wrapped his arms around the hunched figure, two things happened in unison: the bell calling for the audience go take their seats rang, and Ethan realised something was wrong. The arms under his did not yield. No gasp or breath escaped the body he compressed. Her hair was immaculate, yet he felt loose hairs like spider webs across his skin.

Over the pealing bell, Ethan heard the quiet chorus of ticks as Marion’s joints tightened and she began to stand. What he thought were gossamer hairs tightened around him. Strings pulled Marion to a standing position, straining with the extra weight of Ethan for a moment. Then the pieces fell away from her.

Marion’s painted smile never faltered, and her glass eyes never blinked as she walked to the stage. She would not understand the horror at her dripping form. It was not what she was made for.

As he lay bleeding on the floor, Ethan knew that that he should not have looked so closely at perfection.

The Letter

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Luke tried to make every birthday the best day he could for Sasha. It wasn’t easy after her mother’s passing, but he did his best to keep distract her from who was missing. It never worked. Every birthday ended the same: with a letter.

One letter from Sarah for every year her daughter grew up without her. A handwritten expression of love, grief, pride and hopes. Who she imagined her daughter would be at this age, age-appropriate advice, and stories from the few years they’d had together.

It didn’t matter if they were surrounded by friends and relatives, out all day or even on a holiday, Sasha would get her letter. She used to ask Luke to read it to her when she was too young, and she still passed the sealed envelope to him as part of the tradition.

Every year, Luke forced his voice to stop shaking as he read. He tried not cry at details only Sarah knew about their lives together. He read it loudly in order to drown out Sarah’s narration in his mind, the letter perfectly matching her mannerisms.

Luke dreaded the day Sasha moved out and spent a birthday without him there to read it to her. He had an equal fear that she would sooner find out how her mother had died.

It had been sudden and unexpected. It had left Sarah no way to say goodbye to her husband and young child.

But every year, the letter appeared under Sasha’s pillow.