Tag: short story

Locked

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It was not Phillip’s job to pay attention to the guests.

His sole duty was to patrol the grounds surrounding the house and prevent anyone from passing through the gardens.

He tried not to pay attention to who arrived, how they were dressed, or how many entered through the large doors.

Despite his attempts to ignore the guests, Phillip heard their laughter as they approached the house. He saw the invitations held tightly in the hands of beautiful people and heard laughter and familiar conversations about who would be there and how long the party might go for.

He had done this job for decades, night after night. His pay had not risen in all that time. The same amount delivered as a cheque in his mail box every day, regardless of whether the post had arrived. He never saw who delivered it.

It was 7:02 and Phillip made certain that he was around the side of the house, hidden from view by the immaculately trimmed bush. He heard her laughter, heard the scuff of shoes on gravel as she nearly tripped in unfamiliar heels. If he stepped out, she would greet him cheerfully. She would be wearing her mother’s red dress and the necklace he bought her for her birthday. But he refused.

His daughter had been invited to the party.

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Unobserved

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The moment is coming.

I know it will be fleeting, but weeks of preparation have gone into this and I will hold onto these few seconds for years.

The bags previously stores in the boot of my car were thrown away miles back. The ID was burned in a service station bin. I pulled into a hairdresser in a town so small that I don’t believe it extended even one layer away from the highway. I asked for something new. I wonder if I will like it when I next look at myself.

I have pulled over at a crossroads. The road here is blanketed in red dust, then occasional vehicle kicking up clouds of the stuff. It is perfect.

It has been five minutes since I last saw a car drive past. I have kept watch over the four directions the crossroads go. The small cloud will soon disappear out of eyesight, and so I will be alone.

I will, for one moment, be completely unobserved. I will be only myself.

I cannot guess how long that moment will stretch. Perhaps it will be hours before someone new comes down this road. It could be seconds. It could still be interrupted, I remind myself as I scan the horizon again.

It is time. The last car is gone and I am alone.

I smile brightly in that moment. I am nowhere and no one and I am myself.

I wonder how long this moment will last – when will the next car pass? When will I become a part of the world again, even if only in a stranger’s periphery?

For now I am by myself. I look at my reflection in the car’s rear windshield as I push it off the road. It is a vision only I will ever see. I wonder what direction the new me will take? Who will pick me up and how long will it take to realise that their passenger is gazing at them with their own smile?

The car rolls down the hill, the memories of a five-year life going with it. It is time for a fresh start as someone new.



Three Sentence Stories (Part 11)

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I told everyone the truth about what I had seen the day the child disappeared from the park. Much like his mother, I saw him enter the slide, but never saw him emerge.

The only bit I left out is the part I hope his mother did not hear: the awful sounds of chewing and swallowing.

It’s been difficult, learning to live alone. My mother had forbidden me from learning anything that might lead to independence and departure. I was only recently allowed to boil the jug and make tea, which I excitedly did, adding just enough sedatives to seem like an accident.

There were only enough supplies for one of us to survive the winter. We were trapped, isolated in the wilderness at the edge of a harsh winter that would trap us here.

Of course, I was the one who had planned it that way.

Track

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They had set out on their walk that morning, smiling at each other in the sunshine. They were caught in the rain the moment they were out of sight of their cars. It had fallen hard enough that they sought shelter, hiding beneath a large tree. Pulling their hoods down, he had insisted that they keep going despite her joking protests. So, hunched and laughing they had headed out into the rain.

They had been walking for hours. On their right side was thick, impenetrable bush and on their left was a clear and still lake.
Every time she asked how far they were from the car, he told her they would be there soon. But they never arrived.

Soon she began to recognise landmarks, passing every few hours like clockwork. When they sped up or slowed down, the path followed a clear routine.

She recognised the fallen tree that they had passed when they originally joined the path, but the bush blocked where the car park should be. She tried to stop and climb through, but it was too thick to even get her hand through. They sat on the log, a hand on her shoulder nudging her to get up after some time had passed. She stared at the path as they walked, trying to ignore the sight and focusing on the sounds of rainfall and her companion’s steps beside her.

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Definite

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It was Ben who insisted that they play with the Ouija board he had brought to the sleepover. He claimed he found it in a deserted building site, despite its near-mint condition. Plus, they were ten and Adam was pretty sure he stole that story from when they saw Jumanji a few weeks before. Regardless, the four young boys had gathered around, strategically dimming lights for the right ambience.

Adam had smiled and laughed with the others as the planchette began moving, convinced it was his friends playing with him. At one point he tried to spell something funny, but found he could not alter its path. He had stopped laughing then, but the others did not seem to notice. They asked a series of questions about crushes and dead relatives.

Then Ben asked how he would die.

MOTORBIKE

Nine years later, Ben died in a horrible crash. He had never been one for safety gear, so the long smear of blood on the road was what led the emergency responders to find his body in the bushes, 50 metres from the bike.

Adam’s best friend, Josh had also asked, a little less jokingly.

CANCER

Despite making his best efforts to lead a healthy life, Josh was diagnosed with brain cancer during his first year at university. Against all odds he had gone into remission, but nothing anyone said could convince him it would not come back again. Two years later, he was proven right. There was only a month between the diagnosis and the funeral.

David then asked, egged on by the others.

DROWNING

Really, the aneurysm would have killed him if it had happened anywhere except the bath.

Adam had not wanted to ask. But to his young mind it would be unfair and shameful to refuse to ask, regardless of how scared he was.

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A Good Likeness

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It was hardly his magnum opus, the critics agreed, but the painting of the artist’s wife was still put on full display in the gallery.

The next day, the newspaper published a short article about the artist who had dedicated a year of his life perfecting his wife’s likeness. Beside the article was a picture of the artist and his wife beside the painting. His wife was undeniably gorgeous, smiling with her head tilted at the perfect angle for the shot.

No one who attended the opening noticed that his wife did not speak that night. Many, however, noticed that the portrait was, for some reason, much less attractive than the living subject. Whereas the artist’s wife looked somehow younger than she had on their wedding day, the portrait was of a woman who had begun to show signs of her age. Laughter lines and crows feet had begun to creep over the painted face. Grey hair had begun to spread through chestnut locks. Her posture was slumped as though exhausted.

There was also the issue of the expression. She looked much more reserved than the beaming woman on the artist’s arm. Despite this, critics noted a sharpness in the eyes, as though she was keenly aware of a viewer’s presence.

But the artist drank and accepted compliments, all the while proudly holding onto his smiling wife. His wife who would never age, never speak, and never disappoint him.

In the coming years, people paid less and less attention to the painting. Its expression changed so slowly that no one noticed the creeping look of horror on her face.

On the day the painting was retired, the curator wondered why on earth an artist would paint a portrait of his wife screaming in terror.

An Awakening

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Dave awoke in the middle of the forest, bloody and dazed. His clothes were ragged and every muscle that didn’t cramp deeply ached.

He could not quite remember the night before. He had been drinking. Then he had been yelling. His friends had tried to quieten him, but having started drinking at dawn, dusk found him feeling invincible.

His friends sat around the campfire, telling stories about monsters and ghosts. Dave had settled in to heckle, his friends finding this to be enough of an improvement to not put much energy into quietening him. None of them knew who had invited Dave, so when he declared that it was his turn to tell a story, each of them expected someone else to rein him in.

It was a drunken slur of words, but the gist was “fuckin’ werewolves, they’re the coolest“. Dave then showed off the bitemark on his shin, claiming that he had been bitten by something on a forest path weeks ago. It did not look cursed to anyone there. It looked infected, but Dave insisted he had put enough vodka on it to keep it clean. Once he had heard enough murmured appreciation, Dave returned his attention to finishing the beer he had brought for the group.

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The Planner

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Hal washed his hands thoroughly before sitting at the desk. He looked through the “To-Do” list, ticking off the completed items. It was hard to concentrate, but he re-checked the day’s agenda to see if he had missed any.

  • Remove rotten sections. Check. He’d done the bulk of the work with a saw, but he’d made sure to get into the smaller sections with a craft knife.
  • Sand. Check. It had taken three sheets of course paper to get the entire surface done.
  • Scour. Check. The steel wool was almost in pieces by the time he was done and he had used up most of the bottle of bleach.

Hal sighed and leaned back. The creator of the list had clearly had some fun putting it in alphabetical order, but it did not seem like the easiest way to get everything done. Still, he would follow the list to the letter.

He checked the remaining items:

  • Segment
  • Throttle
  • Throw away
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The Woman at my Door

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There is the outline of a woman through my front door. Every few minutes I hear her shuffle and knock again. I do not open the door.

Since living alone I had gotten into the habit of peering through the curtains of the front bay window to check who was visiting me before answering the door. Tonight that habit has certainly saved my life.

What looked like a woman from the front went very wrong from the side.

The legs are bent backwards while the thin torso is hunched to hide unexpected height. I watch quietly as it knocks and notice that the arm is connected much closer to its stomach than shoulder. It sways slightly, trying to keep balance in this awkward position.

I am unable to stop myself from peeking at it. It is a mound of features so madly put together that I cannot comprehend how it can be standing there. I try to see its face, unsure of whether a human or monstrous face would be better. It is simply a featureless mound.

I see movement from the torso and duck back behind the curtain. It does not knock and I wait in silence for several minutes before looking again.

There is the outline of a woman through my bay window. Its face now stares at me and I had guessed very wrongly about where that would be.

Two Sentence Stories (Part 11)

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There was yet another “help wanted” sign in the butcher’s window. This time it went unanswered, as word spread that they never took deliveries.

He plunged the knife into the blanketed figure on the bed. He realised too late that the recipient was far too soft to be a real body: he already felt a knife stab through his foot from under the bed.

It is so much cheaper to pay out a life insurance policy than to pay for a lifetime disability. For this reason, each bottle of wine was accompanied by a “Get Well Soon!” card had an imperceptible syringe hole through the cork.