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.
I’m glad we have a moment alone. We don’t have long, but I have something very important to ask you. I know it doesn’t look good outside. We have limited resources, and God knows we’re crowded. But there’s a way out for you.
You’re not like the others: you’re smarter. We’re going to need people like you in the future. But with what supplies we have, only ten percent of us can make it. And you need to be one of them.
There’s a bunker below, only a few of us knew about it, and I think I’m the only one left who still knows about it. I’m assembling the best group I can and hunkering down for the long haul.
No, it’s just you. You’ll have to leave them behind. But you’ll survive. Unless you’d rather someone take your place?
No?
Good. 6am. The door will be unlocked.
Hello everyone. First time addressing everyone as a group, I believe. It was lovely getting to speak with you all individually, and to hear your answers to my question.
Happy to answer any questions you might have, although they may be answered by the following:
Yes, I expect that the screaming and banging on the door will stop soon. There’s nothing down there.
Littering was Joe’s biggest pet peeve. He could be having the best day of his life, but the sight of someone lazily dropping trash would put him in a bad mood for hours.
So already stuck in inching traffic, staring at the debris on the side of the road, Joe was on a hair trigger.
The blue car ahead of him, who didn’t give him so much as a wave for letting them merge in front ten minutes ago, rolled down their window. He saw the driver fiddle with something in the centre console. He saw them drop the disposable coffee cup out of the window.
Traffic moved slightly. Enough that Joe could open his door to retrieve the cup. What contents hadn’t been spilled were cold, no longer drinkable and thus discarded.
Joe put it in the cup holder. He’d recycle it later.
Five minutes later, he saw the driver of the blue car drop the remains of a cigarette from the window and found himself unbuckling his seatbelt. A few moments later he approached the blue car on foot. The driver’s window was still open, the driver exhaling after drags of a second cigarette.
The cigarette butt was thrown in first, the movement enough for the distracted driver to turn and notice Joe, holding the coffee cup with his fingertips.
There was a blur. Then searing pain. Then screaming.
Joe returned to his car. Those disposable coffee cups really are the worst, he thought. The lids pop right off, and they barely hold in any heat. Plus they get floppy after a while, so it burns when you try to refill then. He gingerly screwed the lid tightly back onto his half-full thermos. The coffee inside was still too hot to drink, and he’d hate to get himself burned.
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.
⭐⭐
This recipe just didn’t work for me. I followed everything exactly, thought I had to convert the measurements into cups since my measuring cups don’t show millilitres.
The only reason I can think of that mine didn’t work is that I used egg for the binding agent. I was worried about it boiling over before I could put the blood in, but I know I read they work the same.
The demon I summoned only appears in my dreams. He shows me all the ways I could die the next day while laughing. Two stars, since I guess it’s another way to outlive my enemies.
Next time I’ll try a different recipe to summon a vengeance demon.
The ever-growing song I sing to my son, to amuse myself:
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.
Row, row, row your boat
Right across the lake
If you see the Loch Ness monster
don’t forget to quake
Row, row, row your boat
Beside the highway
If you see Fresno Nightcrawlers
don’t forget to bray
Row, row, row your boat
gently down the river
If you see Bigfoot tracks
don’t forget to shiver
Row, row, row your boat
right across the sea
if you hear a siren sing
don’t forget to flee
Row, row, row your boat
under the moonlight
If you see the Mothman flutter
it’s time to say goodnight
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.
Anna had lived there forever
In the house with the light blue door
She offered every new neighbour a hand
but they always wanted more
The Sinclair twins would use her pool
Leaving puddles and towels sprawled
Anna asked them to clean up
But they left when their mother called
Mr Dickson borrowed her power tools
Anna asked for them when they spoke
He eventually replaced them with his own
and pretended he didn’t know how they broke
Ms Lincoln borrowed ingredients
Sugar, flour, peanut butter
but when Anna fell and cried out for help
Ms Lincoln silently closed her shutters
Mrs Kathy took hours of Anna’s time
Complaining about misconduct
But whenever Anna tried to talk in turn
Kathy told her it was rude to interrupt
When the newspapers filled with warnings
Anna told all about her shelter
It had enough room and food for all
As expected of their thankless helper
At midnight the sirens blared
They feared they’d be dead before the dawn
But Anna bid them welcome to her basement
And they waited in the dark for the power to turn on
It was perhaps an hour later
Still waiting for their host to provide
That someone found the door locked
and barred from the outside
Anna carried the key upstairs
and turned off the recording of sirens
perhaps she’d let them out
When she’d had enough peace and silence
Based on an earlier two sentence story
I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten all day, but I knew I had a bag of corn chips saved for myself. I saw it when I put the shopping away, I saw it when I got out the ingredients for dinner, and it was still there when I put them away. With dinner finally in the slow cooker, I grabbed the bag to reward myself, only to find it empty.
Someone in my family not only put it away empty, they put the damned bag clip back on.
Those chips were the only treat I bought for myself. My spouse and children have multiple snacks, but for some reason my food goes first. None of them ever own up to it. My spouse tells me to get over it.
Of course, I have to let it go for now. There’s no time to buy more food, as we’re leaving on holiday early in the morning. My evening is going to be nothing but reminding them to pack, until I give up and pack for them. After all, we’re going to a cabin hours from anywhere, and they won’t be able to just go and grab something they need.
It’s midnight now, and I am the only one awake. The packing list is almost checked off, with only one item remaining.
“medications”
Unscrewing the caps, I empty the bottles into the bin. I’ll show them how much an empty container can hurt.
Most parents jumped at the chance to give their children an advantage.
The government offered free IVF to couples in exchange for the right to run gene experiments prior to implantation. This led to incredible new abilities, the most common being genius-level intellect. Some went beyond expectations, gaining telepathy or telekinesis.
But playing God has a cost, and no one paid more dearly than the parents of the first baby who did not need to sleep.
Sketched Text 