Tag: writing

An Anniversary

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Our loved ones come to visit
For one raucous night each year
With creaking limbs to dance with us
And familiar smiles from ear to ear

They never do look quite right
Not quite what we remember
But we greet and embrace them all
Our long-lost, well-loved family members

Anne’s grandpa walked with a cane
But tonight he seems quite spry
Unfurling his crooked spine
She laughs as he lifts her to the sky

Roy’s wife had beautiful eyes
Shining, like a new penny
And as he meets her smiling gaze
He can’t recall her having so many

The barman was a large man
Muscled and barrel-chested
Now from his torso spouted beer
Twas superb, the drinkers attested

Mother sang sweet as a bird
Her voice now comes like a wave
Singing about next year’s crops
As I help her step out of her grave

For only one night each year
Never more but rarely less
We celebrate with the dead
Before we put them all back to rest

It is known by all who live
That death comes with morning light
So reunite with weapons close
They only recall us that first night

Solipsism

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It’s been weeks since I saw a human face.

I can still feel them, sometimes. When I walk through streets that should be busy, I feel figures knocking into my shoulders. I tripped over a warm space on the ground and landed on a towel and backpack that looked well-used.

I heard my roommate in the windowless bathroom yesterday, but when I broke through the locked door, no one was there. I tried to feel around for her, but then I heard the front door slam. Her towel was gone, and there were wet footprints on the carpet.

I’ve been using the self-checkout at the store, but I don’t have much money left. It’s not like there’s any point showing up for my retail job.

I tried to walk out of the empty store without paying once, but felt hands on my shoulders. I had to shake them off and hurried home.

I don’t know where everyone went. If I look out of my window for long enough, I swear I can still see shadows moving along the empty streets. Sections of darkness that cross the roads when the empty cars stop.

There was a pounding on the front door this morning. I answered it in blind hope, but there was no one there. Then I was grabbed and led roughly to an empty car outside.

I am in an empty room now. Meals appear through a door that opens by itself. The sheets change themselves whenever I go outside for a walk.

There is a TV high up on the wall. There is no one at the newscaster’s desk, but the scrolling headlines still appear. Something about a disease “manifesting as solipsism”.

It’s a shame there’s no one to explain to me what that means.

Last Call

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It was dark outside. It had been sunset when he had entered the bar, but this darkness was more than midnight.

There were no signs of the dingy street outside. No streetlights, no headlights passing by, bathroom windows lighting up regretfully. It was a pure and relentless void.

He had drunk until he fell asleep in the corner booth. He was there often enough that the owners wouldn’t kick him out unless someone raised a fuss. Walking unsteadily around the bar, he couldn’t see or hear anyone else inside.

He moved towards the front, peering through the large glass panel in the door, between the bars.

Pure darkness. He put his hand against the glass to steady himself, pulling away when he realised how cold it felt. Then he finally saw something in the window: a crack, steadily spreading as the darkness pressed itself towards him.

Two Sentence Stories (Part 16)

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As the MRI machine started up, he hoped they would finally put their finger on the cause of his digestive issues, so that his spouse would stop bothering him to get tested. Hours later, the workers cleaning the viscera from the machine scraped together dozens of tiny ball-bearings.

She had bragged to everyone about her well-stocked bunker, so it was no surprise that when the sirens rang the entire neighbourhood piled in. After the sirens shut off, they realised one-by-one that their benefactor was not among them and that the door was locked from the outside.

He ran through his list once again: doors locked, windows shut, alarm on, family in bed. This house would be a challenge, but he’d crack it.

A Dark Path

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There were the sounds of panic
In the moment she had slipped
But the child searched in the dark
Until he felt his mother’s grip

This forest is much too dark
She had very often warned
And too dangerous to walk
Between the sunset and the dawn

But they had stayed late in town
And needed to travel home
And though the path was obscured
The gently-led child was not alone.

They walked in complete silence
Hand in hand, footsteps in sync
He pictured monsters watching
Staring from shadows dark as ink

He questioned when they turned left
Down a path unfamiliar
But mother lay dead miles back
And the silent guide did not answer.

Drifting

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She had arrived earlier that day
Weary and lost, exhausted and nervous
They had kindly offered her a place to stay
Provided she came to their service

She agreed and happily met the preacher
Who showed an icon of their God
A statue of a dripping creature
She laughed at what she thought was fraud

The boat is gently pushed from the dock
She sits still in her seat, face grim
Terrified as the boat gently rocks
Her limbs tied so she cannot swim

The boat floats to the centre of the water
Following a deep and unseen tide
From the shore she hears chatter and laughter
And there is torchlight on all sides

She had sought safe harbour
but knows now she will never leave
And as boat rocks harder
she sees something stir beneath

Bump

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Pete had never been a slim man, so when he gained a few kilos he hardly noticed. A few more and he started to blame Christmas and New Years celebrations. Weirdly the only physical change was a swollen stomach, but that was not large enough to justify the extra kilos on the scales.

A few more weeks and even his most polite friends started expressing their concerns. He just slapped his expanding gut and joked about needed to run off some baby weight at the gym.

In private, he chose to ignore the growth. He hardly looked in the mirror, walking directly from the shower to cupboard to find some previously baggy clothes to wear.

He had convinced himself that it could not be too bad, as he had felt no pains, although he could swear he felt it shift sometimes. He refused to see a doctor, telling loved ones not to worry, that he would go if it got more serious. In his mind, the uncertainty that only flared up when he thought about it was better than living with the constant reminder of a death sentence that a doctor might give him.

The pain started below dawn. It was quick.

Pete lay in his bed, on his side. His stomach had burst, but he was unable to moved. He lay in a pool of his own cooling blood, paralysed by the pain. He looked at the phone on the nightstand, and impossible arm’s reach away. He heard skittering beneath the bed and saw a glimpse of something that stared back at him, before hiding again.

It had his eyes.

Two Sentence Stories (Part 15)

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It was absolutely mortifying, coming home from preschool with the wrong child. Still, looking at the label on their clothes, this one’s parents could afford the ransom just the same.

She wasn’t sure what kind of creature ate the scraps she left in the backyard, but she liked the gifts they left. Her favourites were the bones, spending hours comparing them against her mother’s human anatomy textbooks.

Hearing the echo in the cave had been fun at first, but now he was in loop: “Help!” “Help!” “Help!” “Help!”
He swore that as he stayed in the dark, his replies quieter and quieter, that the echo was now moving towards the exit.

A Helping Hand

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The steam had set off the smoke alarm for the third time that morning.

Tom had only rented the carpet cleaner for 6 hours and was starting to get frustrated. He could not simply remove the batteries in the alarms, as they were hardwired into the electricity. He could not just ignore them either. Between the night of celebrating his last evening with his parents and the long drive to his new home, his head was pounding and the alarms were only making things worse.

Tom looked through his supplies, for something that could help. Pulling out a packet of something yellow and rubbery, he had an idea.

Several minutes and too many rickety chair climbs later, the alarms were now all wearing rubber gloves. Fully covered, the alarms did not sound again while he finished cleaning the carpets.

On his way out to return the steam cleaner, Tom high-fived one of the hanging gloves. He swore he felt resistance in the empty rubber.

Later, finishing unloading his furniture, Tom forgot completely to take the gloves back off. They surprised him each time he entered a room, seeing a disembodied hand, but then he found them amusing. He was nowhere near the stage of cooking for himself, so he did not worry about the alarms being unavailable.

Tom slept deeply that night, unaware that his fallen covers were pulled back up over him as he shivered in his sleep.