As he gripped the wheel of his pearl-white Porsche, a dark idea was taking shape in the mind of Harrison Quinn. “I must end it all…” The gloom deepened to a point of madness as he drove. Then, just as his desperation became unbearable, panic burning, he saw a hitchhiker in the distance. Harrison felt […]
School taught me all kinds of useless things, but a class on how to be a haunt would have offered value beyond measure. Evaporating from humanity is paralyzing, like the feeling you get upon losing your wallet; panicked, stuck…still you, but no way to prove it. An oyster escorted me into the hereafter. The slippery […]
My best friend died last month. I’m still struggling to deal with her death, but I know I’m making progress. I imagine myself on the banks of a river, looking across the river as it cuts through a city where there are innumerable little lights in distant buildings, and so many buildings themselves, rising up […]
My sister is the one I miss the most. We had been close our whole lives, barely ever apart until now. She is my junior by just over a year but a lot of the time she feels older than me, sometimes as old as the universe itself. It seems to me as though she […]
Toby lies in pyjamas on the dew-damp lawn, tearing up grass. His eyes follow an ant as it surmounts a toppled dandelion, hauling a grain of rice spilled at last night’s silent supper. Toby grabs another tuft and observes his giant’s hand once more shake the creature from its landscape. Toby’s hungry but Mum’s in […]
Everyone around her grew larger; their shadows looming over her were thicker and their voices more pronounced. It was a day like any other—until it wasn’t. Her parents were in front of the TV, where Amanda saw hurried figures in turquoise costumes and blue masks covering their mouths. A shadow came up to her, the […]
They have no idea what I have been through. I am strong, I am resilient, I have been nothing and now I am everything. No words can hurt me. No stones can break me. Even the voices on the inside can’t hurt me. I have felt the highest highs and the lowest lows. I have […]
Slap. Loud slap. More loud slaps. She’s at it again. The skateboard girl from across the street is out in the middle of it, practicing her kickflip. Over and over she tries, but never gets it right. She’s seven-ish, wears her helmet, and she never gives up. I never see her smile. All I see […]
“I don’t wanna go to kindergarten,” Maggie whined, staring at the floor beneath her before sitting down. “I like preschool. Why does it have to change?” Nobody responded. Frustrated with the lack of an audience that she was getting in her empty room, she scanned its cluttered floors for a toy worth complaining to. The […]
I am sure nobody has ever been alright on their first day of senior year in high school. I am no exception, except my anxiety is probably a thousand times more than an average student’s. Racing heart? Check. Fast breathing? Check. Fumbling steps? Check. Walking into the new school, I pull the sleeves of my […]
There was silence in the church. The floor was a muted conflagration of stained-glass colors; the pews were all full; the air was thick with the sound of no sound at all. She sat at the piano, hands poised above the keys. Normally, she would be terrified right now. No piano in the world played […]
The first step was difficult. His head throbbed in pain as he shouted out the command in his mind, shoving the distracting thoughts, the little devils whispering of an imminent failure, aside. The neural platform obeyed, and his artificial leg was raised into the air – only for the metallic ankle to twist unnaturally when […]
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