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Latest Stories

December 16, 2024
Poetry Minjzi

5 In The Morning

At once, both within and without that dazzling crowd. You go from one to the other. Predictable, tedious, careless people. Darkness, and only a blinding light right in your eyes - looking at you. Deafening music drowns and bites your twisted thoughts. Drinks…
December 16, 2024
Mystery Stories Marvel Chukwudi Pephel

I Professional Gamer

This is Betty, the voicemail said. I got your number from Jess. Why weren't you in school today? Everyone missed you. Sorry, I meant everyone missed your noise. Mr. Lagerback taught coding today. Hope you'd show up tomorrow. Or would what stopped you from…
December 16, 2024
Poetry Minjzi

Impression Of Delight

Let me enfold you, among the whispering of the night I say. It’s three in the morning, the end of December. She tensely rubs in and peels off her skin, sour from unease. With trembling steps, she runs from the puzzled reality. Knocks down all ruins and slumps…
December 16, 2024
Fantasy Stories Ocelotlzin

What Is Love

What is love? Anno Domini 934 King’s Aethelstan invasion. A forest at the north end of Scotland. “We need to be faster, let’s go to the woods and try to hide there.” Those were the words of Aedan to his family. The group of people were running from their…
December 16, 2024
Poetry Paweł Markiewicz

A Day From Life Of Klaus Werner Swamp-Man

The marvelous winter has come with the most tender Christmas Eve Klaus Werner Swamp-Man awaits dream august Moment is revealed Klaus a forester lives alone in a clear home amidst the grove In the evening praying by table he enjoyed freedom of silence Oracular…
December 16, 2024
Horror Stories Steven Bruce

The Package

The two men, dressed in hotel staff uniforms, stood before the lift in the quiet foyer. "You never ask," the older man said and thumbed the button. "But why?" the younger man said. "Listen, if you’re ever to take over from me, stop asking questions." "But…
December 16, 2024
Poetry Minjzi

All Is At Odds With Us

All is at odds with us. Doomed were the threads that tensely held the alliance of us. Amongst the wet gloomy walls, she was slowly walking. With each step further and further away from us. I used to call her Liu Lu. The elusive, unplausible, unpredictable Liu…
December 16, 2024
Flash Fiction Maxwell Bado

The Pebble And The Charlatan

When I was a boy, I used to walk through the woods with my father. One day, on an Autumn hike, my father entrusted me with a rock. It was small and square. A soft, reddish-brown, little stone. He placed the stone in my hand and said, “Hold on to this stone.…
November 25, 2024
Poetry Minjzi

Doomed Were The Threads

All is at odds with us. Doomed were the threads that tensely held the alliance of us. We are floating amongst the dreams and the past of us. Tranquillity of that fire will never arise. You thrive in the corners, in the inflows of me. Cut in in the slits, you…
November 25, 2024
Mystery Stories Marvel Chukwudi Pephel

This Way To The Berry Desideratum

"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library." – Jorge Luis Borges Earth, circa 2200. A tree wilts and dies, gradually, To the roots. A cormorant glides across the surface of a sea, Picking a dead stinking fish. Golden Duke Hemlocks are…
November 25, 2024
Poetry Minjzi

Vanished Possibilities

It’s crossing over you and drowning you into immensity. Wrapped, intertwined, buried with vanished possibilities. You stand alone on the road where sorrow lives. And remember, remember how to rescue yourself from the silhouette of the past, stuck in your…
November 25, 2024
Flash Fiction Syed Hassan Askari

I Am A free Man

The sun hung low in the sky, covered by the clouds, casting a dim, shadowy light against the crumbling walls of Ghulam Ali’s small house. He sat with his mother inside the prayer room, a prayer mat laid in front of him. The silence prevailed everywhere as he…

The wind howled in the night while smacking up against the house, which made me get out of bed and shuffle over to the window.

I stared directly across the street at my neighbor’s bedroom window and shook my head when the outline of a teenage girl popped out at me. I would be lying if I said this hadn’t happened before, which begged the question if my neighbor was keeping her prisoner in his house.

Rob repositioned himself in my bed. “Come back to bed.”

The girl continued standing right where she was while tears rolled down her cheeks.

“In a minute,” I said.

“What could possibly be so important that you want to stay up? I mean we already wasted the opportunity of your parents being away for the night.”

The hairs on my back pricked up at the arrival of a man who was now standing by the girl in the window from across the street. His eyes widened as he stared at me a few seconds longer than he should have before he jerked the girl by her ponytail.

“There’s a girl standing by the window. You have to see it.”

“So what? It’s not our problem your neighbor has insomnia.”

I turned around to face him. “Just get out of bed and look.”

He sighed. “Fine. If it really means that much to you...”

Rob got out of bed, scurrying to the window.

“There’s no one there, Claire.”

I whipped my body around again only to discover that Rob was right because the curtains had been closed in the bedroom window across the street.

“I’m telling you there was a girl. You have to believe me.”

“It doesn’t matter now, does it?”

***

Rays of sunlight poked through my bedroom the following morning, signaling that taking out the trash could no longer be ignored.

I darted out of bed, leaving Rob to himself since he would have had a fit if I woke him up before noon on a Saturday.

It wasn’t long before I trekked outside, as I didn’t even bother to scoff or roll my eyes at the realization that it was yet another day of sepia drenched across the sky.

Something touched my back after I dumped the trash in the garbage can, causing me to scream.

I blinked and then opened my eyes again, realizing it was the man from the previous evening.

“You know, it would behoove you to mind your own business young lady,” said the man.

I put my hands on my hips. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“I think you can figure that out yourself.”

“Are you threatening me?” I asked.

“No. I wouldn’t say that.”

“I’m not the one that grabbed someone in an abusive manner last night.”

Something splashed onto the ground, causing my attention to shift towards the man’s trash. I cringed at the discovery of trickling blood from a towel that snuck out several inches from the garbage can while the scent of bleach wafted through the air.

“There’s blood oozing out of your garbage can.”

“So, what’s your point?”

“Did you have an accident or something?”

The man remained silent while refusing to look away from me.

I inhaled a breath, forcing air into my lungs. “Tell me something. Who was that girl standing by the window last night?”

He smiled at me, showcasing his crooked teeth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The man was gone before I could even open my mouth again and his front door slammed behind him, echoing in the background.

I bit down on one of my nails while the mattered simmered in my mind for another few moments.

He could have prepared a cut of meat that was bloody and made a mess, which forced him to use bleach to clean it up. No. That couldn’t be it. People didn’t use bleach to clean up a mess from a piece of meat since the motives had to be more nefarious than that. After all, it was the only logical answer.

I went back inside several minutes later and turned on the TV in the kitchen as I let the eggs crackle in the frying pan for a bit.

“Today marks the three year anniversary of Kim Lively’s disappearance, and the case remains unsolved to this day. She would now be 18,” said the news anchor.

I stared at the photograph the news had propped up on the screen as I blinked several times, realizing she had an uncanny resemblance to the girl in the window.

The increased volume of the sizzling of the eggs in the frying pan forced my attention back to the stove, making me press the off button on the remote.

The TV turned black in a flash before I scooped the eggs onto a plate.

But I knew the truth, and that was enough for now even if I had been the only one to see the girl. Although for what it was worth, I never saw the girl again because it was as if she vanished into oblivion.

 

End

 

 

Chris Bedell's previous publishing credits include essays on the

online magazine Thought Catalog. He has also had several stories

published on online literary magazines, which include "Surface

Tension" on Crab Fat Literary Magazine, "A Little Accident" and "The

House That Never Was" on Quail Bell Magazine, "The Wronger Murder",

"Game Over", and "Poof and I'm Gone" on Short-story.me. Furthermore,

Pidgeonholes Magazine will publish one of his stories in December.

 

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