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Latest Stories

July 08, 2025
General Stories Michael Barlett

Dance Of Death

CHAPTER ONE 1940 Chief Inspector Kenneth Langford offered the Commissioner a crisp salute, and then walked back through the labyrinth of passageways to his own small office. Langford was a member of the London Metropolitan Police, commonly referred to as…
July 08, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Winter Blues

the winter blues has a grip on me, all so tight Its icy tentacles wrap around me and squeezes freezing my fingers and toes with its nasty frostbite staving off the cold is a battle, an endless fight it brings forth an assortment of nasty diseases The winter…
July 08, 2025
Horror Stories Sushma R Doshi

Deliverer Of Messages

A loner in my childhood, my scrawny and weak figure prone to being bullied by sturdy and robust boys, I tended to wander around places frequented by few. Those curvy roads which fell into darkness after evening without street lights, the area near the pond…
July 08, 2025
General Stories L Christopher Hennessy

With A Side-Eye I Cherish

for Brittany ma amour Up to my neck in sadness for something just out of reach and she came along and fired up my life with kisses and the physical. The moment I looked into her eyes I didn't want to share her with anyone else and keep her all to myself. In…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Days Of Future Dreams

the days of future dreams the flames once rose high thinking our lives would end up supreme thinking our future seemed a far of dream but in the end nothing is what it seems many times the winds of changed has blown this way one minute we`re lapping the cream…
July 03, 2025
General Stories L Christopher Hennessy

Bad Girl

Part 1I lost the entire manuscript when I assassinated my laptop with sauvignon blanc as I rubbed the lower back of a woman who dozed drunk on my bed, sweating. She was crazed, somewhere between screaming and lying about the orgasm. Bree was a miracle to me,…
July 03, 2025
Horror Stories Nelly Shulman

Black Is Our Colour

“I swear she could have been you. Look! This girl is your long-lost twin.” Fi nudged me, and I smiled. “Never had or wanted one.” I stood up. “Let’s go, or the bargain hunters will clear the shelves before us.” We dived into the vintage emporium across the…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Transformation

"I need a brake" words that twisted my heart- shattering the dream that we would never part. I asked myself 'what ever did I do wrong? sad, gloominess could`ve easily been my song. I wouldn't let the anger and misery grow or cultivate- uprising feelings I…
July 03, 2025
Flash Fiction Benoit

Jae

It was Jae’s birthday today. She turned eight. What a beautiful sunny girl! Hyo planned a surprise or two; Li, his wife, did too. Birthday cake, a puppy and … Don’t forget, they grinned just before he drove off. Traffic was intense. A long call came from…
July 03, 2025
General Stories Matias Travieso-Diaz

Fear

Leandro stood outside the Kroger, leaning forward as he shivered in the early March dawn. He hated this moment: the cold, the fatigue, the feeling of helplessness, the anticipation of another day ahead at his degrading job picking collard leaves under the…
July 03, 2025
Horror Stories Mihko Askiweno

Found You

Panic gripped her as she staggered up the steep, rocky incline, breath coming in jagged, shallow gasps. Sweat streamed down her face in torrents, her hair clinging to her forehead and cheeks in disheveled clumps. Her legs trembled with exhaustion, molten fire…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

Lost On The Path

But alas; sometimes I think we've lost our way- too many strayed opinions...one too many a survey. Walking on the road ahead, just following the herd of sheep- with a hypnotised mind, wide awake yet very fast asleep. While yelling...join the team of the…

He put the Celtic music on,sat out on his small apartment deck in a plastic Adirondack chair and rewound the tapes in his mind.

Scenes from six years ago, He could make them as focused or as hazy as he wished, It was a curse.

They had bought a house, her daughter (his step daughter) was achieving high marks in high school and headed off to college. When he looked at his wife under the surface appeared to be her empty nest syndrome kicking in.

He was only partially correct, it was a deeper malaise waking up after a fitful sleep. She would work late or just claim to, Things were not as they seemed though it's hard to play detective when you need to get up and go to work in the morning.

They argued about nothing and everything and only their dogs offered them any real sense of bonding. On more than one occasion he came home to find them lying in a closet avoiding something even they didn't understand.

He knew that he didn't. The evening came when another argument ensued about nothing important,

She ran upstairs to a storage room, reappeared ten minutes later and sat down in front of their desk computer, just staring into random pixels. He stood up and walked toward the staircase, the computer sat at an adjacent wall, He intended to glance at whatever web page was occupying her thoughts.

Instead his eye focused on a jagged piece of something on the floor behind where she sat. He reached down and picked up a shard of discolored glass, his momentum carried him up the stairs to his attic bedroom. The glass shard was yellowed and had a burnt appearance. It smelled like sweet death.

At that moment he discovered that he was married to a crack addict. After that came the reality, the non-reality, the promises, the lies the pain and suffering that comes from it all.

When the day came six years later he knew that he had lived with the madness long enough, He boxed up her stuff and sent her back to where she came from.

No second thoughts, no hesitation, Drug addicts don't have relationships, they take hostages. He couldn't recall how he had slept, and went to work and actually succeeded at his job while keeping his head held high thru this ordeal.

A balancing act while wearing lead weights at first, until the realization the weights didn't have to be there. Gratitude for being able to have perspective on the situation was tempered by what felt sometimes like wasted years....

The remnants of a distant meteor shower came and went in the Northern sky, the shelter dog he had adopted when his other two were given to her as parting gifts years ago lay at his feet,

She looked up and yawned & seeing nothing edible she closed her eyes again. He remembered the words of a wise man he had heard once: "The only commitment that I need to make is that the next decision I make is the right one for myself." The sky flickered again, a mosquito buzzed near his ear, He stood up, laughed and thanked God for this life...

End

-- MF Kepler resides in a breezy hamlet of Long Island.He has had several stories published in on this site under pseudonyms. He can be contacted at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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