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Latest Stories

March 19, 2024
Fantasy Stories Wondering Monk

Just My Imagination

The alarm clock went off and started playing an awful tune. Tom opened his eyes and closed them back, squinting. He reopened one eye and stood up to stop the torture. The phone was on the desk, in the furthest spot from the bed. Although he changed his way of…
March 19, 2024
Science Fiction Stories Ocelotlzin

Earth Is Dead

Recording… It doesn't matter who I was; I probably lived a long time ago, and I am now just a voice someone added to the audio-visual records. What is essential is the recollection of events that lead to the current state. So, a little history needs to be…
March 08, 2024
Flash Fiction Benoit

Some Enchanted Evening

It was a rugby tackle with tears: Chrissy burst in, sobbing and babbling, hugging James. Her face was all wet, eyes wild. What…? My parents split up, Dad has moved in with his boyfriend and I cannot join them. I am shut out. I have lost my dad. Torrent of…
March 08, 2024
Horror Stories Marvel Chukwudi Pephel

In The Hands Of My Legs

The car pulled up in front of the large salon. The neon sign, that sexy broad thing, on the salon'sroof read "Mr. Gil's All-night Salon". The exhaust pipe of the car was pumping solid smoke, theswirls moving from the car and towards the salon.…
March 07, 2024
Mystery Stories Vanessa Leigh Giles

Casualty of Love in the Time of Coronavirus

Chapter 1 Until Death do us Part ‘Ring, ring!’. I answered the telephone and asked, “Hello, good evening. Who’s this? “Hello.” This is Dr. Smith from Red Cross hospital. “Is this Mr. Locke, John?”, he asked, hesitantly scratching his bald head. “Yes, doctor.…
March 07, 2024
Crime Stories Robert Pook

Bar Room Trigger

Another return journey on footpaths so familiar. He strides across each crack in each paving stone. Regular loose drain covers sidestepped. Mapping long ago mapped in Richard’s desolate mind. His pace hastened by the sight of the oncoming storm. Quickening…
March 04, 2024
Horror Stories Ano Chinemerem

Sanctity

Where should I begin? I could begin by telling you about this comely boy, whom every notable person around the streets agrees his smile could charm the bills off one. Between one smile, there was his goodness, his dreams and humanity—a little far ahead?— but…
March 04, 2024
Flash Fiction Emanuel Diaz

Et Mortui Partium

As Rafael stepped out into the rain, it wasn't the ordinary drops that fell from the sky. Instead, it was a storm of souls, each one taking the form of shimmering jewelry as it cascaded toward the ground. Rubies, diamonds, and sapphires twinkled amidst the…
February 29, 2024
Poetry Jing Li Ava

London

‘Am I in London?’ "I am." Where is Elizabeth? Happy living story All of your chapter Bounlance joy Please my heart Power hand Wise mind Our baby Vow vow Love all love Miss I miss Endless wonder Bring us together Love all love Miss I miss For everything My…
February 29, 2024
Flash Fiction Rob Pook

Life Sentence of The Smith

Born nine months after his country won the World Cup.A child prodigy.Cast off at age twenty-four.Husband, father, emigree, away on the other side of the world.The blue-collar life.The dreams of success.The search for fulfillment.The long years of empty…
February 29, 2024
Mystery Stories Joshua Lowther

The Operator

Jason looked over to his right, his eyes barely able to focus themselves on the subject of his attention. His neck ached terribly from the strenuous movement. He was tired. The captain’s gaze came to rest on the rookie sonar operator sitting tense at his…
February 29, 2024
Flash Fiction Salvatore Difalco

The Chute

At dusk, we left our unit with a soft pink bundle. I carried it through the wet streets and into the black woods. I said I’d take it all the way, the bundle, but that we had to drop it in together. My wife’s green eyes flashed. “Don’t make me do that.” I…

Five o’clock in the morning, and the blood had flooded that city as high as an adult’s knee. The majority of the citizens weren't curious about the source of the blood. Maybe there’s no difference with the normal-monthly flood, they thought. Maybe not only rivers who have the right to be overflowed. So, they decided to do their activities, normally that day.

Marni rubbed the bloodstained high school uniform and skirt in the bathroom, until her wrinkled hand skin ached, until she was three per four dead—in some certain seconds, she imagined rubbing Toni Anwar’s face with a rock. If ten minutes later this bloodstain still can’t be clean, she thought, I will give up and go to sleep immediately. Ten minutes passed quickly and vainly; Marni’s bones became falling dust. She angrily growled, as she slammed the uniform and skirt down in the laundry bucket. The foam in the bucket splashed into her weary eyes, and she angrily growled again, as she walked towards the tap with closed eyes.

Marni entered the front room. That room was filled with four washing machines, clothing shelves, a cashier table, a clothes scale, a television with a broken screen—because Marni broke it yesterday afternoon—etcetera. She turned the lamp on, so she could look at the wall clock, it was two o’clock in the morning. She angrily growled for the third time, because she thought that she wouldn’t wake up at five o’clock soon. She opened the empty washing machine, and threw the bloodstained uniform and skirt into that. It was for the umpteenth time that the uniform and skirt whirled inside the washing machine.

Marni went to her bedroom thinking, If the bloodstain still can’t be clean, I’ll not take care of it anymore. It’s better if I apologize to its owner, and give her money as compensation.

Normally, there wouldn’t be any problem with a washing machine that worked without Marni’s presence. Marni usually left the working washing machine and the machine would stop automatically in accordance with the specified time, but that morning, an unpredictable problem happened. From the gap on the door of the whirling washing machine, the blood flowed. In the beginning, it only stained the front room floor, but hours later it flooded the city.

Marni wandered to some laundries around her home, on foot, until her old breath faltered.

“Are your washing machines broken?” That was the first question of the laundresses.

“No. If they’re broken, I must take all of my customer’s laundries here, not just this uniform and skirt,” Marni replied.

So …?”

To all of the laundresses, Marni explained that she already tried painfully hard to clean that uniform and skirt from yesterday. Moreover, Marni had soaked them for twenty-four hours. Her explanation was such as nobody was willing to take them over. That was enough to make Marni’s fontanel squirt blood.

But immediately, she was able to calm herself down. And she was still calm, untill a laundress, whom she visited last, asked, “Marni … did you watch Toni Anwar’s trial yesterday afternoon?”

Marni’s expression suddenly changed as though rotting fruit.

Marni ....”

I’m okay,” she interrupted, before walking away to her home as stifling her cry. The image of Marina, hanging in her bedroom years ago, crossed Marni’s head.

The evening seemed almost done. Marni was determined to rub the uniform and skirt again until both were totally clean, although it would take a long time until the end of the day.

Marni dreamed that she entered the bathroom naked. On the bathroom corner, there was a laundry bucket filled with soapy water, where the bloodstained uniform and skirt soaked. Marni walked unsteadily to the tub, took the water dipper, and approached the laundry bucket. Instead of splashing her body with clean water in the tub, she splashed her body with soapy water in the laundry bucket. And in the other corner of the bathroom, all of a sudden, stood Toni Anwar with his cunning smile.

Marni awakened and found herself wet in bed. She screamed, “Marina!!!” and sobbed. She didn’t too understand why she screamed her deceased daughter’s name. That scream got out of her mouth as if carbon dioxide she exhaled unconsciously. Is this because that high school girl looks like Marina?

A pale-skinned high school girl came to Marni’s home front room, minutes after Marni hit her television screen with a brick. That time Marni’s weep already abated. That girl wore a white high school uniform and skirt that was stained with fresh blood. There was no obvious source of the blood; Marni didn’t see any opened wound on her body. The girl’s gaze looked empty, as if she didn’t see Marni in front of her. As Marni awkwardly asked what she could help, the girl didn’t say anything. The girl only put her uniform and skirt off, put them on the clothes scale, and went out immediately, only in her underwear that bloodstained too.

“Hey! I can lend you my clothes if you want!” Marni said loudly from behind the cashier table.

The girl didn’t answer and ran abruptly. Marni tried to chase her, but she lost her trace. And she thought that there was no need to continue to chase her, because her customer's laundry was very many.

Toni Anwar, a public figure, was arrested. Finally, he had been proven that he had raped dozens of his students at pesantren1 since some years ago. And that morning, a television channel did a live broadcast of his trial. Marni watched the trial from behind the cashier table, with sadness and anger that drowned her whole head inner side. She imagined Marina stood beside her, also watching the trial emotionally.

At one o’clock in the afternoon, after a long battle of arguments—that hard to understand for Marni—in the courtroom, the trial ended: Toni Anwar found not guilty. Marni screamed angrily, ran to the side of the street, picked up a brick that happened to be there, and used it to hit her television screen.

When the sun evaporated the overflowed blood, vaguely smelled a strange aroma. Whoever smelled that aroma confused to conclude whether that aroma was good or not. But some of them realized that aroma affected a thing under their belly. A thing that got warm abruptly and pulsed. Those affected by that aroma then, all of a sudden, encouraged themselves to dive into the flooded blood, and never seen back to the surface ....

*) Note: This short story is inspired by Saksi Mata by Seno Gumira Ajidarma.

BIO

Surya Gemilang was born on Denpasar, March 21, 1998. His books are: Mengejar Bintang Jatuh (short stories, 2015), Cara Mencintai Monster (poems, 2017), Mencicipi Kematian (poems, 2018), dan Mencari Kepala untuk Ibu (short stories, 2019). His other writings can be find in more than ten collective anthologies and Indonesian mass medias, like: Kompas, Koran Tempo, Suara NTB, Bali Post, Riau Pos, etc.

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