-The best stories on the web-
Read or link to over 1000 stories listed under Stories to the left.
Submit your short stories for review as a Word document attached to an email to: Read@Short-Story.Me

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…

Nick and Allison met at a little non-chain coffee shop halfway between Nick's office and Allison's home, from which she mostly worked. The place was as relaxed and noncommittal as the time, 5:30 on a cool spring Tuesday evening.

Neither had been there before, which was one reason it had been selected for their first date. Others were the simultaneously public and intimate atmosphere provided by the place's dim lighting and comfortable sofas; the wide varieties of coffees and teas on the menu, which—though Nick was a dark-roast, regular, one sugar man, Allison a Darjeeling, two sugars, slice of lemon woman—would give them something obvious and safe to talk about; and the entertainment, which would give them something just as obvious, but a bit more conspiratorial.

This was a mic, a guitar, and a guy in a fashionably ratty wool cap who introduced himself, frequently, as Randall. They listened to Randall's strummy versions of classic rock and folk, and his more heartfelt renditions of his own compositions, during the spaces in which they were not discussing their jobs, or their tastes in movies and music, or the place's amazing variety of beverages.

Powers-Smith / Love / 2

During one such space, Nick leaned toward Allison—not having to lean far, each having moved slowly but steadily toward the middle of the sofa during the course of the evening—and said, “This guy's great!”

She blinked, hard, then caught the sarcasm, and smiled a large, lovely smile, laughed a small, girlish laugh; her first uninhibited laugh of the evening. Not her last.

Later, at her car, they exchanged a short, close-mouthed kiss. In his own driver's seat, eager to relive a moment of what was already crystallizing into fond memory, Nick got his phone out and scrolled through his emails. Sender: GeTogether.com, but there were many of those; it took him a few seconds to find Subject: Suggested Phrases. He scanned the familiar list. There it was, right between “Seriously? Come on, I love this song” and “Why would anyone hire this hack?:” “This guy's great [Sarcastic].”

#

On Thursday Nick got an email instructing him to call Allison the following evening, tell her he'd had a good time on Tuesday but had been too busy to call until now, and ask if she'd like to do something again. Allison's email advised her to respond with noticeable but understated satisfaction, agree that she'd had a good time too—“Way better than most of these things, they're usually so awkward” was listed as optional—and inform him that, though she'd had plans for the night, they'd fallen through (here she had her choice of “One of my girlfriends got sick, and we really want to save this movie until she's around” and “I was going to get some work done but I'm not in the mood”). She was to suggest doing something that very night, though not, the message stressed, too eagerly.

They saw a lighthearted romantic comedy, giving Nick something to complain good-naturedly about, along with a slight feeling of being owed, and Allison the satisfaction of having nominally gotten her way, as well as the early precedent in movie-selection powers. Neither was interested in this particular movie, but that wasn't the point.

Powers-Smith / Love / 3

The point was that, at her car following the after-movie drink—both had stuck to the strongly recommended two-drink limit—they exchanged a kiss which was neither short nor entirely closed-mouthed.

Nick promised to call her the next day; it just slipped out. She smiled, and drove off.

#

Nick checked his email nervously and often all Saturday morning and early afternoon, convinced he'd screwed up badly. Finally, the blessed message arrived. He could, in fact should, call Allison that evening, and ask her out again. It took a while for the excitement of the impending date to seep through the relief, but seep through it did.

Allison, however, pleaded prior plans. At first she wouldn't tell him anything more, but after a brief pause—during which he heard her thumbs padding softly on the buttons of her phone—she informed him that an old college classmate was in town. They'd decided to have a girl's night out, she said, which assuaged Nick's worries about the gender of the friend. He still wondered whether she was real or fabricated, but that was a less urgent question, and one without practical implications.

#

They didn't see each other again until the following Friday, though they had several good talks in the interim, two at Nick's instigation, one at Allison's. Friday night was dinner, a movie—her choice again, though she had no interest in this one either—drinks, and a midnight stroll through the neat little strip of park in her neat little housing development.

After strolling by the neat little duck pond for the third time, Nick began to feel stalled. He saw her check her watch once, and didn't know what to make of it. He had no authorization to instigate, so he walked on, and hoped GeTogether knew what it was doing.

It did, of course; didn't it always. They were still a few hundred feet from their fourth encounter with the pond when a warm spring rain began to dot the path in front of them. It quickly built to a

Powers-Smith / Love / 4

legitimate shower, and Allison was justified, if not absolutely unrehearsed, when she dragged him, jogging, toward her condo, breathing breathlessly over her shoulder, “Come on, let's get out of this.”

#

They saw more and more of each other, were allowed more and more to express their real thoughts and feelings. There were awkward silences, during which both could be seen discreetly looking to their phones; there were minor disagreements, though the way forward was never more than a few keystrokes away; there were the countless little surprises, some endearing, some not, which wait in ambush as another's true mind is gradually revealed, but these were rendered unambiguous, at least, by the knowledge of which were to be considered endearing, which not.

On a hot, humid afternoon in late August, Nick moved into Allison's condo.

#

Nick was a little worried when, in mid October, he began getting instructions to spend more time at work, in the company of Melissa. There was nothing to do but comply, but he delivered his lines with less than total gusto. He got the impression she always chose the most risque conversation suggestion, whether it was warranted or not. Usually it wasn't, since he always—almost always—used the most innocuous line on his list.

It wasn't much of a surprise when he was texted instructions to respond affirmatively to the forthcoming suggestion. Melissa didn't give him much time for doubt.

“Why don't we take care of this stuff back at my place,” she said. “I've got some wine, and it's a lot comfier.”

She seemed a little annoyed at his hesitation. All his choices were marked either “[Eager]” or “[Very Eager],” and he did his best with “Yeah, why not?” It wasn't convincing, but Melissa didn't seem to mind.

#

Powers-Smith / Love / 5

Allison got the call from Melissa on a cold late-November afternoon. Snow was swirling outside, but soon Allison was flushed and beginning to sweat. She was too stunned to use any of the suggestions that arrived in a steady stream of texts throughout the call, though she did mouth some of the more obscene ones after Melissa had hung up.

When Nick got home, she threw it in his face, as per instructions; at least she hadn't been told to brood over it for days or weeks, which would've been too much for her.

She had some trouble, but she got through it. “Do you love her? She says you do” sounded more honestly questioning than “[Accusatory].” “How could you do this? Why?” was hollow and silly; they both knew how, why. “I want you out of here” carried no conviction at all.

She couldn't take his “She's fun. We never have fun anymore” seriously, since he clearly didn't.

When his phone buzzed for the tenth or twelfth time, some part of her must've known it was the last. She looked up from her own phone, waited. He seemed to be in almost physical pain as he silently read the message, looked up at her, looked back down to read it again.

“OK, I'll go,” he said, and went.

#

He went to Melissa's, though it was obvious, had always been obvious, that she wasn't his ultimate destination. He'd thought, hoped, Allison might be. But there was nothing to do but trust that GeTogether knew what it was doing, was molding his experiences in preparation for the final woman, was guiding her, whoever she was, along a similar, intersecting route.

He supposed there was no reason not to sleep with Melissa now. He'd felt guilty for disobeying those instructions, and foolish for missing out when he was going to take the consequences anyway. Melissa hadn't cared one way or the other.

End

 

Conor Powers-Smith was born in Patterson, New Jersey, and grew up in New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Ireland. He currently lives on Cape Cod, where he works as a reporter for a local news Web site.

0
0
0
s2sdefault

Donate a little?

Use PayPal to support our efforts:

Amount

Genre Poll

Your Favorite Genre?

Sign Up for info from Short-Story.Me!

Stories Tips And Advice