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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…

Justine had every right to be disturbed, but she almost took my ear off, shouting, “I want a taco, not a pizza.  Can’t I just have a damn taco?”

“Okay, there’s a taco joint,” I said.  “Let me park the car.”  It was going to be a job mollifying my wife in the depths of her despair, which had nothing to do with eating.  She was sick in her soul, in a way only priests and psychiatrists could diagnose.  We had lost any children before they were born.

 

The taqueria was new to me, but these places in Los Angeles come and go like yesterday’s celebrities.  It was spiffy and very California looking.  Totally un-ethnic.  “Order me a quesadilla.  Chicken, with a side of refritos,” Justine said.  “I’m going to use the bathroom.”

 

“You’ll have to wait,” I said.  “Some geezer in a yellow sweater just went in.”

 

“Damn,” she muttered.  “Just one sign that says hombres y muchachas.  Guess that lets them off the hook for transgenders.”

 

“Wait 90 seconds, hon.  Men only take a minute and a half.  Time stands still for women in bathrooms.”  I knew immediately from her grimace that I’d said the wrong thing.  My humor was a stone that tended to sink our boat.  No jokes allowed in her present frame of mind.  A week earlier, I’d gotten Justine into the hospital for an ectopic pregnancy that had to be aborted.  With it came major surgery.  We both realized now that after three miscarriages we’d never have a child.  No one to carry on our names, DNA and dreams.

 

I put in our order and asked the counter man if they had another bathroom.  He held up one finger.  “Just one.”  The embroidery on his shirt said his name was Raul.

 

“Guy went in five or ten minutes ago and hasn’t come out.  Can you see if he’s died or something?  My wife really has to pee.”

 

“Man?”

 

“Old man in a raggedy yellow cardigan.”

 

Raul, a young guy in his twenties stepped back and looked at me in surprise.  His lips formed the words Oh no, but no sound came out.  “Tell the lady,” he said slowly, “tell her it’s okay to go inside.  Just knock.  It’s okay.  Probably.”

 

“Justine,” I called.  “Go on in.  Just knock first.”

 

She gave me an odd look and banged once on the door.

 

“See,” I told the counter guy, “she just got out of the hospital.  Terrible operation.  Muy doloroso.”

 

“I speak English,” he said pointedly.  “Your quesadillas are here.”  He placed two paper plates on the glass counter.  “The man,” he said hesitantly, “is like a regular.  We can’t do nothing about it.”

 

Justine came from a large family, with two sisters and a brother.  And a mother who asked us constantly when we were going to have children.  Mom would give me the stink eye as though I wasn’t trying hard enough.  For two weeks, Justine had suffered stomach pain and bleeding until I forced her to see her doctor.

 

By the third bite of my quesadilla I looked up wondering where Justine was.  The counter man was alternately staring at me and at the bathroom door.  “What!” I demanded.

 

He nodded toward the can and I jumped up, believing Justine had had a relapse from the surgery.  “Justine!” I shouted and burst in.  The bathroom’s stale air assaulted me with the corrupt scent of death.  A faint fog blurred the outline of the sink, commode and mirror.  Justine was standing statue-like, transfixed by something in the mirror.  The man had gone, but his reflection hadn’t.  Staring back was a…a something that wasn’t human.  It wore a yellow sweater.

 

The mirror figure lifted a hand — it looked like a hand — and reached through the glass to grasp Justine’s shoulder.  I jumped forward and batted the arm off her, feeling an electric shock numb my body.  Swiveling around, I pushed Justine back to the door.  The figure’s arm flailed through the mirror with tentacle-like fingers, wanting to claw me into its world.  I picked up the nearest weapon, a metal waste basket, and smashed the glass that exploded into shards and a blue flame.

 

I came out drenched in sweat and sucking fresh air.  “Are you totally crazy?” I shouted at Raul.  “There was a monster in there.”

 

He motioned me closer while Justine fell into our booth.  “Mister, it was the man in the yellow sweater.  He comes here sometimes to use the bathroom.  He goes in but he never comes out.  Other people go in after him but he is gone.  Or they see him in the mirror, not a reflection.  He is un espiritu to the other world.  Spirit of the devil…or maybe God’s messenger.”

 

“A spirit?  This is Los Angeles.”

 

“Better a spirit here than in your dreams.  He sometimes comes back to you in your dreams.”  Raul shrugged.  “Then things happen.”

 

“Raul, you bastard, I broke your damn mirror.  He won’t come back.”

 

“I hope so.”

 

“And we’re never coming back to your taco joint either.”

 

He nodded.  “You never know what happens with spirits, señor.

 

We took the freeway over the San Gabriel mountains and back to Pasadena where my sobbing wife fell into bed.  I watched her.  Was she dreaming of the man in the mirror?

 

But Raul may have been more right than he knew.  Three months later, Justine was pregnant — an impossibility and against all odds, her doctor said.  Inside a year we had a beautiful baby boy.

 

“Remember the baby shower?” I told her.  “Your mother gave you a yellow onesie.  Looks just like a sweater.”

 

“Perhaps that was a prophecy and not an omen,” she murmured into our son’s cheek.

 

#  #  #

Bio:  Walt Giersbach bounces between writing genres, from mystery to humor, speculative fiction to romance with a little historical non-fiction thrown in for good measure.  His work has appeared in print and online in over two dozen publications, including a score of stories in Short-Story.Me.  He's also bounced from Fortune 500 firms to university posts, and from homes in eight states and to a couple of Asian countries.

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