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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…

I was hanging in the air watching old Mr Turner saddle his horse when my internal alarm chimed.

He had slept the night out on the high plain and time being elastic here I had stayed with him. My main purpose was to reinforce his belief that he was wearing bullet proof boots but the environment he had conjured up was so breathtaking that I had spent most of the time just gazing at the stars glinting against the deep blue of the night sky. His world was so beautiful, I could have stayed forever. In fact I had serious plans to do just that.

First however, I had to convince him about his boots as the last time out he had got involved in a gunfight and shot himself in the foot whilst trying to execute a fast draw. Never underestimate the ability of a man to do something stupid. I had long since ensured his conviction that the rest of him was bulletproof, I had simply never imagined that he would shoot his own foot

My alarm chimed again, this time more stridently and with a sigh of frustration I set my reinforcement to automatic repeat and cut the connection.

Back in my own reality I scanned across the rest of the dreamers. The problem showed immediately, a red light blinking above an automated booth. One of the regulars, a government minister, a vicious sick minded man who dreamt always of rape and torture, had accessed more enhancement than he could handle. His imagined phantoms had grown too strong and turned on their maker. Dreams being reality to those in them, particularly at that level of enhancement, he was in serious danger of screaming his last breath in the very tortures he had devised for others.

For a moment or so I was tempted not to intervene, but I wanted no upset just then so I quickly stitched together a rescue scenario and inserted it into his dream as the certain knowledge of friends who would aid him. His face smoothed as he gradually regained control, so I left him to awake naturally.

I will never forget the first time I was ordered to enhance such dreams. As a young, newly aware telepath I thought I had been drafted into the centre to be employed for the public good. Instead I found myself a prisoner, my talent used for the exclusive benefit of our rulers.

For two long years, I had dealt with such men, heightening and enhancing their dream sensations and I had grown sick of the worlds they created. Hells full of pain and despair, power structures where they knew no restraints. Not that they suffered of course, they were always the ones inflicting the tortures and always, always demanding more and more enhancement of their victims agonies.

Despite the demands made on me, I had not wasted my time at the Centre, indeed I had learned a great deal. Far more than my “Masters” could imagine. I was ready now to make my move.

Imagination was the key. A philosopher, a Frenchman called Rene Descartes had once postulated “Cogito ergo sum….I think, therefore I am.” Logic then led to the conclusion that the opposite ie “I am, therefore I think” must necessarily be true. Corporeal existence was considered essential to continued thought.

I disagreed. What is existence? An imprint on the senses, the exercise of imagination, a mere thought if you will. Thought, that once extant, cannot be recalled, therefore must be permanent of itself in some other reality…..dreams perhaps? It seemed clear to me that such dreams must continue after the physical death of the dreamer and that was where my friend old Mr Turner came in.

How a man with such a clean decent mind came to be a ruler I’ll never know. I do know that I felt an immediate affinity with his dream world and determined that my future lay within it.

His dreams were always the same. He is young again of course, strong, supple, handsome. A drifter called Ben in the 1800s Mid West of America riding to the rescue of the widow Annie Baines who was in danger of being evicted from her small farm by an evil rancher. It always ended the same, the rancher was defeated and Ben and Annie fell in love, married and settled down together to run the farm and raise a family. I was going to be Annie.

I’d planned it all very carefully. Once I had taken over his dream old Mr Turner would be found dead, at his age no one would question it. I myself having entered his dream, would seal it off and the centre would be left with a non functioning telepath, a simple case of overload burn out. I would be quietly disposed of.

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We have been together here for some years now, we have three lovely children and the farm is doing well. Most evenings after supper we sit out on the veranda and watch the western sky flame with glory as the sun goes down. Sometimes we all ride out and spend the night on the high plain.

The centre is just a bad dream I have now and then…this is my reality and I will protect it for ever.

Sometimes Mr Turner looks puzzled, but it doesn’t last long.

Bio: I started writing about a year ago because it rains rather a lot in West Wales.

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