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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…

They called her the face in the window. Practically everybody in the neighborhood knew her-the woman who would sit in the upstairs window of her house, looking out into space, oblivious to the world. Some people said she’d gone crazy after her husband had left her, others said that she’d lost a son or a daughter. The truth was, nobody really knew for sure. She was just known as the Face Woman, because her expression was always blank, like a mask.

Jim Heller knew that she had a different name, one that she no longer used, that had been lost to the world. He was the one who brought her food, and took care of the rent. Part of the money came from her social security; he assumed the rest came from an inheritance, or from an insurance policy she had stashed somewhere. She was always dressed in the same simple clothing, although not always the same clothes, so he knew that she didn’t have to spend all of her time in the wheelchair that she used to watch the world outside her window.

“So, how are you today?” Jim asked one Friday afternoon as he stopped by on another one of his monthly rounds. Looking at the window, he added, “The weather’s nicer today, isn’t it? I’ll bet you’re glad that storm is over with.”

She didn’t answer as Jim gathered up the envelopes on her kitchen table. Her face was impassive as always, although he thought he saw a flicker of recognition in her eyes. “Well, I’ll just take care of these, then. See you next month, okay?”

When he was gone, she continued to sit in her wheelchair, looking out her window at the houses beyond. She knew there was a world out there that she was no longer a part of, a world of noise and people-people who brought danger, and did bad things to each other. In her withdrawn silence, she’d wanted no part of that world for years, and tried not to think about what had made her that way.

Long ago, when Jim Heller had been a little boy and she had been the same age then that he was now, she had been different. The world had been different, too, and it had been part of the life she shared with her husband, who’d been her connection to it. It was when the bad thing happened to him that the connection had been severed.

“I need to go out of town for a few days,” he’d said on the last day they’d spent together. “It’s just a short business trip. I should be back Sunday night.”

“Another one?” She sighed. “I was hoping we could go out for dinner this weekend.”

“I know, but the company has been having some problems with one of their suppliers, and as usual I have to go there and straighten things out. I’m sure it’s no big deal-I’ll be back in no time.”

“Well-I guess I’ll see you when you get home, then.” Except that she never did…

The police brought her the news two days later. It didn’t sink in right away, and when it did she thought at first that they must have made some sort of a mistake. He was on his way home, she was sure of it. All she had to do was wait…

She’d kept up a facade for a while, of course. Just to keep up appearances, for her family and friends. But the connection she’d had with their world was already gone. It was gone when they took her to identify the body they’d found; when they told her about the young man with dead eyes whom they’d arrested for his death. And it was gone when she went to his funeral, and in the long, silent years that followed, as she watched the cars and her neighbors outside change.

Or, at least she thought it was.

Then came one cool night when the moon was full, and it was so light that she could see the narrow street in its entirety. She saw two figures that she knew didn’t belong there following Jim Heller as he headed up the street. She wasn’t sure why he was there-it wasn’t his normal visiting day, and at any rate he wouldn’t have come at this hour of the night. But he was there, and he seemed to know the figures that were following him, because he turned to confront them. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the discussion seemed tense. Then the tension mercifully faded as they walked away. Jim watched them go, and turned to leave.

Something stirred inside of her as she watched. At first she’d told herself that she wouldn’t get involved, that she wasn’t part of that world anymore. Ignore them and forget, she told herself. Except that she couldn’t, because she saw the two figures again. They were walking up the street, following where Jim had gone…

She had a cell phone, one that Jim had given her in case of emergencies. She’d never used it, but she kept it on the kitchen table where she kept her mail. She was out of practice; it took some effort for her to remember how to dial 9-1-1. But she did, and when the voice on the other end answered, she knew what to say, and how to say it.

It was her connection to the world, after all.

 

 

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