18 Results in the "short stories" category
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Chapter
The Demon Tree
Rose’s seat was the third from the end on a continuous desk that could seat seven, but she was one of only two that morning over her first cup of coffee. The desk faced the back of someone’s monitor; to her right was the senior writer, Ania, who had given her a tour yesterday in a banana-yellow sweater. Today, they wore gray and black leggings and had not looked up when Rose said good morning. Most of the paper’s staff worked remotely. That meant an empty office but no one pressed up on…-
4.4 K • Oneshot
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Chapter
The Edge of Light
The ghost was throwing leaves again. Every morning around ten o’clock, it grabbed handfuls of them off of the shrub that grew alongside the parking lot. The ghost had no strength (new ones never did), and so the leaves did little more than scatter across the gravel drive. On a windy day, they might blow into the street as she walked by. Noa didn’t know the woman. She passed by the restaurant at the same time each morning, in pencil skirts or trousers, a leather handbag thrown over one shoulder.…-
3.8 K • Oneshot
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- Story
The Edge of Light
The ghost was throwing leaves again. This story began life as a red leaf I picked up on my walk to work at a time of year when all of the other leaves were green. Every morning, more leaves would be scattered across a restaurant’s driveway and into the street. I collected them in a dish on my work desk and would watch them…- 3.6 K • Dec 9, '23
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Chapter
Trees
They emerged together in a new life as twin saplings in the damp, black mulch. Their seeds had spun down the previous autumn and lodged in the soil. They hadn’t blown away like the others. She was alone with her consciousness, an innate sense of being; she had been once, twice, a hundred times before; so had he; and they had been—together. Without eyes or mouths, they could no longer see or speak to each other and they were too far apart to touch, but beneath the soil, their roots spread and twined…-
1.3 K • Oneshot
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Chapter
In Flight
Ray visited his brother more often after his death than he had for a decade. On Saturdays, he’d pick up a bouquet along with a week’s groceries and after lunch, carry it on the five-mile run that took him past the cemetery. He’d kneel before the grave, clear away last week’s flowers, pinch weeds slithering up the headstone. The fresh engraving was almost sharp to the touch. Simon Fisher, beloved husband. Ray hadn’t seen anyone else here since the funeral—not even her. The adjacent plot waited,…-
4.2 K • Completed
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Chapter
Bluebird
He came with the rain, decades ago when the forest here was still saplings, back when we were growing sod and Mama was crying every night that the drought would ruin us. I heard him before I saw him that first time, a cheerful whistle coming up the road. “Don’t talk to him,” the neighbors whispered. “That boy’s bad luck.” But he’d been friendly and young, as young as me, the only other person under thirty anyplace I could get to on foot. A year older, maybe two. I’d never asked.…-
2.2 K • Oneshot
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