“Dad, where do you want to eat dinner?” “At the table. Isn’t that where I always eat? At the table?” He makes it sound like he’s talking to an idiot. “Your plate and glass from lunch were on the patio. So that’s not strictly true, is it?” “You don’t…
Category: 350-Word Story Challenge
one-two-three…
This is his favourite time of the day – anticipating the moment the shutters of the neighbouring house open. It’s always dark next door. Since he’s been back, he’s never seen her turn lights on. He wonders yet again how she gets around at night. He rests his cup down and adjusts his chair. He’s…
the fence
My whole life I’ve wondered about the man beyond grandmother’s fence. What’s he like? What hides behind his wooden door?Is his furniture dusty? Is that blue-gray cat, I sometimes see, allowed to sit on the furniture? Now, I’m at his door. I’ve often imagined this day but now it’s here, my feet are heavy. I…
seen and unseen
Maybe it was time to move, she thought. But go where? Everything was better before that restaurant arrived downstairs – before those umbrellas popped open. Had they even gotten permission to string them across the street like that – blocking everyone’s view? The restaurant came, and now carrying her heavy shopping bags to her second…
the croissant
Tucked in a back alley, running parallel to the main road was where she worked. Here, she’d just graduated from Dishwasher to Deep Fryer. Into the fryer she dipped countless Snickers bars, the most popular item on the sticky, plastic-covered menus, sandwiched between the mustard and ketchup squeeze bottles. She hated the deep fryer. Despite…
scarlet fever
In the early morning hours, I become entangled in a dream. I try scrambling up and out of it but it keeps pulling me back in – this sticky, oleaginous dream. In it, I’m little. Maybe 6? And in this dream, I have scarlet fever. My skin has become so hot that it comes off…
the scent of green
Is this my room? I can’t remember now which one she’d shown me into when I first arrived. I tiptoe in as though I don’t belong here. Like a thief. My small suitcase stands against the wall – a silent sentry – so I suppose it’s mine, after all. The room itself glows a dull…
streetlight
If the streetlight stayed off, she decided, she’d go to the bar and sleep close to the doorway. If it came back on, she’d take her chances at the library. As she waited for her decision to be made, she forced herself to think only of the streetlight. She never dwelled on how she ended…
un. deux.. trois... 