Category: Short Story

Short Story: Love on Escrow

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As Matthew walks through the automated doors, a musical voice says, “Welcome, Matthew. We understand your appointment involves the storage of love. Please be seated in the red area.”

Unsure how to react, a smile and a slight nod are all he can muster.

The room has three areas. Green is for intelligence accumulation, blue is for family memory storage, and red is for the storage of love. Each coloured area has a certain number of seats with touchscreens and headsets, depending on what services the client requires.

Matthew takes in the room, notices the green and blue areas are quiet today and makes his way to the red section. A cyborg arranges unusual metal shapes in a line, looks up, scans him, and says, “Hello, Matthew. Please go to seat number 4.”

Uneasy, Matthew looks slightly to the right side and asks, “What do I do?”

Without moving, the cyborg says, “Sit down, put the headset on, select the number of years of love you wish to hold on escrow, and the headset will do all the work for you. You may feel a little lightheaded afterwards; however, most symptoms pass in a few hours.”

Unease intensifies, and an odd gut feeling threatens to take him from this place. However, there is no time to waste.

Disorientated, he finds himself sitting down. Those who wear headsets do not move. It is as if they are between life and death. The uneasy feeling has gone, and there is no longer a gut reaction. Doubt creeps in, then fades.

The neon red screen presents Matthew with several options. He can hold between one and fifteen years of love. He chooses ten years, places the headset on, and presses start.

Thoughts from when he was much younger come to him. He is no longer afraid, for he feels love. Then his first love and their first kiss play behind his eyes like a movie. The memories of love keep moving through his mind. Suddenly the memories stop moving, the word ‘finished’ appears in red on the screen, and he removes the headset.

Matthew has not felt this hollow in some time. It is as though he is missing a part, yet nothing replaced what is missing. Perhaps it is just as his boss explained when he said Matthew should do this to further his career. After all, love has no place in finance.

I heard you say

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The night is coming by Kismuki (Deviant Art)

Etched wooden chairs,
a French polished dining table,
ambient candle lights.

Beyond the dining room
your mind plays on your fears,
the shadows shift, move.

Petrified of the shadows,
a child too young to understand,
darkness frightened you.

Enlightened by knowledge,
you face the shadows fearlessly,
never taking a wrong step.

A touch along your neck,
terror has a name you remember,
you run out into the night.

A windless cold night,
movement within the front trees,
illogical ways of nature.

Those etched chairs,
your father died on one of those,
too long ago, father.

A whisper on the wind,
something I heard you say long ago,
“my darling daughter”.

Between Nightmares

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Perspiration and a feeling of heat take hold within the stifling sheets.

Sleep comes slow, yet when it comes, events progress, and I’m standing in front of a light green house with gold-laced windows in a forest at the top of a hill at the end of a cul-de-sac.

Nothing makes sense, as a random stranger dances up with multiple women and says he’s been waiting for me to arrive.

Events progress, then I’m awake from one nightmare only to see something in the bathroom mirror. A heart can only miss so many beats as the sheets become a greenhouse.

Between the nightmares, your side of the bed is empty. You sit in another room playing a game at 2 am, while sleep is inevitable.

Dancing Tongues

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Six ladies meet at the “Celebrity Chef No.269th” restaurant in Melbourne for lunch at 1 pm for the weekly catchup.

They greet each other in the usual manner; fake kisses, judgemental grins, too much make-up, and designer clothes.

Once seated, they order drinks and lunch to make themselves feel like they have to be somewhere important.

Now the little things are sorted, the dancing tongues begin a convoluted quickstep.

Controversial gossip and catty bitchery dances on their lips as they release their hatred for their husbands, their children, and life in general.

By the dessert menu, which they make a point of resisting, they’re ready for a massage and a line of cocaine.

Mr No Name

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Mr No Name sits in his usual spot beside Adelaide Rose Davies. Tonight is quiet, dark, and it smells of half-dead roses from so many fresh graves.
A man who used to have a name is now known as Mr No Name. A man not even worthy of having a first name.
This evening he thinks about the smell of the half-dead roses on the breeze and what he lost. Tired, he lays his head down to sleep with his only friends, the dead in the cemetery.
Homeless and alone, this is the only place he finds peace and quiet to sleep and dream of his painful memories. His memories of a loving wife, two loving daughters, a house full of light, and the day she walked away because he lost his business to a cruel recession.
He dreams about his daughters in colour. Any money he has he spends on his mobile phone to see their faces from time to time.
Sometimes, when he is lucky, he sees his wife holding the arm of that famous person. He sees her, and he falls in love every time.
Laying there, he writes a message to both of his daughters on Messenger. Perhaps they will see it, or they won’t. He writes a forgiveness message of kindness and love to the mother of his children.
There are no pillows anymore, no kisses from his girls, and no feelings of warmth and happiness to mend his broken heart.
He rests his head on Adelaide’s grave, then asks a question he never thought he would ask, “Adelaide, can I please come down there with you? I always feel calm beside you.”
The cemetery remains serene as the night moves along; there is no snoring anymore, for the broken heart stopped beating at 3:15 am. Ten minutes after his girls and the love of his life deleted his messages.

Heartless Society

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We were the ones always taking action,
being the first to break taboos,
never afraid of what others thought.

Now we hide behind computer screens,
cook food most people will never taste,
think about moving up the social ladder.

We got caught up in a materialistic society,
moving closer to aggressive, heartless society;
fighting to make another dollar, and survive.

Australian Landscapes

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Big stars burn down from the sky,
the moonlights part of the way.

Bronzed grass lines the streetscape,
this land is crisping under the sun.

Blossoms on the breeze do smell,
as a lost memory emerges, forms.

Big stars burn down from the sky,
the moonlights part of the way,
so, I walk to the end of the street.

Black sky, big stars, a bright moon;
the hills sit in luminous shadows,
no cows moo at this time of night.

Bronzed grass lines the darkened
hills flowing beyond the shadows,
to remind me of other landscapes.

Blossoms on the breeze do smell,
reminding me of the landscapes
of my life, and how the landscapes
of this land changed me over time;
how this land’s landscapes change.

Standing on the Shore

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A wave breaks the sadness
you feel looking at the sea.

Young hearts shouldn’t hurt like
yours hurts under a perfect sky.

Another wave crashes into
many pieces of aquamarine;
water gems breaking and
moving back into the sea.

You take a false step forward,
not grasping the consequences.

A wave misses the target,
failing to deliver the blow.

Your heart moves you to stay,
so you remain standing
on the shore, heart-pounding;
shivering at the thought of
what could have been:
you, the aquamarines,
the sea none the wiser.

Sisters

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Weeping from behind the brown door grew louder and louder until one could hear the crying from all corners of the house.
The house lives and breathes something primal; malice lingers in the corners threatening those who venture to close to the flame.
She is only six, so she knows things and sees things the adults choose not to see; things adults choose to forget.
Weeping from behind the brown door stirs something forgotten in her soul as if she knows who occupies those walls.
Taking a torch, she pads tentatively along the hall of rooms to the one that sits at the end; the one with the brown door.
Experienced with keys and as sharp as a knife, she hastily acquires the key and puts the right one in the lock to see if it works.
A click and movement are all the convincing she needs to enter without fear; only to find out why the weeping continues.
Two eyes stare at her, and a quick movement frightens her, yet she holds her nerve and enters further still into the room.
The eyes occupy a person, and the person is familiar to her; the person is her long-lost sister who was feared dead.
Convinced at once that this is the chance, she takes her sister’s hand, they pad along the hall, and out into the night.
The parents awoke the next morning to two empty rooms. Two sisters swept up by a vanishment that created a legend.
For the girls, they made their way through the forest and into the night; now they live countries away without fear of the night.