Tag: 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.

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.

A Hole in the Brick Wall

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Walking towards work; dreaming about being rich, staying in bed, champers for breakfast, bending our legs together, and trying out the waffle maker.

Reality floods back and I realise my skirt is too tight; the Covid Spread, like a Biscoff addiction, gone wrong, has me in its hold.

Walking down the ally towards the office, noticing the Passion Pop bottles placed randomly near the old broken door, and feeling university nostalgia coming on like an awkward chance meeting.

Turning back, I see the brick wall, and a door leading to more bricks, pipes, a hidy hole for one. A cat passes over there looking for food in the bins, and I feel sad; humans shit me sometimes.

Standing in an ally, hoping no cars come by to take me from my thoughts, and staring into the magical Dandewrong wall portal, hoping it will take me to another dimension; away from the grind.

Nothing happens. It is a hole in the wall, and nothing more. Then I look again and think this is only a reminder of the crumbling history we once knew. Crumbling history before our eyes, as this place becomes something else.

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.

Toilet Brush Dream

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You wake up in terror as a toilet brush dances around you. For some reason you think the torch beside your bed is a gun and that you can kill it; you cannot kill a plastic brush.

Baffled about your predicament, you decide to pull the covers over your head. You can still hear the bristles, and the handle is knocking against your bed frame.

Unsure what to do, you throw the covers off, jump off the bed, and hide in the corner.

The toilet brush gathers momentum, lunges at your face and you scream profanities as you wonder why the toilet brush is tangerine.

In the distance, you hear, “Anna, Anna, wake up!”

Disoriented and sleepy, you say, “Huh, what the! I was having a- huh?”

You partner looks down at you worried, “You had a bad dream-“

“What is that on the Telly!?”

“Anna, don’t worry. It’s only Donald Trump.”

Through tired sobs you say, “I dreamt he was a toilet brush…”

“Huh!?”

An odd weather day

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Pockets of sunlight spring forth between shy clouds, which sit highly in the afternoon sky; the clouds lament that shyness is often mistaken for weakness by the mob.

Most think clouds lack the will to spill heavy rain and sweep quickly across the calm sky. The sun knows the mob are full of bullshit, stinky cow dung, and sloshy old turnips.

The clouds laugh wildly at the sun’s phrasing, which gives them renewed resolve; a philosophical debate is going down on high between the sun and the clouds.

Below, an angel stands obscured by an odd mix of sunlight and shadow, experiencing strange tingling sensations; sweet sensations overtake this heavingly light warrior as the armour feels a bit too tight.

“The mob dare not believe me”, the angel whispers to the clouds as they appear closer.; the sun retreats and the clouds darken as the rain bursts forth onto the dry old Earth.

The sun retreats for a nap, and the angel
laughs loudly as droplets touch worn skin.