Category: TALES

Finding Ethan (IV)

.Reading time 2 minutes.

November 1 Prompt: Copycat

[Short Story.]

I braved the creepy old bus that awaits me. I guess I wanted so much to see Ethan again that no amount of madness can terrorize me. One thing I learned from Ethan is finding the courage you never know existed in times of adversity – even if it means having to fight your own battle without your partner. You need to be more stronger for the other. We’ve been through a lot of life’s wicked experiments. Zombies. Plagues. Robots. Monsters. Mistresses – which is also classified as monsters, only half human (or half-human, half-bitch according to friends). We failed, lost and won some – together. We were a team. – We used to be.

Read More

Finding Ethan (III)

.Reading time 4 minutes.

October 31 Prompt: Eerie

Ficton

Today is my birthday. The sun tried to poke my eyes sharply but I remained undefeated. I stay buried in bed until afternoon. Even hunger gave up on me. Hours passed grimly by the window and I  watched the horizon sliced the sun in half like a melting cheesecake. A tasteful way to turn thirty.

Read More

Finding Ethan (II)

.Reading time 1 minute.

October 20 Prompt: Giant

Fiction.

A giant rock gets stuck in my throat every time I remember. Actually I don’t think I ever forget. I just push it aside but somewhere in my peripheral vision, it’s there. All things Ethan, right at the corner of my sanity. I left it unharmed knowing that once I – for a moment decided to touch it, it will break into shards and cut me.

There’s always an impending sob inside my chest that couldn’t seem to find a way out. It’s been a month and I have been better than expected. But an innocent slip of a tongue can still shatter me with the same intensity as the first night he left.  The inevitable mention of his name over dinner parties, the occasional appearances of his name in our bills and magazine subscriptions, the fragments of his presence lurking at home – items I have not completely wrapped in boxes because they were too hard to dispose and then there’s the irony of running into someone close to him in confined places like restrooms and elevators.

People has been asking me where he is or how he’s doing and I wish I knew. I always had answers to these questions. But I don’t know anymore…

How have you been Ethan? Where are you?

Finding Ethan

.Reading time 2 minutes.

October 29 Prompt: Bridge

Fiction.

The clouds were heavy that afternoon. I felt a drizzle on my shoulders walking home. I found him dragging his luggage, a knapsack strapped on his shoulders, his head bent low covered with his hoodie. He saw me walking towards him but his eyes fell closely on the ground. I couldn’t afford to get near him. My feet froze from where I was standing, scared to step across the borders that enclosed him. I respected his silence and the walls he built for us. He said it was for the better. I contradicted that by creating so many bridges for us to meet halfway. But for some reason, we kept getting lost along the way unable to find each other. His walls and my bridges combined became a labyrinth, a huge garden maze that unconsciously set an immeasurable distance. Finally, I gave up the road I was fighting for. I agreed to build fences with him instead.

Read More

Muse

.Reading time 1 minute.

October 28 Prompt: Rearrange

She has been visiting the library since she was nine, only to get her heart broken, disappointed and worse, tormented every time. But today was different. She flipped the pages of the book with profound joy on her face. She finally liked what she was reading. And when she finished, she placed it back on its shelf carefully, wondering what had happened to the many stories he burnt in the past. She has been thrown, crumpled, confused and dejected, finding litters of herself at the corner of his bedroom. And she would be up all night, exhausted with all his revisions and re-arrangements.

But it doesn’t matter now. Does it? What matters now is that he heard her. Finally, after so many years of waiting…

6cb7621aecb9a191d28eac9b62cf3d7b.jpg

 

Photo Credit: laufbahn.tumblr.com

 

Blue Smoke

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

October 27 Prompt: Smoke

He has been coughing the heaven since morning; a heavy blue smoke that filled his young lungs. Eyes were ocean deep from the unexpected monsoon clouds. Skin burning like wildfire and soon enough he will explode, just like the rest of them.

It all started with occasional thunders. There inside his chest, which he obviously ignored.

If only he knew she was contagious. But what does he know about her?

Nothing. Except that her lips taste like blueberries bursting with flavors that only his parched tongue could understand.

Autumn

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

October 23 and 19 Prompt: Artificial,Underground

Chestnut colored leaves and cinnamon, coral pink and tangerine, they twirled around me in a warm spontaneous ballet. When the cold wind touched my skin and blew secret in my ears, it was only then that I believed I was alive. I escaped the suffocating walls of the underground. I saw the sun streaks tunneling from the small gaps of maples and I felt nothing but childhood bliss. I never believed this place existed.

If only I can go back and tell them, that their stars are nothing but make believe.

Oasis: The Last Halo

.Reading time 1 minute.

September 22 Prompt: Jump

She opened her eyes slowly. Everything was hazy at first until the heavens above her became visible. Dark clouds moving heavily against the series of lightning. She was lying on a rooftop. That, she realized just now. How she got there, she has no idea. A flash of memory came unannounced, thrusting a terrible throb against her temples. The lighthouse. She was climbing the lighthouse and they were running after her. An army of demons from the West. She reached the top of the tower and there was nowhere else to go.

Read More