Shy Pain There are many kinds of pain. There are the small angry pains of a papercut and the dull, lumbering pain of sore muscles after walking home when your mom forgets to pick you up from school again. Pains also live in different places. The pain that happily splashes around in a pot of…
Tag: fiction
I, Fry Cook
I, Fry Cook Burger Lux felt like the unholy fusion of a crypt and a factory. A craptory, as I called it. There was no dining area, just four drive-thru windows along one side of the building. Behind the windows, a swarm of machines cut and fried and wrapped and packed 24 hours a day,…
Being Prepared
Being Prepared That story of the grasshopper and the ant haunted me. When I moved out to the forest, Thoreau-style, I was determined to BE PREPARED. All summer I cut wood, stacking it against the walls until the whole house was surrounded by piled firewood, five feet deep, then ten feet. By fall, the house…
Voodoo Ergonomics
Voodoo Ergonomics “Hey, check it out,” Hyo-Won said, pulling me into the corner of the classroom. She reached into her bag and took out a small doll. It was crudely made, with big, uneven stitches. “Nice,” I said. “Did your little sister make it for you?” “No!” She smacked my arm. “It’s a voodoo doll….
The People Watcher
Nobody really sees me. I’m just the boy cleaning up spilled French fries and wiping spilled ketchup and nugget dipping sauce off the tables. There is a high level of invisibility with that job. But I see them. It is like watching snapshots of other worlds coming in. You see them for an instance and…
The Prisoner
The Prisoner As the sun heads up to cross the horizon my eyes bore into its burning glow. It peeks through the buildings and washes down the threatening glimmer of the sky that keeps me up at night. As I stare through the window the prickling sting in my eyes grows sharper. Time stretches, drawn-out…
Stealth Mission: Home Edition
My parents keep a strict curfew. I have to be home by 10 pm or I’ll be grounded for a week. They’ve made this rule very clear, and I am well aware of it. But the truth is, I almost never follow it. This would be terrible for me and my social life except that…
The Book Under the Bed
The Book Under the Bed The box under Michael’s bed was in a fire-proof documents safe with two keys. It was a lot of protection, especially since Michael took it out and read the book every day without fail. It was the sort of book he should have found in the dusty corner of an…
Ate Hidilyn
Ate Hidilyn Tala was getting frantic. She had lost one of her tsinelas. It had fallen off her foot as she was running along the path down to her house, and although it was pink with light-green straps, it was nowhere to be found. It was too dark to see but she could not bear…
Muse on Monday – August 9, 2021, Featuring “Friday Night in the Box”
I hope everyone is having a good week so far. Are you feeling creative? Is your muse active? Scroll down to read Friday Night in the Box or read below for this week’s writing prompt. The Muse on Monday challenge is to write a story of your own based on the prompt below. You can…
The Green-Walled Treehouse 