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- The story is Return to Paradise written by Eliza Riley .It's a romance story .There are 3 pages , the story is very short .

- The story is about a woman ,Lisa , who returns to the Caribbean sea , the place where she married James three years ago to remember good memories . A man watching her next to the palm trees and comes meet her . A connection was quickly established between the two characters . Then their conversations deepened an Lisa told the sad story of the loss of her baby and the reasons for her divorce .

- I really enjoyed the story from the beginning to end . Even if in a way it is a bit sad , it has a good ending . The end is very unexpected because we learn that the boy in the campagny of Lisa is in reality James and that they have after their conversations renewed their promise . I liked the originality of the turn of events .

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Lisa gazed out over the Caribbean Sea, feeling the faint breeze against her face - eyes shut, the white sand warm between her bare toes. The place was beautiful beyond belief, but it was still unable to ease the grief she felt as she remembered the last time she had been here.

She had married James right here on this spot three years ago to the day. Dressed in a simple white shift dress, miniature white roses attempting to tame her long dark curls, Lisa had been happier than she had ever thought possible. James was even less formal but utterly irresistible in creased summer trousers and a loose white cotton shirt. His dark hair slightly ruffled and his eyes full of adoration as his looked at his bride to be. The justice of the peace had read their vows as they held hands and laughed at the sheer joy of being young, in love and staying in a five star resort on the Caribbean island of the Dominican Republic. They had seen the years blissfully stretching ahead of them, together forever. They planned their children, two she said, he said four so they compromised on three (two girls and a boy of course); where they would live, the travelling they would do together - it was all certain, so they had thought then.

But that seemed such a long time ago now. A lot can change in just a few years - a lot of heartache can change a person and drive a wedge through the strongest ties, break even the deepest love. Three years to the day and they had returned, though this time not for the beachside marriages the island was famous for but for one of its equally popular quickie divorces.

Lisa let out a sigh that was filled with pain and regret. What could she do but move on, find a new life and new dreams? - the old one was beyond repair. How could this beautiful place, with its lush green coastline, eternity of azure blue sea and endless sands be a place for the agony she felt now?

The man stood watching from the edge of the palm trees. He couldn't take his eyes of the dark-haired woman he saw standing at the water's edge, gazing out to sea as though she was waiting for something - or someone. She was beautiful, with her slim figure dressed in a loose flowing cotton dress, her crazy hair and bright blue eyes not far off the colour of the sea itself. It wasn't her looks that attracted him though; he came across many beautiful women in his work as a freelance photographer. It was her loneliness and intensity that lured him. Even at some distance he was aware that she was different from any other woman he could meet.

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Short Stories: Return to Paradise by Eliza Riley

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Lisa gazed out over the Caribbean Sea, feeling the faint breeze against her face - eyes shut, the white sand warm between her bare toes. The place was beautiful beyond belief, but it was still unable to ease the grief she felt as she remembered the last time she had been here.

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Covennant is a short story written by
Crystal Arbogast
-The gender is fiction
-The story has 5 page

-Pitch:This is the story of 2 childhood friends Eddie and Vince. As they prepare to land on the beaches of normandy he remembers the hug they both did to eddie's sister.

-I like this story because it is very immersive we have the impression of being with the character and I recommanded redingote this short story if you like the story with a part of realism and suspense

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The mass of helmets lurched backward as the landing craft plunged into the dark water. Sea spray glistened on the surface of everything it touched, catching the light of the artillery fire. Private Eddie Hagen glanced at the faces of the men around him. Some were praying, while others held pictures or mementos of sweethearts and family before carefully tucking them away inside of their jackets. The rest stared into the unknown, their faces expressionless, betraying no inner feelings.

'This is it, Buddy!'

Eddie managed a smile in return for the hearty slap on his shoulder and twisted around to acknowledge a friend.

'We're finally gonna kick some Nazi ass!' Vince DeLanzio grinned down at Eddie. 'Remember, kid, the rules are the same just like it was in the old neighborhood. Stick with me. We'll both do just fine. Besides, your sister will never marry me if I let any thing happen to you.'

'You know something, Vinnie, that's really funny. She told me to watch out for you.'

Suddenly, both men were distracted by an explosion which sent more spray into the craft. The roar of airplanes filled the sky. As they passed overhead, the black and white 'invasion' stripes painted on their lower bodies could be seen. The markings let the Allies know that these were their own, for protection against their anti-aircraft guns. The soldiers watched them as they made their way through the flack and over the cliffs.

'Son-of-a-bitch! Do you see that shoreline, Vince? How the hell are we gonna make it up those cliffs? We'll be sitting ducks, just waiting for Fritz to blow us all to hell!'

'They're blowing us all to hell now, Bud! Personally, I'll take my chances on that beach than in this deathtrap. Look over there! At least two of these babies less than a mile off have sunk!'

Eddie attempted to adjust his gear and renewed his grip on his rifle. Amid the chaos and ever increasing artillery fire, he thought of his last visit to another beach, Coney Island. During his high school years, as the weather grew warm, he would cut classes with Vince and hitchhike to the beach. Vince had always been the bolder one. Orphaned at an early age, he had been raised by an aunt. Without a father's guidance, he had grown up streetwise and cocky.

On the other hand, Eddie had the advantage of a loving, structured family life. His dad was a kind and forgiving man. It was his mother's Irish temperament which had kept him on his toes. His sister, Tess, had the same fire and beauty as their mother. Vince had been smitten with Tess for years. In fact, Eddie was sure that his friend was in love.

Vince and Eddie had signed up for the Marines at the same time. After basic training, the two had strutted like peacocks before family and friends. As full-fledged fighting men, they would now join in the fight against the Hun. When the time came to say good-bye, Eddie avoided the look in his parents' eyes. He could not avoid Tess, though. With tear-filled eyes, she made him promise to look out for himself, as well as Vince. She then turned to his friend, placed her hands on his shoulders, and kissed him for the first time. Vince watched her run upstairs to her room, leaving him weak in the knees. Regaining his composure, he said his farewell and walked out of the door.

Suddenly, the barking of orders from the platoon leader interrupted Eddie's thoughts. The back wall of the craft crashed into the water and the throng of men moved forward. Plunging into the icy surf, the Marines gasped as the cold wetness penetrated their clothing. The dark, green depths caused many to flounder, already weighted down with excess gear. This, combined with the mortar fire aimed at them from the top of the cliffs, caused many to believe they had seen their last day.

As Eddie struggled toward the shore, a bullet pierced through the man in front of him, causing him to fall backward. He looked into the lifeless eyes before the sea covered the soldier's face and claimed his spirit.

A second later, Eddie felt a sharp pain in his side. Before losing his balance, he felt a strong arm lifting him up.

'Are you okay, buddy?'

Eddie shook his head in reply as Vince struggled to maintain his own bearing. The water became shallower, but rolls of barbed wire presented another problem. Others cried out in pain as they fell or tripped onto the biting barricade. Finally, the two spied an opening and scrambled to the shore, quickly followed by others.

'Where are you hit, Ed?' Concern shown in Vince's face as his eyes searched for the source of the red stain, which slowly traveled downward.

'Just beneath the shoulder. Man, it stung like hell, at first. Now it's kinda numb.' Eddie gasped and dropped his head onto the wet sand.

'Give me your gear.'

Eddie raised his head as he felt his friend unbuckle the pack, and ease the straps from his shoulders.

'What are you doing, Vince?'

'I want you to start crawling toward the cliff. See that niche over there? Head for it. You can't make it in your shape with all this gear. I'll be right behind you. Now, go!'

The firing intensified, but Eddie said a silent prayer and clawed his way to the wall of rock. Bodies of dead and dying were all around. Ironically, they served as a protective shield. As he approached his destination, a hand reached out and grabbed at the collar of his jacket, pulling him to safety. Within the shelter of the rock, Eddie could see others inside the crevice.

'Can you see my buddy?'

'Don't see much of anything moving right now, mate.'

Eddie peered into the dark corners and recognized the British uniforms. A clicking sound engulfed his ears, and he realized that it was his teeth. Knowing he could not restrain his fear, he wanted at least to control his trembling. Glancing at the man next to him, he noticed that he, too, was shaking.

The mist from the sea began to rise, only to mingle with the smoke from the mortar fire. Eddie lay against the cliff, feeling weak and helpless. More men were coming ashore, and staying alive. They were making progress. He wondered how much longer the battle would last, and where Vince was.

Looking out at the edge of the beach, he saw the back of a familiar figure. With soldiers scrambling back and forth, Eddie found that he could not take his eyes from the lone form. Slowly, the man turned, and faced Eddie's questioning stare. The left side of his face had been blown away with shrapnel. His arm hung limply at his side. Even with half of his body badly torn, Eddie knew that it was Vince. Both men looked at each other. Eddie could not speak or move. He could only gaze at the face of his friend. Finally, Vince turned, and disappeared into the smoke and chaos of battle.

'Sorry about your mate, Yank. He'll probably turn up down the shoreline somewhere, where we're supposed to be.'

The voice broke into Eddie's trance, and pulled him back. Still he could not speak. The look in Vince's eyes before he vanished played over and over again in Eddie's mind. It had been a look of satisfaction at knowing that his friend was safe, and that he had kept his promise to the one he loved. It had also been a final farewell.

Later on, as the medic finished dressing his wound, Eddie found himself lying in one of a hundred rows of injured and dead soldiers. The glory of war was all around. Blood stained the sand, and the ongoing explosions of battle sounded in the distance. For now, though, the moans and crying of men filled the air.

'Here, pal, have a cigarette.'

Eddie looked at the medic's face and murmured a 'thanks' as he accepted the offer. Still trembling, he brought the cigarette to his lips and inhaled slowly. Lying back, he could only think of the fact that he was on a beach. It was chilly, just like Coney Island in the Spring. Coney Island.

He peered over just as a handful of more British soldiers made their way between the rows of bodies. One stopped to shift the weight of a load that he carried over his shoulder, before resuming his journey. Eddie could see that it was the body of a young Private, arms hanging limp and lifeless.

The medic stopped the man, and lifted the head of the boy.

'You're wasting your time, Mac. This one's dead.'

Continuing his trek, the soldier replied over his shoulder. 'I promised his Mum that I would look out for him.'

Shaking his head, the medic turned his attention to the next link in an endless chain.

'Promised his Mum.' The words rolled over in Eddie's head. Promises. The entire beach was filled with broken promises, yet Vince had managed to keep his. The cigarette slipped through his fingers into the sand. The sun now shone through the haze, resembling a Ferris Wheel in the distance. Water lapped back and forth on the shore, and the cry of gulls, somewhere, phased into the laughter of children. Eddie closed his eyes, and wept.

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Short Stories: Covenant by Crystal Arbogast

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The mass of helmets lurched backward as the landing craft plunged into the dark water. Sea spray glistened on the surface of everything it touched, catching the light of the artillery fire. Private Eddie Hagen glanced at the faces of the men around him.

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The White Castel is a horror story written by Jack Curran it contain six pages.

The main characters Seb and Eoin were friends until Seb become jealous of Eoin and this jealousy will lead to a conflict that will cause the death of both.

I didn't really get hooked on this story.

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Bobblheads was written by Bobby Wise. We have no informations about the publication date. It's a horror novel, wich is 9 pages long.

This novel is about a toy seller who has problems with his shop. He doesn't sells toys anymore...

i liked this story because I like suspense and horror.

All horror novel's fans should read this novel. If you like suspense, read it.

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When the door closed shut, Stacey grabbed the Yellow Pages and flipped it open, finding the letter M for Mel's. His finger trailed down. There. Mel's Toy Shack, 103 Arlington Street, Widdershins.

Stacey could feel his face getting hot. Was this the reason his store had seen such a sudden decline in sales? And if so, what was so special about this new wave of bobbleheads? Could they really be that different from his own? Stacey had to see for himself.

Penning a ring around the address, Stacey tore out the page and slipped it into his pocket. The Yellow Pages went back below the counter, flattening the latest pile of final notice letters.

Widdershins was a two-hour drive, and Stacey wasted no time locking up the shop and jumping into his car. With a roadmap stretched across his lap, Stacey barrelled up the motorway, the radio dulled down to a low whisper. He was too angry to listen to anything.

At just over halfway, Stacey slowed and pulled into a petrol station, filling up. In the distance, dark clouds started to gather.

"£32.60," the attendant said, his yawn landing on the plastic shield between them. Below the cloud of tired, shrinking breath, Stacey noticed a poster, the words' missing' emblazoned across the top. Geraldine Taylor, last seen leaving the local tavern two days ago. Geraldine had green eyes and freckles. A pencil held up a bun of reddish hair. The attendant cleared his throat.

Muttering an apology, Stacey handed over the money for the petrol and thumbed at the loose change from his pocket, deciding against the chocolate bar and energy drink and setting them back down on the counter with a huff. The attendant smirked and prodded at the till deducting the discarded items from the total.

Stacey set off again, his windscreen wipers thwacking away the rain as it fell. When the map told him to take the next exit, Stacey found himself on a much narrower road, surrounded by tall pine trees. The sky had darkened by the time Widdershins came into view some twenty minutes later, and after a quick lap of the high street, Stacey circled back and found a parking space.

One of the locals told him he could find Mel's Toy Shack just beyond the cinema, so Stacey headed that way, contemplating whether or not to visit a cosy-looking coffee shop before the confrontation. Confrontation, Stacey thought. He wasn't even sure what he was going to say.

There had been plenty of time for thinking during the journey up to Widdershins, but Stacey had used that time to play out a range of unrealistic scenarios, none of which were particularly helpful.

Skipping on the coffee, Stacey found Mel's Toy Shack a few streets down, tucked away beneath a gloomy underpass. The neon sign in the front window was blinding, stretching all the way out to the curb. A bell announced Stacey's arrival, and he swept his shoes against the welcome mat, rubbing his hands together to see off the cold. He took a look around, moving between the aisles. The space was small, and the shelves were mostly empty, aside from a few toys and board games.

Stacey scratched at his stubble. He didn't understand. There was nothing extraordinary about Mel's Toy Shack. Most of the toys, from the few he could see, were bland and outdated. Where were these world-famous bobbleheads, Stacey wondered. He found a shop assistant pottering about behind the counter at the front of the store.

"Evening," the assistant said, looking up, "horrible weather we've been having."

But Stacey didn't hear him. He was too busy looking at the shelves lining the wall behind him. Bobblehead figures. Three of them.

But these weren't regular bobblehead figurines. These were different. Stacey squinted at the collection. Two of them were vaguely similar, longish hair, beards, both dressed in shabby attire, a tattered anorak, and scruffy windbreaker, sleeping bags slung over tiny shoulders. Those two looked as though they came as a pair. The last remaining one, though, stood out from the others.

The assistant followed Stacey's gaze.

"Can you believe we started the day with forty of those things!"

Must be nice, Stacey thought, noticing the empty spaces between each figure. The prices listed below each one were extortionate - ten times what Stacey charged for his own.

"Can I see that one?" Stacey asked, "the one on the end there."

The assistant nodded and wiped his hands on his vest, grabbing the figurine and setting it down on the counter.

Stacey glared over the large squarish head, small body, and large, circular eyes. Green eyes, with a glint he couldn't quite place. There were freckles, perfectly painted. And reddish hair, held in place by a pencil. The craftsmanship was incredible, down to every detail.

"You make these in town?" Stacey asked. The material was like nothing he had ever seen or felt before, remarkably different to the beechwood figurines he sold at the emporium.

"You could say that," the assistant grinned, "say, you want me to bag that one up for you?"

Stacey was about to answer when the phone rang. The assistant held up a hand and took the call, turning to glance up at the shelves.

"You saw it in the store earlier, huh?" he said, "what's that? The one with the red raincoat? No, sorry, that one went this afternoon".

Looking around, Stacey palmed the bobblehead that looked eerily like Geraldine Taylor and explored the aisles he hadn't yet seen, wondering if he would find any more bobbleheads.

Instead, he came across a door leading to the backroom. With a quick glance behind him, Stacey ducked inside. He had to find out who Mel's supplier was. There was no way his stock at the emporium could compete, not with this new material, whatever it was. At the far end of the backroom, a loading dock sat in the gloom, rain tapping on the shutters.

To his right, Stacey found an office, peering through the gap in the door before stepping inside. A bank of CCTV screens mapped the wall, cameras covering the store and the street outside.

Stacey watched the shop assistant from above, the phone still pressed against his ear. He wouldn't be distracted for too much longer. Stacey knew he had to find something quick. The desk below the monitors offered little, and Stacey pushed aside old coffee cups and ashtrays filled to the brim with cigarette butts, squinting at random pieces of paper, hoping he might find an invoice from Mel's supplier.

One of the monitors facing the street was suddenly busy with movement, and a car pulled up to the shutters. Stacey heard the thud of a car door closing and moved to the doorway. The shutters opened halfway, and he could see a car trundling quietly in the haze, rain cascading down from an open boot. Stacey moved back towards the store.

He would have to come back another day. Maybe there was a hotel where he could rest up for the night. Either way, he needed to get out of there before he was caught snooping. With his eyes still on the shutter, Stacey turned, his elbow grazing an old broom handle and knocking it away from the wall. Before he could stop it, the broom fell, hitting the floor with a loud clang.

"Derek, that you?"

Stacey chose not to respond, his heart pounding. A figure stooped beneath the shutter, flicking on a light switch. The room was suddenly bright, and Stacey had to shield his eyes.

"Thought you were my cousin," growled the figure, shaking off his jacket and hanging it on the wall, "what are you doing back here, anyway?"

When Stacey's eyes adjusted to the light, he saw a tall man, possibly in his mid-twenties, his dark hair flattened by the rain. There was a holster strapped around his waist, the purple-green metallic glint of what appeared to be a gun poking out over the leather. Stacey thought it looked like some kind of toy.

"I'm guessing you're Mel?"

The figure didn't flinch.

"That's right. And you are?"

"My name's Stacey Olmo. I run a store not too far from here. Olmo's Original Bobblehead Emporium".

"That so. What can I do for you?"

"I'd like to know where you get your bobbleheads," Stacey said boldly, seeing no point in lying. He tried not to look at the holster.

Mel chuckled.

"I'm sure you would! Now tell me, why would I just hand that information over to a competitor?"

Stacey nodded.

"That's fair. Maybe instead, you can tell me a little more about the characters you've created. They're unlike anything I've ever seen before".

Mel sighed deeply, clearly agitated.

"Listen, you're upset, envious even, I get it. Do you know how many Stacey Olmos we've had in here over the past few months? Tons. All of them complaining, all of them wanting to know where we get our bobbleheads. Do yourself a favour, settle up at the front desk and go back to that store of yours. There's only one place people want to get their bobbleheads from now on, and that's Mel's".

"That may be so," Stacey said, glancing over the bobblehead in his hand, "but what will people say when they find out your bobbleheads are inspired by missing posters? Missing locals, to be exact".

Mel looked up and raised an eyebrow.

"Now why would you say a thing like that?"

"I stopped at a petrol station on the way up here. There was a missing poster at the counter," Stacey held up the bobblehead, "safe to say the girl in the poster looks an awful lot like one of your £100 bobbleheads".

Mel went to speak but stopped himself, offering a toothy smile instead.

"Is that why you carry that thing?" Stacey persisted, pointing at the gun on Mel's hip, "why you've covered this whole place with cameras? A little heavy for just your regular toy store, wouldn't you say?"

Mel's hand was fast, the iridescent gun suddenly in his grip, pointing right at Stacey.

"You know, there was me thinking it had been a disappointing night. Looks like that won't be the case after all".

Stacey raised his hands halfway. He had said too much, pushed it too far, and Mel was angry; he could see it in his eyes.

"The self-proclaimed bobblehead king," Mel mocked, circling Stacey as he backed up, "you'll make a fine one. We'll just have to find you a tiny crown".

Stacey's heart was beating faster now, much faster. Was he serious? He couldn't mean to shoot him with that thing, could he? Stacey wasn't prepared to find out. His heel knocked against the fallen broom handle.

"Listen, we can figure this out."

Mel shook his head, stepping forward.

"I'm going to need you to drop the bobblehead and lower your arms," he said, "and maybe crack a little smile. Can't have you looking all scared now, can we?"

Stacey could hear a whirring sound as the trigger felt the pull of Mel's finger. But he was quick, knowing this would be his only opportunity, digging the toe of his boot beneath the broom and flicking it towards Mel's outstretched arm.

The broom smashed against Mel's chest, snapping in half. With a loud grunt, Mel fell onto his back, winded, the gun scattering across the floor. Dropping the bobblehead, Stacey rushed over to meet him, and they tussled, rolling against the dusty concrete, crashing into a stack of cardboard boxes.

Mel wriggled free and got to his feet, landing a punch on Stacey's nose and knocking him back. They grappled again, and Stacey threw Mel to the ground, heading for the gun where it lay. But Mel tripped him at the ankle, and Stacey crashed down once more.

When Mel tried to drag him back by the leg, Stacey kicked him in the chest, sending him sprawling. Stacey took the gun in his hand and turned, trying to steady his aim. As soon as he saw the gun, Mel stopped, hands on his knees, panting.

"You don't know what you've got there, Olmo," he gasped, raising a hand, "hand it over, and we can forget this whole thing ever happened."

Stacey looked down at the gun. The barrel was short, snubbed. The shape reminded Stacey of some sort of bulbous insect. Then, suddenly, the shop assistant appeared in the doorway.

"What's going on out here!?" he yelled.

But Stacey was already pulling down on the trigger, and after a short blast of pale green light, the assistant froze before disappearing entirely, a scream barely in his throat.

There was a noise that followed, a sort of clatter, but Stacey had to shift his focus to Mel, who had picked up one end of the broken broom handle and was now charging toward him.

Stacey yanked at the trigger again, and like the assistant, Mel froze before vanishing. Only this time, when a rattle rang around the backroom, Stacey saw something fall and settle. Picking himself up, his legs trembling with shock, Stacey moved over to the small object in the centre of the room.

Bending down, Stacey almost collapsed when he saw that Mel had been replaced by a tiny version of himself. A bobblehead. Stacey couldn't believe what he was seeing. But there was no mistake. Every detail matched the man who had been standing before him just moments before. The hair, the clothes, the gun holster on his waist, although that was now empty. He was even clutching one half of the broken broom handle, but that too had shrunk to a miniature scale.

Stacey set Mel down and went to seek out the assistant, who, upon inspection, had suffered the same fate. Unlike Mel's angry scowl, the assistant's eyes were wide with terror. Stacey wondered if they could see him, if they were somehow still alive, waiting to be freed. Was there a way of turning them back? Was that even possible?

The thought made Stacey weak, and he palmed at the doorway, his mind racing.

What was this thing, he thought, looking down at the gun, still hot in his palm. What had he done? How would he explain this?

Then he remembered the cameras in the office. He wasted no time, pulling the security tapes from each console and bringing his foot down hard on each of them. At that moment, the bell from the front of the shop rang, loud and sharp.

"I'm telling you," he heard in the distance, "we should have got here earlier, we'll be lucky if there's any left!"

Stacey watched two teenagers pass through the shop, keeping himself hidden in the shadows. They gathered at the counter, talking between themselves, pointing up at the bobbleheads. Stacey thought about crawling beneath the shutter and heading back to Lindell Street, back to his quiet little store.

But he couldn't go back. Not now. Not after what he'd seen here tonight. He glanced over his shoulder. Geraldine. Mel. The assistant. He had made his decision.

When he got to the counter, the two customers already had their wallets open, money in hand. They told Stacey they'd been traveling for three hours and that their friends wouldn't stop talking about the bobblehead figurines they'd bought at Mel's Toy Shack.

Stacey sold them the last two remaining bobbleheads and told them that if they wanted more, they should visit Olmo's Original Bobblehead Emporium on Lindell Street. New stock would be in by the weekend.

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Short Stories: Bobbleheads by Bobby Wise

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When the door closed shut, Stacey grabbed the Yellow Pages and flipped it open, finding the letter M for Mel's. His finger trailed down. There. Mel's Toy Shack, 103 Arlington Street, Widdershins. Stacey could feel his face getting hot. Was this the reason his store had seen such a sudden decline in sales?

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This story is "the case of the lower case letter" written by Jack Delany and it is a crime story, there are two pages.

This story is about a man who was known to be a lexical semantic and according to the police he committed suicide. As the story progresses we find out from a letter he wrote that he did not commit suicide but was killed.

I really liked this story because it was surprising and unexpected. I recommend it a lot for those who like stories with big twists.

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She breezed into my office one cold September morning. I'd been enjoying a hot cup of Starbuck's finest and surfing the web for local news. The famous lexical semanticist Professor Edgar Nettleston had been found dead, a gunshot wound to the head. The police verdict was suicide.

She held out an elegant hand as she floated towards me and I glimpsed a wedding band with a stone the size of a peanut M&M.

"I'm Edith Nettleston."

"Sorry about the old man."

"I'm not. He loved me, but he loved words more. I'll be brief. My husband was working on a paper that will rock the very foundation of lexical semantics. It's worth a fortune in lecture tours, but nobody can find it. I believe his suicide note is a clue to its whereabouts."

She removed a scrap of paper from her blouse.

"edith. i'm not going to whine, i've had a good life. i've found wealth and happiness as a teacher, a seller of knowledge. but i find myself depressed beyond hope ... and so i'm choosing the hour and manner of my own demise. i have treated you badly. i demanded you dyed your brown curls blonde. i thought i could buy you when i should have won your love. i called you a witch. i'd complain: where's the woman i married? i said you ate too much. if i wanted change, i could have used a carrot rather than a stick. you probably wanted to wring my neck. forgive me. farewell."

"It's all written in lower case. My husband was a stickler for correct grammar. I refuse to believe it doesn't mean something."

"Mrs. Nettleston, I think I can help you. There's a couple of odd things about this letter. Firstly, as you say, it's written entirely in lower case. Mr. Nettleston was a world-renowned lexical semanticist, not a teenager texting his BFFs."

"Secondly, it has a more than usual number of homophones, words where there is another word with the same sound but different spelling and meaning. When dealing with a lexical semanticist, that's surely no accident."

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Short Stories: The Case of The Lower Case Letter by Jack Delany

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She breezed into my office one cold September morning. I'd been enjoying a hot cup of Starbuck's finest and surfing the web for local news. The famous lexical semanticist Professor Edgar Nettleston had been found dead, a gunshot wound to the head. The police verdict was suicide.

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Call of Nature by William Heath
Genre : Horror
15 pages
Pitch: A night, during a travel with his friends, a young man named Dave leave the four-by-four of his friend to go in a forest to urinate. Then, he meets a strange woman who reproach him for dishonouring an old tree by this act; further to which Dave have itches and his body start to change.
Review: The beginning of the story put us quickly in the atmosphere. However, it’s more a moralistic story; we can see what happen when someone doesn’t respect the environment: Call of Nature is a good lesson about this respect that we must have with the idea of “don’t do to others what you wouldn’t like they could do to you”. It's an interesting story.

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The forest looked ethereal in the light from the moon overhead. Ghostly, eldritch, like Dave had stepped into another world. The branches swayed with a slight breeze, and the leaves rustled out a mellifluous harmony. But, again, this was lost on Dave. All he cared about was his aching bladder.

Letting out a lagery belch, he dashed to the first tree he found that was wide enough for his purposes but also far enough in so that people wouldn't twig what he was up to.

The tree was colossal. Like its branches could scratch the night sky. It looked ancient, too, with the bark resembling an old man's skin. Dave certainly wasn't a horticultural expert, but he would have recognised it as an oak if he had been. The heady, musky aroma was thicker here for some reason.

Dave unzipped his flies and pulled out little Dave. He let go of his bladder and sighed with ecstasy as a thick arc of yellow, beer-fuelled piss streamed out and struck the tree with a swaggering splash. It smeared and soaked its way all over the ancient bark and ran down its noble length in thick rivulets. Dave, continuing to sigh and in a cheeky mood, waggled his penis about a bit, letting the stream hit the bark by moving it around, this way and that, like playing some sort of game. He tittered to himself.

Eventually, the trickle dried up. Then, shaking himself off until the last stragglers of urine had dripped out onto the ground, he put himself away and zipped his flies back up. He looked at the large wet smear, soaking up the wood on the tree, good and proper, and felt a strange kind of masculine pride.

His bladder relieved, his thoughts could return to more interesting climes, and he clapped his hands together and rubbed them at the thought of what awaited him on the back seat of Baz's four by four. Then, turning to go, he hoped he hadn't gone too far in that he wouldn't be able to find his way out again. That would be embarrassing, he thought. His feet crunching old leaves underfoot, he had only gone a few steps when he heard it.

"Oi, what the bloody hell do you think you're playing at?" rang out a sharp, insistent cry from behind him.

It made him jump, and, for some reason, a cold shiver went down his back at the same time. His reaction making him feel a bit unmanned got his dander well and truly up.

He turned around and saw a young woman was stood by the tree he'd just decorated, her arms folded across her chest, her face a mask of anger.

It was dark, so he couldn't really make out what he was seeing that well. Plus, he'd had more than a few. But he did think that something weird had happened. He told himself it was just the light playing tricks and the booze, but, even so, for a split second, when he had turned around, and it made him feel silly for thinking it, he'd thought something else had been stood there instead.

Something...tree-like, something...something wooden...Had he really seen the flickering of finger-like twigs or the rustle of vine-like hair...?

He blinked and just saw the young woman fuming back at him. Had to be the booze. Had to be.

She was quite fit, actually, he thought. She had a small bob of dark hair and a white blouse top and dark jeans, and what he took to be long black boots. But it was the eyes. They were dark-looking those eyes, like inky pools, and they seemed to bore into him with such increasing fury that Dave, ever the romantic, found her aggression something of a turn on.

"Well," she snapped, with a lilting, sing-song voice. "What have you got to say for yourself?"

"Aye? What are you going on about? What's your problem?" Carrot crunchers, he thought. They're all nutters, the lot of them.

"I'm talking about this!" she said and pointed a finger at the wet bark of the tree. "This obscenity, you drunken yob!"

"What?" Was she being serious? Was this a wind-up? But he could tell by the enraged look on her face, it wasn't. They really were a load of nutters out here. "Are you on something? I was only having a piss! God, I was bursting! Are you bloody loopy or something?"

She just shook her head. "How dare you despoil this lovely, noble creature! He's thousands of years old and has been here long before this forest grew up around him and will be here long after you, you moronic lout!" She patted the trunk of the tree with a loving pat. "He has feelings too, you know. How would you like it if someone urinated over you?"

Ooh aye, Golden Showers, he thought, and smirked but shrugged his shoulders at her. He didn't have time to waste on this nonsense. I've got better things to do than hang about this dingy wood and argue with some crazy "Back to Nature" weirdo, he thought. "You know what? You want to go and see someone, love. You're bloody barmy!"

She wrinkled her nose, and her eyes seemed to darken even more. "You're just like all of them. Don't have any time for the nature around them. Just think it's all there for their convenience".

And now we've entered lecture mode. Sod that for a game of toy soldiers, he thought. Waving a dismissive hand at her, he turned back round. "Ah, just fuck off. Demented tree hugger."

"Tree hugger!" she cried. And, he couldn't be sure, but he thought he caught the word "racist" being whispered for some reason. "You need to be taught some respect."

He didn't know what the hell that was supposed to mean, but there was a definite threat in it. He could practically taste it. And he wasn't going to put up with any of that. Especially from a bird, he thought. He turned around again, but she'd gone. It was just the darkness and the tree, which seemed to look strangely forlorn and sad back at him. It was like she'd never been there.

Dave shivered. "Silly mare," he said out loud to make himself feel better. Then, shrugging, he turned back in the direction of Barry's car, turning his thoughts to more tender matters, such as the lady he'd had his eye on from the back seat. He just hoped Barry had remembered to pack the johnnies.

#

His left arm was bothering him. It was itchy. He attacked his plate of bacon, sausage, and eggs to take his mind off it, his arteries crying and his heart wincing in response.

"Great night last night, wasn't it?" said Dave, slithering a rasher of bacon almost whole into his mouth. "Did you score in the end?" He gave Barry a leering wink.

Barry narrowed his eyes at him across the breakfast table of the small hotel they were staying in. A sly smirk creased his lips, though. "A gentleman doesn't discuss such things," he said.

"Oh. Bad luck, mate," said Dave, followed by a brash laugh.

Barry narrowed his eyes further. "Actually, she wants to see me again. Gloria. She's an artist. Nice girl. What about yours? What was her name?"

Dave didn't know and hadn't bothered to ask. He was never one for conversation. "Jenny," he lied on the spur of the moment. "Er, yeah. She...um...wants to see me again, too" - another lie. Never mind. Plenty more where that came from, he figured.

Barry nodded and cut into his sausage.

Dave picked up another rasher, and a few flecks of grease dripped from it onto his plate. For some reason, it made him think of his nocturnal urination in the wood. And his encounter with the strange woman. He thought he'd dreamt of her last night but couldn't be sure nor remember what it was really about. It was just a strange feeling he had. He had woken up at one point in the night and heard a woman laughing but assumed it was probably just "What's Her Name," doing it in her sleep, and had drifted back off again.

His arm started to itch and bother him again. He hadn't really taken any notice until he'd got in the shower. As soon as the water had touched it, it had suddenly felt very sore, like he'd cut himself. When he'd inspected it, after towelling himself dry, it looked quite red and flaky, and it felt sort of tight. It bothered him, which bothered him even more. He held his bare arm out to Barry. "What do you make of this?"

Barry looked over. "Ooh, that looks sore. What are you using?"

"Nothing. Nothing different than I normally do".

Barry shrugged. "Perhaps you caught something off that Jenny. Perhaps she's got impetigo". Barry smirked.

Dave glowered at him. He found himself rubbing it, though.

"Does baby need some moisturiser?" said Barry, in a voice so sarcastic it could have done stand-up.

"Fuck off," said Dave, good-naturedly, and they continued to slaver over their breakfast.

It did bother him, though. It must have done for him to show it to Barry, which went against the usual bloke code. An hour later, in his room, getting ready to go out for the day, he found himself scratching at his other arm, too.

#

"What do you reckon it is then, doc?" asked Dave, in a voice he hoped was teeming with unconcerned nonchalance.

Doctor McNamara looked up from his desk, over his glasses, with surly condescension. He was the sort of doctor who liked being a doctor; just the patients bothered him.

Dave gave the doctor a hopeful look. His arms hurt even now with the patches of redness and flaky skin that spread up both his arms, itching like a bastard. He scratched at one of them. Flecks of dead, desiccated skin wisped up into the air.

"Not sure. Probably some form of eczema, I'd imagine. Are you allergic to anything?" Before Dave could even answer, McNamara flicked his eyes over to the white screen and scanned Dave's medical record. "Ah, I see you're not," he said, with a dismissive tone. McNamara shrugged. "I don't think it's anything to worry about. Haven't been in contact with anyone that might be contagious or have a skin complaint to your knowledge?" He raised his eyebrows with gratuitous archness.

Dave rubbed at his arm. "Um...Well, I did, um, meet a woman, on holiday, type thing". He felt his face go hot.

McNamara seemed to enjoy Dave's discomfort. "Do you know if she suffered from anything like this?"

It was a bit of a drunken blur, but Dave shook his head.

McNamara gave a dismissive sniff. "Well, I'll send you for blood tests, just to be on the safe side. But I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. A reaction to some product you're using, probably. Try and vary things, see if it makes a difference. In the meantime, I'll prescribe you some ointment we use for things like this". He typed on the computer. His fingertips hammering the keyboard set Dave's teeth on edge for some reason. So did the printer as it started to jerk out the prescription. McNamara tore it off with a perfunctory rip and handed it over. "And try not to worry. Worrying will make it feel worse".

Dave nodded as he scratched one of his arms.

#

He sat back on his settee with his stereo blaring away like a four-minute warning.

He sighed and tried his best to get comfortable, but it just wasn't possible. The skin on his arms was bad today. In fact, they were as sore as buggery. He looked with mournful wistfulness through the patio doors of his living room at the garden outside and the glorious summer sunshine, which, always a rarity in Britain, should be devoured if the opportunity ever came along. He'd have loved to have been out in it with a few cold beers and a chance to get a tan (and ogle the woman next door sunbathing). But, no. He was shut up indoors because of his bastard skin irritation.

He looked at his arms and wondered if they were actually his. They didn't look like it. All the way from shoulder to fingertip was a blistering mass of red soreness. It would have stung like hell if he'd put anything on it, like suntan lotion or sunblock. The soreness looked odd as well. The skin had swollen and bunched up in several places so that it looked raised like his skin was now a mass of ridges that had crenelated their way across his flesh like scales. He hated looking at himself, to be honest. When bricklaying, which was getting more and more difficult because his arms felt so heavy and stiff all the time, he wore a jumper, which made him sweat like a pig, just to cover it up. He didn't want people looking. He used to like people looking, too. He'd always thought he was something to look at and always liked his muscled and tanned arms and legs on show, especially to catch the eyes of the ladies, but not anymore.

He sighed and swigged from a bottle of beer - what a way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

He tried to focus on the noise radiating out from the radio to take his mind off things. Dave was one of those people who felt they couldn't really appreciate music unless they had it blasting away at the noisiest decibel.

Try as he might, though, he found his thoughts still focusing on his arms. He found himself looking at the scaly ridges again. They reminded him of something, but he couldn't think what. He told himself to stop being a twat.

He sighed and swigged back the beer again, and tried to focus on the music. Only then, the old man next door irritated Dave by banging on the wall.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! came the insistent knocking.

"Oh fuck off, you prick," said Dave aloud. He never understood the guy's problem. What was wrong if he wanted to play a little music? Didn't he know he was suffering and needed to take the edge off? The bloke was the same with the TV being played late at night, too. Okay, so the guy was elderly and had had cancer but, crikey, live a little. Dave stuck a finger up at the wall and swigged from the bottle again.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

"Oh, alright, you old cunt" he said. He went to get up, but this proved to be a big mistake because he suddenly found it very difficult to raise his arms. They felt heavy, cumbersome, like they'd been laid down with lead weights.

"Arrr" he croaked and attempted to move one of the arms, which just quivered with an arthritic movement.

"Fuck" he moaned.

His hand continued to quiver. He couldn't even wriggle his fingers.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

He cried out a grunting groan of agony and felt a fire go up both of his arms as he yanked himself to his feet.

"Arrrrrrrrr, fuck!"

He was sweating buckets, and his breathing was laboured. He moved his arms, and they did seem to move more freely now. They still felt sore, though. He just looked at them, and the ridges stared back at him.

Shivering, he went over to the stereo and turned it right down.

Which was when he heard something else. It was like a trill of laughter that suddenly rang out. A soft, lilting feminine laugh that was less a laugh and more the rustling of leaves or the creaking of branches in the breeze.

He jerked his eyes about him, but there was nobody there. He felt a shiver again down his spine and swallowed hard. He shook his head. "It's just the bird next door, outside," he said. "Has to be." He shook his head again. "I need to get out of this place. Take my mind off things".

But as he walked off, he noticed that his legs had started to itch now, and there was a definite soreness to them as they moved...

#

"I've never seen anything like it before," said Dr. Swan, as she caressed the ridges on Dave's arm with one hand while holding it up with the other, her face half curiosity, half concern.

"It hurts. A lot," said Dave. Normally when confronted with an attractive woman, as Dr. Swan was, Dave would have gone instantly into flirt mode. But not today. Today he wasn't in the mood. He hadn't even bothered to look down her blouse. He was in so much pain and worry.

"And I see its spread to your legs," she said and looked down at them.

Dave looked down at the blistering red ridges, which covered the flesh of his legs like a swarm of ants.

"It hurts when I move my arms and legs. I've had to be signed off work. Sometimes, I...I get these weird moments where I having trouble lifting my arms or moving my legs, like they, sort of, lock and go stiff".

Dr. Swan shook her head and looked back, through her glasses, at the ridges on Dave's arms again. "These seem more advanced..." She ran her hands over them. Normally Dave liked being touched by an attractive woman, and her fingers felt warm and soft, but not today. Each prod was like a needle stabbing into him.

"Do you think you can stop doing that now?" he said. He realised he had started to sweat.

She quickly removed her hands. "Sorry. It's just, well, I've never seen anything like it. They remind me of something, but I can't think what. And they feel, well, very rough and coarse...Probably where the skin is so dry..."

Maybe it was her compassionate tone of voice or the concern on her face, but Dave found he wanted to blurt something else out.

"And I keep..." But he stopped himself. No. They'd section me, he thought.

"Keep what?" she said, giving him a friendly, encouraging smile.

"Nothing. Doesn't matter. It just hurts a lot, that's all. Keeps me awake at night". But that wasn't what was really keeping him up at night. What he'd wanted to say was that he kept hearing a woman laughing at him, especially in bed at night. There was never anyone there, and he had no explanation for it. It was normally when the pain bothered him the most, funnily enough. He wondered if the pain was making him hallucinate. There was something eerie about the laughter. Like the rustle of leaves...

He swallowed hard.

"I can imagine," said Dr. Swan. She breathed in and nodded to herself, having reached a decision. "Don't worry. Doctor McNamara referred you to me because I'm a specialist in things like this. I suspect it to be some sort of extreme allergic reaction. I'll send you for a scan and more blood tests. See what's going on beneath the surface. Don't worry. We'll get to the bottom of it".

She gave him a hopeful smile. Dave wished he believed it.

When he left her office, his skin sounded like it was creaking.

#

That morning was the worst it had ever been.

When he'd first come round from sleep, his mind had been full of the usual fog. Then he'd moved himself in bed beneath the covers.

And his entire body felt like it had been chucked into a blender.

A paroxysm of agony, like a raging fire, blazed all through his body from head to foot, through every nerve ending. Worst of all was that he couldn't move a muscle. His limbs were like dumbbells. He enjoyed pumping iron, but this...it was like trying to lift Everest.

He grunted and groaned, straining to move for all he was worth, sweat coursing throughout his body, but nothing seemed to want to work. It was like it was inert, lifeless.

He strained and strained, and eventually like something had popped loose, he managed to stagger upwards in bed.

His breathing was heavy now, and his body felt wringing wet, which didn't do the soreness any good. Mind you, his mind quickly forgot about pain because he had just seen something that made him sick to his stomach.

The scaly ridges were all over his naked chest, completely covering them and looking red raw. He touched them with a scaly hand, and fire burned his skin.

He wanted to speak, but nothing would come out. Instead, his throat felt dry, and his chest felt tight.

Acting on instinct, he touched his back, and he felt more of the scaly ridges. The bloody thing had spread, spread all over his...

He touched his face. He screamed.

Flinging off his covers, he leapt out of bed and scrambled to his bathroom. He couldn't run fast, his skin felt too tight and sore, and his limbs still felt sluggish, but his fear managed to keep him moving.

Arriving in the bathroom, he stared at himself in the mirror. The beginnings of tears prickled at his eyes.

His face was covered in the ridges. All over. His nose looked bent out of shape, and his lips were covered with strange whorls.

A horrible thought seared across his brain, and, taking a deep breath, he opened up the front of his boxers. What he saw there made him retch and rush to the toilet, where he chucked his guts up until nothing more could come out.

Then, he heard the laughter behind him like the soughing of branches. And he could smell something really heady and potent now. A foresty, earthy, herbally smell. He knew, he knew what he would see before he'd even turned around.

He could make out now, in the daylight, that her eyes were a very dark brown, as was the small bob of hair she had. Her arms were across her chest again. Her mouth was set in a rigid, triumphant sneer.

"Letting Nature take its course, Dave?" she said, in that lilting voice of hers. Except it sounded funny today - sort of creaky.

Dave didn't know what to do or say at first. He felt something, though. It was an anger of Biblical proportions.

"What...what have you done...to me?" He pointed an accusatory finger at her, then reeled in shock when he saw it. It looked very...bony and twisty. He also saw that the colour of his skin seemed to be changing. It was turning a kind of browny-grey.

She just laughed in that dry, creaky voice of hers and gave him a cheeky, impudent wink before legging it from the room.

Roaring with rage, Dave got to his feet. He ignored the pain in his limbs, ignored the creaking sound he was making, ignored the sudden thirst that had come on him for water, he just ran after her, his thoughts consumed with a barbaric wrath.

He shambled down the stairs and heard the patio door slide open in the living room.

"You ain't...getting away...you...cow," he muttered. Why was his throat so dry? Oh God, I'm so thirsty...From my fingers to my toes...

His feet made it to the patio door, and he threw himself out into the garden. There she was stood, on the lawn, with her arms crossed and another triumphant smile on her face. She winked at him again.

"Yaaaaaah," he managed and started to run across the lawn towards her.

Except he didn't get far.

As soon as it touched the grass, his right leg no longer wanted to move. He looked down. For some reason, it looked like his foot had sort of bled into the ground and become attached to it. He couldn't budge it one inch. He looked down at his other foot and saw exactly the same frightening development had happened there as well. In fact, now he thought about it, he could feel his toes sinking into the earth of the ground and imbedding themselves in there, wet mud slavering over his feet. Then his arms jerked upwards with a rush of burning pain as if of their own accord. He wanted to scream, but it lodged in his throat while his arms just stayed raised to the sky, like antennae. And his fingers...They weren't fingers anymore. Fingers don't have green things sprouting out of them. The scream still wouldn't come. Not that it mattered because his body then started to twist and contort and straighten all at the same time, and as it did, there was this horrible creaking and cracking and snapping sound, and his head felt like his neck was swallowing it up. He tried once more to scream but suddenly realised he didn't have lips. Soon, he didn't have to worry about making any noise anyway because his face had melted away entirely and all about him was darkness. And he couldn't move at all.

The woman came over to him. She patted what would have been his shoulder once. "It's lovely, isn't it? To be at one with Nature". She pecked a kiss on what was once his neck, and he could feel the soft moistness of it, but that was all he could do. He heard her footsteps pattering away. They sounded like branches snapping.

#

"What happened to the original owner, again?" asked Mrs. Cleverly.

The estate agent gave her a suave, patented grin. "Oh, don't worry about that. Nobody knows what happened to him, just up and vanished one day. It means, of course, that it already comes fully furnished". The estate agent beamed and moved his hand over the living room furniture like a seduction.

Mrs. Cleverly wrinkled her nose. It was all a bit laddish for her taste. She looked out of the patio and at the tree on the lawn.

"Nice garden. Has possibilities. What a nice tree. Be good for shade in summer. Oak, isn't it?"

The estate agent shrugged. "I wouldn't know, but yes, it is a nice garden, isn't it?"

Suddenly Mrs. Cleverly felt a tugging at her hand, and before she knew it, her cocker spaniel rushed out of her grip, through the patio door, and on to the grass, its lead trailing behind it.

"Buddy!" yelled Mrs. Cleverly. She gave an embarrassed look at the estate agent. "Sorry about that. We haven't had him long; otherwise, I'd have left him at home".

The estate agent gave a genial shrug. "Dogs," he said as if that was explanation enough. "But you could see how the garden would be good for Buddy, wouldn't you?"

Buddy, meanwhile, padded over to the tree and sniffed it. Then, letting out a little yelp, he cocked up his leg and emptied the contents of his little bladder all over its lower trunk.

"Buddy!" yelled Mrs. Cleverly.

The estate agent let out a customer service laugh.

And if they heard what they thought sounded like a moaning noise, they just assumed it was the wind blowing through the branches and the leaves rustling. It was only a tree, after all.

THE END

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Short Stories: Call of Nature by William Heath

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The forest looked ethereal in the light from the moon overhead. Ghostly, eldritch, like Dave had stepped into another world. The branches swayed with a slight breeze, and the leaves rustled out a mellifluous harmony. But, again, this was lost on Dave. All he cared about was his aching bladder.

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The story I read is "the shopkeeper and the witch" which is more of a children's story. It's a short story of 3 pages. The author is Thomas Baudouin.
The story is about a generous old man who will meet a witch who will bring him wealth except that it will make him "greedy and resentful"...
Personally I found this story very addictive so it reads very quickly. If you like twists and turns this story is for you.

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In a forgotten corner of the city, at the end of a nondescript back alley, was a small health food shop. It had been there more than forty years and was once popular. Now, a dwindling number of faithful regulars still dropped in for their traditional arthritis remedies, but it was no longer enough to pay the rent.

The owner was a white-haired old man called Mr. Robins, who lived in a flat above the shop. One evening, just before closing time, he sat at the counter with the day's meagre takings and a pile of bills. He sighed and put his head in his hands.

The door opened, and a young woman entered. She was dirty, her clothes were torn, and she shivered in the cold. "Please help me," she begged him, "I've had nothing to eat all day."

Mr. Robins was a kind-hearted man, so he sat her down, brought her a hot drink, and made a bowl of porridge from the shop's last bag of oats. She looked around as she ate, taking in the empty shelves and the peeling paint on the walls.

She finished the last spoonful and put down the bowl. "Thank you," she said. "You're very kind, and you have proved yourself worthy."

There was a flash and a loud bang, and the room filled up with smoke. When it had cleared, the beggar was transformed into a beautiful young woman in a black velvet cloak. "Because you are a good man, I will help you," she told the astonished shopkeeper.

From somewhere in her cloak, she took out a dusty leather-bound book and a cauldron. "Now. What can I make for you?"

Mr. Robins could only stare.

"Come on!" she urged. "What is it your customers most desire?"

With an effort, Mr. Robins pulled himself together. "Er... to stay young, I suppose."

She flipped through the pages. He glimpsed recipes for soups and stews, but also 'Love Potion' and 'Memory Tonic.' Finally, she stopped at 'Elixir of Youth.'

She bustled around the shop, helping herself to ginger, rosewater, primrose oil, and other ingredients and tossing them into the cauldron. Finally, she muttered, 'and a hair from a witch's head.' She pulled out a single dark hair and added it to the mixture, which boiled despite there being no heat.

Eventually, she presented Mr. Robins with a tiny vial containing a clear liquid. "Mix one drop with half a pint of water," she said. "I will be back in a month to make more." Then, with a pop, she vanished.

There was just enough for twenty doses. So he gave one each to the first five old ladies who came into the shop the following day. Within days, they returned and brought their friends. Their wrinkles were gone, the colour had returned to their hair for the first time in decades, and they had the vigour and energy of people half their age.

The young witch was as good as her word, returning every month to make more of the elixir. But Mr. Robins could not keep up with demand, despite charging more and more for it. He thought that he might be able to make more himself, but it would be no good without the hair from the witch's head, and she refused to give him more than one at a time. Although he was now making enough money for a good living, Mr. Robins grew greedy and resentful.

On the witch's fifth visit, he was ready. He might not be able to make the Elixir of Youth, but he knew enough to mix a strong sleeping draught. As she appeared in the shop, he offered her a glass of wine 'to toast our partnership.' She accepted and drank. He caught her as she collapsed, carried her up to his flat above the shop, laid her on his bed, and cut off all her hair.

Going through her pockets, he found the cookbook. He ransacked his own shop for the ingredients he needed and then busied himself in the kitchen, making bottle after bottle.

When he had finished, he looked at the bottles on the table, under the table, on every surface. He had hundreds of doses and enough hair left to make many thousands more. What difference would one make now? He took a bottle and drank it.

Instantly, he felt fresh energy course through his muscles. His back straightened. He took off his glasses and could see perfectly. He ran through to the bedroom, where he had a full-length mirror. His face was unlined, his hair chestnut brown.

There was a groan from behind him, and he turned as the witch's eyes fluttered open. She looked at him sleepily, confused, then she put her hands to her bald head. Her eyes widened as realisation dawned.

Mr. Robins braced himself for her anger, but instead, she just looked sad. "You fool," she said. "You greedy fool."

"I'm sorry," he said. "But can't you just cast a spell to regrow your hair?"

"Give me my cookbook back."

He went to the kitchen and returned with the book.

"Turn to the last page," she said.

He did. Inside the back cover, in an ornate script, was written:
Magic, freely given, brings comfort and health
But when taken by force, it means only death.

A chill gripped his heart. "Take the magic back!" he said, panicking. "I don't want it!"

She shook her head. "It's too late."

*

When the shop hadn't been open for a week, the landlord asked the police to break in. They found only the body of a young man whose heart had suddenly stopped. No one ever worked out who he was, what he was doing there, or what had become of old Mr. Robins.

If you liked this story, please share it with others:

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Short Stories: The Shopkeeper and the Witch by Thomas Baldwin

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In a forgotten corner of the city, at the end of a nondescript back alley, was a small health food shop. It had been there more than forty years and was once popular. Now, a dwindling number of faithful regulars still dropped in for their traditional arthritis remedies, but it was no longer enough to pay the rent.

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"The Initiation" is a short story written by Tommy Dejosia.

It is part of the crime genre and consists of 4 pages.

It tells the story of a Latino teenager living in great precariousness with his mother in the United States, she worked hard and sometimes even gave her body... At a party he meets a young boy who is part of a kind of Latino gang who offers him to join them to earn a lot of money, for which he kills a young violinist from the high school.

This news is rather interesting, one absolutely wants to know the continuation. It's like reading a summary of a series or a movie!! What is also nice is that the situation and the life of each character has been explained, so we understand them even better.

I only advise it to people who are not easily disgusted because it can speak in organs without censorship but not much ;)

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The orange hue of the streetlight scattered photons amongst the fog where Paulo stood with a bloody knife in his hand. His sixteen-year-old self was no longer a self but a shell of a human. Standing there alone with fear in his eyes and trembling pursed lips. Paulo's muted tongue was as dry as the arctic air, and his heart just as cold. The blood from the knife dripped carelessly onto the pavement. A small puddle developed. Paulo wandered for a moment, trance-like, transient, sneakers scraping, almost zombie-like. Brain as hazy as the foggy weather. Whoever put him up to this lied, he thought. There's no satisfaction in witnessing death. He thought of how cold he was, shivering while standing in the fog, all alone, amongst the ghosts of the night. At any moment, the pulsating red and blue lights and sirens would speed toward him. Paulo was just a foolish teenager. Possibly brainwashed. His actions weren't his own, he thought. His breath labored. Cottonmouth saliva congregated on the corners of Paulo's lips. The realization of what he had done settled in.

Beyond the orange hue, somewhere in the woods, were the remains of a prodigious child - a classmate by the name of Fernando Gonzalez. A student who had an above-average affinity for the violin. Fernando was a high school freshman. He didn't have many friends. This made him an easy target amongst the entire high school male population. He was often the subject of verbal and physical assaults. Maybe it was the way Fernando walked on the tips of his toes. Or maybe it was because Fernando talked with a lisp. Whichever the case, their cruelty was apathetically brutal.

Fernando found an escape in classical music. He excelled at the violin. A musical instrument he thought brought him closest to the angels - the same angels who looked after his father, Rodrigo Pedro Gonzalez. A cellist and late member of the Quantum Quartet. Fernando's father suffered a massive heart attack at a New York City music venue after a gig when Fernando was only eight years old. His father's tragic death left a hole in his heart. Each time Fernando raised the violin to his chin and placed bow to strings, he felt waves of his father run through him. The prodigious child worked indefatigably at his craft. His diligent work ethic earned him the honor of first-seat violinist in the high school orchestra.

The plan was for Paulo to follow Fernando home from school and gut him on the trails - leaving the boy's body for nocturnal creatures to feed on. The plan was spearheaded by Diego Santiago, leader of The Blood Rooks, a brotherhood for lost Latinos. Paulo was exactly that...lost. He immigrated to the United States from Venezuela with his mother when he was just a boy. His mother was waiting tables and working late night shifts just to pay rent. Often, they would go weeks without heat in the dead of winter. Paulo's mother sometimes sacrificed her own body for cold hard cash to pay utility bills. Paulo's stomach churned at the sight of his mothers withdrawn face and bleak, dark eyes. He accepted the poverty of his existence yet, wanted desperately to help his mother. He was so desperate that he began to resort to crime.

It was the summer of his sophomore year when Paulo met Diego at a keg party. They magnetically gravitated to each other. Diego possessed a criminal mind, and his juvenile police record was longer than most families' grocery list. His alluring green eyes had a glimpse of charm and a seemingly cool demeanor. Diego dropped out of high school in 9th grade. He always hung around the high school perimeter to sell drugs to those who were careless of their future. Diego carried an illegal pistol as an intimidation tool. He persuaded Paulo that The Blood Rooks was a family. No Latino in the brotherhood was left unnoticed. Diego said by joining the brotherhood, there would be enough money for Paulo to do more than pay his mother's rent, he would be able to buy her a house south of Montauk Highway, near the sandy beaches.

To be initiated into the brotherhood, Paulo had to meet one requirement: Draw blood from a victim of his choice. Desperation incentivizes bold action. Paulo scouted Fernando one morning in between first and second period when he saw Fernando chicken walk his way to his locker. Paulo studied his potential victim's daily routine for a week. He stalked the young musician, taking mental notes on where Fernando lived and how he got to and from school. Paulo concluded that Wednesday evenings after music lessons, Fernando would walk three blocks to his mother's apartment, who didn't get home from work until after 6 pm.

Paulo submitted the notes to Diego, who practically drooled over the details. Together they developed the plan. Diego looked Paulo in his eyes and, with ferocity, asked, "Will you sacrifice your life for the Blood Rooks?" Paulo glanced into Diego's luminous green eyes and simply nodded. Diego opened his jacket, where he brandished a knife. He pulled it out and placed it in Paulo's hand, "The choice to be one of us is in your hands."

A mist bombarded the suburban neighborhood. In the pit of Paulo's stomach brewed nervous anticipation as he waited for his victim to walk down the street. A thousand scenarios ran rampant through Paulo's mind. This was his opportunity to belong to a brotherhood that truly understood him. No longer would his mother have to sacrifice her body to make ends meet financially. Paulo gripped the knife tight in his moist hand. He crouched behind a parked car and perked up to set his eyes and gaze on Fernando, who could be seen in the distance walking down the street with a violin case in hand. The thunderous thud of his heartbeat pounded in his chest. Sweat burbled on Paulo's forehead. Fernando casually was casually walking home, the way he always walked home after violin practice - with music notation scrolling through his head. The inner workings of a genius in motion. Fernando made his way down the street, and as he passed the parked car, Paulo stalked Fernando from behind. He wrapped one hand around the unsuspected victim's mouth. The other hand forced the tip of the knife into the boy's back. It was a quick thrust of the blade that made Fernando buckle to his knees. Paulo dragged Fernando into the woods, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

Light had already succumbed to darkness. The woods were heavy with bark, leaves, branches, and brush. Paulo had dragged Fernando in about fifty yards. He hacked relentlessly at Fernando's body, a catharsis for Paulo's own inner gloom. The strength of his weight on top of the young body was smothering. The terror in Fernando's eyes paralyzed him from screaming. The young musician remained stunned as the sting of the blade sliced through his most vital organs.

When Paulo came to his senses, the young musician was saturated in the darkest of blood. An immediate rush of fear overwhelmed Paulo's mind. What did I just do? He questioned. Fernando could barely breathe. Blood and saliva poured through his semi-gapped teeth and dribbled onto his chin. Paulo didn't know what to do. There was no one around in the bleak of the night. Fernando's slain body was almost lifeless. His arm extended out and reached for Paulo's feet as he gasped for his last breath. Then finally, Fernando exhaled. His eyes shuttered to a silent close. Fernando's lifeless body was sprawled out like a dead log. The only sound came from the echo of summer crickets and the swirling mist from the foggy night. Paulo stumbled backward as he took one last hard look at Fernando's body before darting away.

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Short Stories: The Initiation by Tommy DeJosia

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The orange hue of the streetlight scattered photons amongst the fog where Paulo stood with a bloody knife in his hand. His sixteen-year-old self was no longer a self but a shell of a human. Standing there alone with fear in his eyes and trembling pursed lips.

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- The short story is The White Castle written by Jack Curran http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/index.php?p=web/author/JackCurran and we don’t have the date of the publication.
- The story is composed of six pages and the genre is horror.
-The pitch of the story is about two men who were friends before until they encountered complications that lead to their similar deaths
-I recommanted this short story if you like twist and turn!

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Had Eoin changed his mind about living here partway through the renovation? Or had his untimely death cut the work short?

After a more thorough inspection downstairs, Seb noticed a table and two chairs. On the table was a Staunton chess set laid out, ready for a game. The pieces looked pristine and shiny as if they'd been coated with too much varnish.

Seb sat down and played a long sequence of moves almost without thinking. White opening with e4, black responding with the Sicilian Defence. From there, he made the exact sequence of moves that had comprised his first tournament game against Eoin, playing both sides, feeling his way through the memory. To his surprise, he recalled the whole game easily.

For a while, Seb had been content to linger in Eoin's shadow until he realised his moment in the sunshine might never arrive. Eoin glided from victory to stunning victory, and while Seb achieved some notable wins of his own, his jealousy increased faster than his Elo rating. He studied through the long nights and arrived at every tournament better prepared than ever before, but Eoin played with a fluidity and focus that couldn't be matched. He was unpredictable, constantly finding new lines. The best-laid plans crumbled in the face of his chameleon talent.

Seb cultivated a fierce hatred of Eoin; Eoin sometimes forgot his rival's name.

Like almost everyone else, Seb sometimes used a chess engine to win matches online. But deploying such tactics over-the-board was more of a challenge, logistically speaking.

It was after the Sinquefield Cup in St Louis that Seb decided Eoin had to be brought down by any means. In the final of that tournament, Seb played the Kings Indian, and the early game was blitzed out in predictable fashion until Eoin played a line that Seb had never seen before and which at first looked insane. Taken out of his preparation, Seb sweated for eighteen minutes before responding. Minutes later, he'd blundered a pawn and was soon crushed in a vice of two marauding rooks. He played for a draw long after any real hope had drained away and brought his hand down too hard on the top of the game clock, cracking the glass. Eoin stared on impassively with his bright blue eyes.

After that, the gloves came off, and Seb rocketed through the rankings. Some speculated that he was receiving secret instructions from a chess engine. Theories ranged from buzzing implants to a blinking accomplice. He flatly denied the accusations, but they continued to swirl around him.

He beat Eoin in Paris, Moscow, Mexico City. Prize money poured in, but the rumours about foul play intensified. Seb had expected that and prepared for it. Rather than let the embers cool, he threw petrol on the fire. Using fabricated online identities, he posted detailed analyses comparing certain passages of Eoin's play to moves suggested by popular chess engines, implying that Eoin might not be the paragon he presented himself as. It was hardly conclusive - neither was the evidence against Seb - but Seb's goal was not to prove that his rival had cheated but to muddy the water and frustrate his own critics. After all, if everyone was cheating, no one was.

The ploy worked. Eoin was dogged by accusations and bore them more heavily than Seb had. He withdrew from tournament play. In his heart, Seb did not think he'd done anything wrong. Sometimes the path to victory was not a royal road but a winding and filth-encrusted track.

Eoin drove his car into the side of a church in rural Devon at eighty miles an hour. The death was ruled accidental.

Seb wondered if he'd emerged from his great rivalry as the victor or merely the sole survivor. He was a grandmaster, but his reputation was in tatters, and he struggled to remember why he'd been so desperate to climb the rankings in the first place.

Then came the baffling coda - the will in which Eoin bequeathed Seb the White Castle. What was he to make of that? What did it mean?

Seb realised he'd been staring at a white rook for a long time. He shivered and reset the board. The storm outside was intensifying, the rain lashing down in sheets. It would be futile and possibly dangerous to go looking for the Audi now. He'd have to wait until morning or at least until the weather cleared.

As he stood up, he saw in his mind's eye, with almost preternatural clarity, Eoin's face. The shining blue eyes. The tufts of straight black hair. The flat bridge of his nose that he sometimes held between forefinger and thumb when contemplating a move.

Seb had always thought he hated Eoin, but now he wondered if that was true. Those games! He looked back on them fondly now, even the crushing defeats.

He turned back to the board and was surprised to see a white pawn on e4. He'd meant to return all the pieces to their starting squares, but clearly, these memories had fogged his mind, and he'd begun a new game without realising it. His hand hovered over the pawn, then he changed his mind and left it where it was. He went upstairs, but the bed was too wet and dirty to offer any comfort, so instead, he made a nest of his cashmere duffle coat far away from the broken window.

He woke a while later on the other side of the room, prone, his nose pressed hard against the cold stone floor. It was very dark, so he activated the torch on his iPhone before standing up. His breath fogged the air, and his feet felt horribly itchy in his squelching socks. He took the socks off and stuffed them inside the loafers, which he held in his free hand. The stairs felt icy against his bare feet. Halfway down, he stepped on something gelatinous and sticky. In a surge of panic and disgust, he dropped the loafers and reached for the bannister, but his hand closed around air. He careened down the stairs, his pelvis slamming hard on the steps as he fell.

He lay on the floor moaning softly, winded, in agony, disorientated. The iPhone lay a few metres away, the torch still switched on, an upturned spotlight in the dark room.

Something small and sharp was stabbing into the small of his back. He reached behind and retrieved it. It was a white rook from the chess set. He threw it away, stood up, grabbed the iPhone, and pointed the torch at the nearby table. The chess pieces were scattered on the floor around it. A huge black slug had slithered onto the board and was moving ponderously across the squares.

Seb felt a twist of anger in his gut. A slug had caused him to fall down the stairs, and now another one was ruining a beautiful chessboard. He picked up the board and shook it violently. The slug remained where it was but turned its questing antenna in his direction with apparent curiosity. Anger and disgust bubbled inside Seb - he picked up the slug and flung it away.

The board, he now noticed, was marred by a stripe of dark red slime. Why was it red? He looked at his hand and saw that it was coated in the same glistening red substance. He tried to wipe it on his trousers, but the slime stuck like glue. Turning the iPhone torch toward the centre of the room, he saw another dozen or so large black slugs slinking across the floor, leaving trails of crimson slime in their wake.

He moved through the slugs like a man negotiating a minefield. Despite his caution, one of them caressed his heel with its wet, engorged body. When he reached the door, he found it was locked, and the key was missing from his coat pocket. He gripped the unyielding handle tightly and tried to control his breathing.

Back upstairs, he climbed into the recess in the wall that contained the broken window. The storm had settled down, and the breeze wafting through the broken glass was almost pleasant. Was climbing out of the window a good idea? Probably not, but it appeared to be the only escape route. No other moves were possible, and he couldn't bear to stay in this place a minute more.

Eoin, he thought bitterly. Eoin must have known about the slug infestation and had given him this place as a prank or act of petty revenge.

He inched through the jagged shards that stuck out of the window frame and dangled his legs over the drop. He angled the iPhone down and peered along its beam. All he could see was darkness, but he reminded himself that the White Castle wasn't very tall and the ground would be spongy after the rain.

He began lowering himself.

Then he saw, not so far away - the sea. Dark but shimmering slightly in the first light of dawn.

He realised, with a cold rush of terror, that this side of the tower was right on the edge of the cliff. He reached back to grip the window frame but instead touched a sharp triangle of glass. Blood sluiced hotly down his arm. The pain didn't register. He held on.

The piece of glass silently detached itself from the window frame. Seb slipped into the abyss, tumbling through the air, a hoarse but barely audible scream on his lips, the iPhone spinning alongside him like a tiny lighthouse.

Five hours later, a dog walker found his body on the rocks below. The death was ruled accidental.

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Short Stories: The White Castle by Jack Curran

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Had Eoin changed his mind about living here partway through the renovation? Or had his untimely death cut the work short? After a more thorough inspection downstairs, Seb noticed a table and two chairs. On the table was a Staunton chess set laid out, ready for a game.

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Your publication must include:
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-Everybody Knows Your Name was published by Mark R. Hunter and we don't have the date of publication
-Its a science fiction story
-It got 4 pages
-The pitch of the story is about a guy traveling in the time and try to go back home
-I liked this story because it was interesting and funny , I recommend reading this short story if you like being lost in the time

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Ed slammed through the front door and looked wildly around the tavern. "Quick! What year is this?"

A dozen people broke into raucous laughter. At the nearest end of the stained oak bar, Ed raised his glass. "What year did you leave from, youngster?"

"2025." Ed stopped, staring at Ed.

"Well, then - if it makes you feel better, you could call this 2035. Maybe 2045 would make you feel even better than that." Ed turned back to the bar, as the laughter gradually died down.

Ed squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, he was still not looking at a mirror.

On the other side of the bar, as he poured a whiskey for Ed, Ed spoke. "Don't mind them. Having an Ed step through the door is like one of those old jokes that never get old. Like a Henway."

"A Henway?" Ed, still frozen in his spot, frowned. "What's a Henway?"

Across the room, piano player Ed called out, "About five pounds."

Eds broke into laughter again. Except for the new one, who shook his head. "I don't understand."

"It's an example of a joke that never gets old, Ed," said Ed, from one of the tables. "It's the reaction that makes it funny."

"No, I mean ...." Ed paused, having completely forgotten what he meant.

Ed handed the whiskey to Ed, then started on a whiskey sour for Ed, who'd turned to look at Ed. "We can explain ... kind of. Why don't you take off that coat and hang it up? This might take a bit."

Mechanically, Ed pulled off his tan trench coat and turned toward the coat rack. It was full - of tan trench coats. More hung from a series of hooks along the wall.

"Don't worry about losing it," Ed called from the piano. "They're all exactly the same, although I'll bet some of us won't fit into them anymore."

With a deep breath, Ed hung the coat on another hook, then turned back. Everyone in the room wore dark slacks, a white shirt, and a black tie, just like him. All the ties had been loosened, though. "How - what - you're all me?"

Eds nodded.

"How long have you been here?"

The Eds laughed, louder this time. A few slapped their knees.

"Okay, but - why don't you just go back?"

"Try it," suggested an Ed, as he took his whiskey sour from Ed.

"What - I can? I will." With determination, Ed turned, not bothering to take his coat back, and walked out the bar's front door. The door slammed shut.

The door slammed open. Ed walked in. "Now, where's my machine? Oh."

The Eds seemed a bit more sympathetic, this time, and Ed reached under the bar for a glass. "You're going to need a whiskey."

"I don't drink much." But, as if propelled by the same unknown force that brought him here, Ed drifted to the bar and sank onto a stool.

"You will." Ed filled the glass and handed it to Ed. "See, we've all tried going back through the door. Running, closing our eyes, walking backward, holding each other's hands, and walking in a line. We tried going out the back door, too ... and just come right in the front door again."

"At least there are breadsticks," said Ed, who sat at a table eating breadsticks "Sometimes, when I get tired of them, pretzels appear."

"How do pretzels ...." Something bartender Ed said got through to Ed. "You held hands?"

"We can touch each other." Bartender Ed shrugged. "Causality, paradoxes, all those time travel traps we worried about? They're all gone here."

"Gone ... where?"

"We debated that plenty," said Ed from a table, as he took another breadstick "We think this is a place where time travelers go so we don't mess up everything. Like ... a pocket universe, or maybe a prison for people who break the laws of nature."

Across the table from him, Ed nodded. "You'll remember after a while that this is a tavern we used to go to in college." He pointed toward the old dartboard on the wall, next to a sign that said "Samuel Adams Summer Ale".

Ed's eyes widened. "This ... this is that place down the street from MIT."

"That was faster than usual." Ed played a snappy tune on the piano. "We were so full of ourselves, then."

Ed stared at him. "I don't know how to play the piano."

"You'll have time to learn."

Ed took a huge swallow of his whiskey and spoke again after the coughing eased. "So, none of us ever leaves?"

"Number Four did." His face dark, Ed crammed another breadstick into his mouth.

"Number Four?"

"At first we numbered ourselves," said whiskey sour Ed. "Then we started making jokes about which number was better. You know how much we loved Doctor Who ... of course, everyone said Four was best. That kind of faded away between the time he left and number fourteen dropped in."

"But ... he got out?" Excited, Ed leaned forward.

"Kind of." Eyeing the other Eds, Ed refilled Ed's whiskey glass. "He's in the basement. You can go to the basement, by the way. But there's not much of anything down there, except a couple of shovels and the grave."

Ed fell back onto his stool. "Oh. So ... we don't even know if we traveled in time at all. But how can we all come from the same Earth?"

"We don't." Ed pushed Ed's glass toward him. "One thing we're sure of is that we came from different Earths. That explains all of us being together without blowing up the universe, and why I asked what year you're from - I didn't perfect my process until 2027. Maybe there are hundreds of places like this - thousands - each holding dozens upon dozens of the same wannabe time traveler. The mind boggles."

Ed drained his whiskey, put the glass back down, and loosened his tie. "This couldn't possibly get any weirder."

From a corner of the bar came a high, feminine laugh.

"Oh, yes it could," said Edwina.

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Short Stories: Everybody Knows Your Name by Mark R. Hunter

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Ed slammed through the front door and looked wildly around the tavern. "Quick! What year is this?" A dozen people broke into raucous laughter. At the nearest end of the stained oak bar, Ed raised his glass. "What year did you leave from, youngster?" "2025." Ed stopped, staring at Ed.

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Welcome to the short story section at east of the web. Find this month's featured stories above and in the nine genres. You can browse the library by genre or search it for a title, author or keyword. Clicking on an author's name lists all their stories along with further information and links. Stories can be read online, printed or downloaded for reading offline or on handheld devices.

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Welcome to the short story section at east of the web. Find this month's featured stories above and in the nine genres. You can browse the library by genre or search it for a title, author or keyword. Clicking on an author's name lists all their stories along with further information and links.

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- A very special skill, the name of the writer is Neil Gordon, and we don't have the date of when the story was written.
- The genre is horror
- The story has 4 pages
- The pitch of the story is about a psychologist who's listening about his client's problems.
- I have liked this story because I love horror stories, and I recommanded reading this short story if you like suspense.

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The seagulls have settled down early to their bellowing. They dot the chimneypots around the park and scream murder at one another. Down below, the dedications on the park benches catch the summer morning light. I know them off by heart. For Theo, who loved this spot. To Emily, forever missed.

My office opens the earliest on the square, before the newsagent, the butcher, the café, or the florist. My clients tend to wake early if they have slept at all. I raise the shutters quietly.

I tidy the small waiting room, fluff the pillows, and water those plants that need it. I used to set out flowers, but I found them too funerary. My clients have had more than enough of that.

In the office, I check my emails and appointments. I have a few regulars, but most of the time, I leave open for walk-ins. I spray neutral scents on the furniture: the solid desk, the two comfortable but firm armchairs, the small, round table that sits between them.

Through the back, I examine my inventory of empty jars. I've sourced them with care from antique and charity shops and car boot sales. I have many hundreds, no two the same, and I pride myself on choosing the best for the job. On the opposite shelf sits a handful of filled jars waiting to be shipped. Each contains a different volume, consistency, and colour of liquid, unique to the clients from whom I have extracted them.

Everything in its right place, I'm ready to flip the sign on the door to "OPEN." I have time to boil the kettle and fill the cafetiere with thick, black coffee before the bell sings out.

My first client is a young man. He looks like a matchstick, drawn out and thin, his head round and heavy. I explain how things work. I bring him through to the office and sit him in the armchair.

I ask the usual questions: Who has he lost? How long ago? How?

His older brother, he tells me. Three weeks ago. Car accident.

I disappear into the back room and return with a modest jar. I've learned to start small. We usually get only drops at this stage.

Maybe this is a mistake, he says.

You're here now, I say, placing the sealed jar in the centre of the round table between us. We may as well talk. His eyes tumble down my face and settle on the jar. It's free, I remind him.

He doesn't leave - they never do - and so we begin. He talks, and I listen. I imagine that I'm unravelling a knot of knots, teasing his fibres apart, probing for the core of his grief. They loosen with ease under my experienced fingertips, only to stretch into a single taut, thick rope as his defences rise. At this early point, where the loss is still raw, the effort is huge. I pull with all my might as if I'm hauling up a heavy bucket from some great depth. Eventually, it snaps. When I open my eyes, his face is less grey, his head better squared between his shoulders. Between us, the jar is no longer empty. I pick it up and examine the grief we have extracted: a pale, cloudy liquid. Only a few spoonfuls, but it's a start.

When I show him out, there are already two others in the waiting room. One is a regular. She's been grieving for so long that it's become a part of her, and while it's normal for each subsequent session to become easier, hers have begun to trend the opposite. She's afraid there will be nothing of her left by the end. And yet, she still comes. My battle with her grief has become another part of her. I hate to say it, but I fear we are becoming of little use to one another.

After the first few hours, I take a break. The jars are piling up, and I must do something before they become immovable. I wake my laptop and log on to the marketplace. It's only here that my art becomes transactional, as eventually, it must. My website is invite-only, and it's taken me years on niche and sometimes questionable forums to cultivate a loyal customer base. That may sound sinister, but it's the price of preserving my clients' privacy. It's not perfect, but I can't very well keep the filled jars to myself - I'm running low on shelf space as it is. And what I have is a very special skill - why should I not monetise it?

I add each jar as a listing, with a photograph and some basic information. After publishing, my anonymous collectors will gather. After the auction closes, I'll pack up each jar and ship it off to the winner at some nondescript PO box. I'm careful never to find out what they do with it.

In the park outside, the seagulls have quietened, and the market is alive with bustle. Halfway down, a dark figure sits on one of the benches - the one with the inscription For Rachel, who fed the birds. In contrast to the bright sunshine, the man is a hole in the world. He rises the moment I flip the sign on the door back to 'OPEN.' Something in my belly tightens as he approaches.

Who has he lost?

I don't know his name, he says. His voice is low. His eyes are shiny, dark beetles. I tense up.

How long ago?

Last night.

I watch him. He's a spider above my bed, watching me back. I don't ask the final question: How?

He intertwines his fingers in his lap. I can see dark flecks under his nails. I wonder if he's an artist.

I go to the back room. I could slip out the back door to where the bins sit, foul and fox-raided, and phone the police. But I don't.

I return with a medium-sized jar, a tall, narrow one with a cork in the top. I've had to guess which I dislike more than anything. I place it between us.

Tell me, I say.

This time there's no knot to unravel, no rope on which to pull. When I close my eyes, his grief is everywhere, black and furious, and I struggle to find purchase. The things he tells me are repugnant, so I force the blood to rise between my ears to drown him out. His grief burns to the touch like I've plunged my hands into a vast belt sander up to the elbows, my brittle bones and ragged nerves quickly filed to dust. His voice persists through the pain, a squalid drone of violence. I grasp at great clods of his searing agony and pull.

By the time I recover, spots bursting in my eyes, he's gone. The tall jar has filled up with an inscrutable black liquid that has pushed out the cork and spilled onto the table. When the dizziness subsides, I close the office and lower the blinds. I try to wipe the bubbling tar from the table, but it leaves sticky residue in the grain and drops thickly onto the floor. I clean the jar as best I can and take a picture. On my laptop, I add it to the online shop, my trembling hands making mistakes as I type. I give it a lot number. In its description, I write simply, 'Murderer.'

I publish, and within seconds there is a clamouring. The numbers rise. I begin to receive urgent messages from customers.

I must have it, one collector writes. I will pay any price.

I check the current bid. It's far higher than I've had before. It continues to rise.

Will there be more? asks another.

I peer through the blinds and see him drifting through the market stalls. He looks like he could melt away in the wind. He stops to chat with one of the sellers, hands idly pushed into his pockets. For the briefest instant, he looks back at me between the blinds.

Yes, I reply.

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Short Stories: A Very Special Skill by Neil Gordon

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The seagulls have settled down early to their bellowing. They dot the chimneypots around the park and scream murder at one another. Down below, the dedications on the park benches catch the summer morning light. I know them off by heart. For Theo, who loved this spot. To Emily, forever missed.

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CHENU Arthur
Genre: fiction
6 pages

Pitch: A old man, Albert, who live in an icy place will encounter many times with a winter bird which he will name Zen. The old man will grow a sort of fascination for his new friend.
Review: A very chill(y) story with almost no action but a great description that make you travel to the man's place. a pleasant story that gives a deep lesson about friendship.

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Albert continued to rock in his chair, the cold wind was relentless. Clouds covered the sky. He pulled out the flask and poured in a little whiskey to warm himself. The old man puckered at his next sip. His ice-blue eyes held a glow. In that moment he became a witness to the nature that surrounded him. A lone winter bird swooped down and landed on the fence.

The bird chirped and bobbed its head. It flew to a bird feeder on the porch. The bird perched peacefully, pecking at the food. Albert halted in his rocking chair. It was just him and the bird. The whole world was still asleep. Every human, every creature. The winter bird dashed from the bird feeder onto the porch and hopped toward Albert. Flakes flurried from the sky. The bird's wings were as black as its belly. It paused only a few feet away from the old man. The bird bobbed its head and took to flight. It approached the old man and landed on Albert's lap. Albert remained still. As not the breathe and scare away the sacredness of the moment. The winter bird chirped. Albert looked down at the creature. The mug still in his hand. Albert's cheeks were red. His breath smelled like stale coffee and alcohol. The bird sat on his lap. With no judgment. With no other purpose than to be. "Hi there..." Albert's voice was soft. The bird chirped again and fluttered its wings. It rose from Albert's lap and landed on his shoulder. Albert slowly sipped from his mug which triggered the bird to react. It darted away into the cold distance. Albert watched it go until it was merely a dot in amongst the bleak gray clouds.

The day gave way to calm. The snow had stopped. But the weather was still biting. Albert walked out to the farm and stood overlooking a dip in the earth. Water had turned into ice. There was no way the crops would survive. It was the coldest day Long Island had ever recorded. Albert walked back to his house and entered to escape the devastating wind.

He lit a fire. The wood crackled in the burning flames. Albert sat back on a mustard couch. He turned on the television. A news anchor talked about the rough weather conditions. Tumultuous winds were picking up into the evening, icing over the entire east end.

Albert slipped off his boots and stared into the pit of the fire. Embers rose up the chimney. A slight perspiration beaded on Albert's forehead. The old man unzipped his jacket and sat back. He took a moment to reflect on the winter bird. Never in his life has a bird approached him.

That evening was met with the howl of wind and tumultuous snowfall. Albert laid back on the couch watching re-runs of his favorite childhood shows. Until his eyes grew heavy and he dozed away from the here and now.

The next morning came. Albert was up with the rising sun. He went about his morning routine, pulling the crust from his lonely eyes. He walked into the kitchen and washed dishes in the sink. He peered out of the kitchen window and witnessed a vast landscape of snow. The farmland was buried underneath. Long Islanders from east to west were bombarded by the storm. The trees' branches were frozen with ice. There was a gentleness in the day. The wind was no longer sweeping through. Albert finished rinsing the last of the dishes and dried his hands.

He cooked breakfast. Eggs over easy, bacon, home fries, a toasted bagel, and a glass of orange juice. On the refrigerator door was a picture of Albert and Martha standing on the rocky shoreline - young, vibrant, and beautiful. Martha had a winning smile. A smile most men would falter over. Albert could still see her face, but her voice was beginning to fade from his memory. It's the one thing he feared.

Albert hoofed in the snow with a shovel over his shoulder. Footprints of snow boots were left behind him. He made his way toward a tractor. There was a break in the clouds. The sun's rays were bursting through. Though, the temperatures were still below freezing. There was a glimpse of hope for a warmer tomorrow. Albert started removing snow from the tractor. Heavy swipes with the shovel took clumps of snow off the windshield. He moved around the tractor and cleared away the snow. As he made his way toward the rear of the tractor, he was met by the winter bird who swooped from the sky to the earth. Albert suddenly stopped. The bird bobbed its tiny head and fluttered upward onto the tractor. "Hi there little guy." Albert slowly placed the shovel onto the ground. He stood back up and looked the bird in the eyes. It was a beautiful creature of the earth. Its wings were small but powerful. In one swift movement, the bird could dart away. It didn't. The bird perched on the tractor and observed the old man. The peacefulness of the moment. Albert reached out his hand. The bird slightly pecked at it. A precaution to danger. And without warning, the bird fluttered its wings and flew up and landed on Albert's hand. Albert's eyes filled with tears. A heavenly sensation filled his body. The two were totally present. He remained silent. Albert even caught himself holding his breath as not to disturb the bird. What felt like fifteen minutes was only twenty seconds of disbelief. A clump of ice fell from a tree and landed on the earth. The bird dashed into the distance. Once again, Albert was left to himself.

The tractor was fully cleaned off. He had cleared a pathway up the walkway leading to his house and salted it to melt whatever was left behind. The phone rang. He went inside and picked up the phone.

"Hello."

"Hi Al."

"Oh hey, Jim."

"You lose power last night?"

"No."

"Shit Al. Lights went out over here 'round ten. Damn tree fell on a power line down the street. Whole block blacked out. Took a few hours this morning for electricians to get it back up. We're in good shape now."

"That's good."

"You okay over there? Just checkin' in to make sure you're alright. What are friends for, right?"

"I'm okay. Just cleared off the tractor and the walkway."

"How's the new tractor? Bet you won't need to use that for a while. Seems like the whole world froze over with this storm."

"I think my cabbage, carrots, and beets are destroyed."

"Is that right? Damnit. This storm was a bastard. Didn't even see it comin'. Anyway, hang in there. When the snow thaws Lynn and I will come over with a couple bottles of wine. We'll have a night."

"Okay."

Albert hung up the phone. Jim was Albert's long-time friend. They were both born and raised on the north fork. As adolescents, they'd go crabbing in the Great Peconic Bay. Over the course of the years, they remained close friends. Jim was well off financially after a series of fortunate business decisions as an east end contractor. Ever since Albert's wife passed away, Jim always checked up on him to make sure he was in his right mind.

As dusk approached, the sun set low above the horizon turning the sky pink and blue. Albert brewed a mug of coffee and spiked it with whiskey. He made his way to the porch and sat back on his rocking chair. Outside, the world was white and pure, with temperatures dropping for another night of blistering cold. Solemnity had become Albert's best friend. There comes a time in a person's life when one awaits total isolation. He became lost in his own thoughts. Somewhere between memory and subtlety. Albert thought about Martha often. How she loved simplicity. Nature being the calm that settled her nerves during her final days. She was the reason why they didn't sell the farm after the death of Albert's father. He took a big sip of his spiked coffee, placed it on the round table set next to him and closed his eyes - rocking back and forth.

He didn't know how much time went by when he felt the bird land back on his lap. It woke him. The winter bird sat on his legs tweeting. Albert didn't move. He couldn't move. It would startle the bird to fly away. He wanted it to stay. Forever if it could. He knew it was impossible. So he would accept the fleeting moments with the beautiful creature. Albert examined the bird's tiny frame. It was simply a miracle that the creature could even fly, Albert thought. It was night and the cold had turned the old man's face red. He gently placed two fingers on the bird's back and stroked. The bird didn't fly away. It didn't move. It remained there. Albert stroked the bird's back for a second time. It was at ease with Albert's touch. Albert cusped his hands together and scooped the bird in his palms. The bird was eye level with Albert, "Little guy, why do you keep coming back to me? Don't you have other places to be?" The bird bobbed its head slightly. Albert continued, "Ya know, I'm just a lonely old farmer. Really got nothing left in this world except for some frozen crops and this house." The bird remained seated in Albert's palm. He set the bird back on his lap and waited. The winter bird was comfortable in the old man's lap. "I think I'm going to call you Zen." The bird tweeted. Albert smiled and sat back chuckling... "Yeah... You're definitely Zen." Albert rocked Zen in the rocking chair late into the morning hours until the bird finally darted off into the early twilight. It was the last time Albert saw the winter bird...

Two weeks passed and the snow was finally melting. The crops on the farm were completely annihilated. Albert checked the engine of the tractor and toiled around with the mechanics. Upon finishing, he made his way back over to the house. Up the walkway, he spotted something laying on the walkway. From a distance, it looked like a small black stone. As Albert walked closer he noticed that the stone wasn't actually a stone but a bird. He ran up the walkway and knelt beside the lifeless bird. Albert recognized the creature. It was Zen. Streaks of blood could be seen on the pavement beside Zen. There was nothing Albert could do. Life was over for the creature. Albert glanced around and noticed a stray cat licking its lips in the neighbor's yard before dashing off.

In its death, Zen looked peaceful. As peaceful as any moment they spent together. Which wasn't long. Just long enough to know that there was beauty in their solidarity. Albert gave Zen a proper burial. He wept for the bird. It was the closest anything has come to his heart since Martha. And for that, Albert was thankful.

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Short Stories: The Man Who Met Zen by Tommy DeJosia

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Albert continued to rock in his chair, the cold wind was relentless. Clouds covered the sky. He pulled out the flask and poured in a little whiskey to warm himself. The old man puckered at his next sip. His ice-blue eyes held a glow.

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The story is A very special skill written by Neil Gordon.
It's a short story of 4 pages recommanded to people who are 15 and it's a horror story.

This is a story of a man who could be a simple psychologist but he doesn't just listen to their problems. He learns about their grief and always takes something form their patients that he sells on a website.

I really liked this story because it's not the story of a simple psychologist. It's well written because it constantly leave you in suspens. I recommand it for people who like horror story with some mystery.

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The seagulls have settled down early to their bellowing. They dot the chimneypots around the park and scream murder at one another. Down below, the dedications on the park benches catch the summer morning light. I know them off by heart. For Theo, who loved this spot. To Emily, forever missed.

My office opens the earliest on the square, before the newsagent, the butcher, the café, or the florist. My clients tend to wake early if they have slept at all. I raise the shutters quietly.

I tidy the small waiting room, fluff the pillows, and water those plants that need it. I used to set out flowers, but I found them too funerary. My clients have had more than enough of that.

In the office, I check my emails and appointments. I have a few regulars, but most of the time, I leave open for walk-ins. I spray neutral scents on the furniture: the solid desk, the two comfortable but firm armchairs, the small, round table that sits between them.

Through the back, I examine my inventory of empty jars. I've sourced them with care from antique and charity shops and car boot sales. I have many hundreds, no two the same, and I pride myself on choosing the best for the job. On the opposite shelf sits a handful of filled jars waiting to be shipped. Each contains a different volume, consistency, and colour of liquid, unique to the clients from whom I have extracted them.

Everything in its right place, I'm ready to flip the sign on the door to "OPEN." I have time to boil the kettle and fill the cafetiere with thick, black coffee before the bell sings out.

My first client is a young man. He looks like a matchstick, drawn out and thin, his head round and heavy. I explain how things work. I bring him through to the office and sit him in the armchair.

I ask the usual questions: Who has he lost? How long ago? How?

His older brother, he tells me. Three weeks ago. Car accident.

I disappear into the back room and return with a modest jar. I've learned to start small. We usually get only drops at this stage.

Maybe this is a mistake, he says.

You're here now, I say, placing the sealed jar in the centre of the round table between us. We may as well talk. His eyes tumble down my face and settle on the jar. It's free, I remind him.

He doesn't leave - they never do - and so we begin. He talks, and I listen. I imagine that I'm unravelling a knot of knots, teasing his fibres apart, probing for the core of his grief. They loosen with ease under my experienced fingertips, only to stretch into a single taut, thick rope as his defences rise. At this early point, where the loss is still raw, the effort is huge. I pull with all my might as if I'm hauling up a heavy bucket from some great depth. Eventually, it snaps. When I open my eyes, his face is less grey, his head better squared between his shoulders. Between us, the jar is no longer empty. I pick it up and examine the grief we have extracted: a pale, cloudy liquid. Only a few spoonfuls, but it's a start.

When I show him out, there are already two others in the waiting room. One is a regular. She's been grieving for so long that it's become a part of her, and while it's normal for each subsequent session to become easier, hers have begun to trend the opposite. She's afraid there will be nothing of her left by the end. And yet, she still comes. My battle with her grief has become another part of her. I hate to say it, but I fear we are becoming of little use to one another.

After the first few hours, I take a break. The jars are piling up, and I must do something before they become immovable. I wake my laptop and log on to the marketplace. It's only here that my art becomes transactional, as eventually, it must. My website is invite-only, and it's taken me years on niche and sometimes questionable forums to cultivate a loyal customer base. That may sound sinister, but it's the price of preserving my clients' privacy. It's not perfect, but I can't very well keep the filled jars to myself - I'm running low on shelf space as it is. And what I have is a very special skill - why should I not monetise it?

I add each jar as a listing, with a photograph and some basic information. After publishing, my anonymous collectors will gather. After the auction closes, I'll pack up each jar and ship it off to the winner at some nondescript PO box. I'm careful never to find out what they do with it.

In the park outside, the seagulls have quietened, and the market is alive with bustle. Halfway down, a dark figure sits on one of the benches - the one with the inscription For Rachel, who fed the birds. In contrast to the bright sunshine, the man is a hole in the world. He rises the moment I flip the sign on the door back to 'OPEN.' Something in my belly tightens as he approaches.

Who has he lost?

I don't know his name, he says. His voice is low. His eyes are shiny, dark beetles. I tense up.

How long ago?

Last night.

I watch him. He's a spider above my bed, watching me back. I don't ask the final question: How?

He intertwines his fingers in his lap. I can see dark flecks under his nails. I wonder if he's an artist.

I go to the back room. I could slip out the back door to where the bins sit, foul and fox-raided, and phone the police. But I don't.

I return with a medium-sized jar, a tall, narrow one with a cork in the top. I've had to guess which I dislike more than anything. I place it between us.

Tell me, I say.

This time there's no knot to unravel, no rope on which to pull. When I close my eyes, his grief is everywhere, black and furious, and I struggle to find purchase. The things he tells me are repugnant, so I force the blood to rise between my ears to drown him out. His grief burns to the touch like I've plunged my hands into a vast belt sander up to the elbows, my brittle bones and ragged nerves quickly filed to dust. His voice persists through the pain, a squalid drone of violence. I grasp at great clods of his searing agony and pull.

By the time I recover, spots bursting in my eyes, he's gone. The tall jar has filled up with an inscrutable black liquid that has pushed out the cork and spilled onto the table. When the dizziness subsides, I close the office and lower the blinds. I try to wipe the bubbling tar from the table, but it leaves sticky residue in the grain and drops thickly onto the floor. I clean the jar as best I can and take a picture. On my laptop, I add it to the online shop, my trembling hands making mistakes as I type. I give it a lot number. In its description, I write simply, 'Murderer.'

I publish, and within seconds there is a clamouring. The numbers rise. I begin to receive urgent messages from customers.

I must have it, one collector writes. I will pay any price.

I check the current bid. It's far higher than I've had before. It continues to rise.

Will there be more? asks another.

I peer through the blinds and see him drifting through the market stalls. He looks like he could melt away in the wind. He stops to chat with one of the sellers, hands idly pushed into his pockets. For the briefest instant, he looks back at me between the blinds.

Yes, I reply.

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Short Stories: A Very Special Skill by Neil Gordon

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The seagulls have settled down early to their bellowing. They dot the chimneypots around the park and scream murder at one another. Down below, the dedications on the park benches catch the summer morning light. I know them off by heart. For Theo, who loved this spot. To Emily, forever missed.

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Tessa Metzger
Falling Down by Philip Charter

It's a comedy about an unlikely correspondence.

Length: 11 pages

The Pitch : The story consists of an exchange of letters between Crystal Cornish and Daniel Nothingham.
Crystal is wrongly incarcerated for the murder of her boyfriend. In his letters Daniel explains to Crystal that he knows what really happened that night and that it's her fault that she's in jail. He's trying to get her out of jail, and as the exchange goes on, Crystal becomes the only one
friend that Daniel never had.

The review :
I didn't like that story. There is no real plot and you can easily guess the ending. It's too much mannered. I wouldn't recommend it.

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How do you deal with bullies in prison? You must have your fair share. Unfortunately, violence is frowned upon in government offices.

Anyway, I've added some money to your commissary fund and included a picture of myself holding this letter. That way you'll know I'm not some bent copper trying to catfish you. I hope you can write back and I'll tell you more about what I know.

Daniel Nottingham.

To Daniel Nottingham

17B Weekley Road, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire.

25th June

Dear Sheriff of Nottingham or whoever the fuck you are,

Is this some kind of joke? You think I'd trust you just cos you put a tenner in my prison account? I checked my back and there ain't no handle growing out of it so I'm not a mug.

You look like that bloke in the boner pills advert - a bit skinny, but quite fit. You wouldn't last a week in prison, men's or women's. Maybe you should get your lookalike to sign up with the Buddhists and tell you what they are all about. Have you ever seen him? That bloke from the erectile dysfunction ads. I'd be laughing at the thought of you visiting if I wasn't locked up in here with nothing to do.

Dunno what you're going on about, really. Are you saying it was you who was responsible? I told the police a thousand times. Erol fell. I didn't push him. No one did. Don't bother telling your lies to my solicitor. That slimy prick never believed me, so I'm getting a new one for my appeal. It doesn't make sense me wanting to kill Erol. He wasn't a gang member or nothing even though he did like to slap me about sometimes. I was going to dump him anyway because he just got sacked from the phone shop. He was even more broke than me. If you know so much about what happened, prove it. Tell me your version of events - and don't leave out no details about Erol, the car park, and the time.

You probably didn't even see what he looked like. His head came apart like a Cadbury's cream egg. I only recognised his bomber jacket. I told that to my therapist. They call them 'councillors' in here, and they make you go.

I don't know if this is for real, but I'll answer your questions. Is everyone out to get me? Well, yeah. I'm a mixed-race girl from East London who has no job and an abusive, but dead boyfriend. Not many people see things the way I do. You get me?

You keep paying into my commissary and I'll help you deal with those bitches in your office. One - grow a beard. Literally, grow one. You look like a teenager. Too well-groomed. You wouldn't mess with the blokes on that Vikings show, so grow one like that. Glue one on if you have to. Or you can tell them that sheriffs get to carry a gun.

Remember, write me back with details or this is the last letter I'll write.

Crystal Cornish

27th June

Dear Crystal,

I wish I could grow a beard. I already look young enough as it is, but when I go without shaving, I resemble a fifteen-year-old trying to get buy alcohol in a newsagent. The hair that grows is like hamster fur, and I'm even allergic to that.

Honest to God, I promise you I'm not a Nigerian Prince scammer or a member of Cambridgeshire Constabulary. Also, I believe a prison psychologist is called a counselor. A 'Councillor' works for the local government, like me. I mean, who would make up Senior Administrator for Peterborough Council as their job? I'll tell you the exact time it happened because I have the exit ticket from the car park. 1:58 pm. I can show it to you when I visit. He was wearing a green bomber jacket, that's all I know because I only saw a crowd of people around him on the ground. That was the problem. I heard him something up there, but I didn't see him.

Please let me visit. I'll keep applying to the prison until you accept the request. I have to tell you my version. The therapist told me to stop coming today. I know it's been a few months since the incident, but I think the guilt is eating her more than it is me. Once she figured out I wasn't deluded and I'm telling the truth she said I shouldn't incriminate myself and we should stop sessions. I didn't do anything illegal that day (apart from being five minutes late back to work).

The police wouldn't listen, nor my therapist. I don't have a girlfriend or a wife. Even my dog, Bilbo, won't listen, he's deaf in one ear. And before you say I'm lucky to have a family, I can't tell them either. It would break my mother's heart, learning that her son is responsible for such a tragedy. She won't even admit her son looks like the 'degenerate in that awful penile health advert'.

I'll keep writing even if you stop. You have to hear me out. We can help each other. All you have to do is keep reading. So, the same day I was dumped by my therapist I was forcibly removed from Peterborough Magistrates' Court. They told me I was banned from requesting case notes because I'm not a lawyer. Does my new job title at the Council count for nothing? They've even processed a restraining order against me. Are you flattered that I care that much? I may not have a girlfriend, but I never thought I'd get a restraining order slapped on me by a building. You'll have to tell me what's going on with the appeal in your next letter.

On the way back to the office, two teenagers gave me the crooked index finger, you know the sign the guy does on the advert. And then I read your letter not believing me about being a real person? I thought if I got any more nonsense I'd have a 'Falling Down' moment - you know that film about an office worker who goes on the rampage? Sorry, I didn't mean to mention falling again, but here we are.

Sandra (the office manager) ticked me off in front of my boss for clocking in three minutes late. I told her I came in twenty minutes before her this morning, and she was so miffed that she threatened to make it an HR issue. That night I was too jumpy to go out. What more could go wrong? I mostly stay in. I've ordered pizza three nights in a row so I don't have to leave my house. My dog is happy with the pizza but less so with the lack of exercise. That's how my life is going. How is your day today?

I've added some more money to your commissary fund. What did you spend the last lot on?

Yours, David.

P.S. Trust me, I'm not going anywhere.

2nd July

Dear Michael Douglas,

Don't get your willy in a twist. I thought you was a chicken who couldn't survive in prison, now you're chatting about going on the rampage? Fair enough, I believe you were there. Who else would be sad enough to make a visitors request every week? My mum has only come to see me once. Imagine that, your own mum thinking you are guilty. She loved Erol like a son.

Sorry I didn't write back till now. I was in solitary for three days for fighting. That was your fault and all. Girls tried to take the stuff I bought with the money you sent, so I used your idea about the toothbrush. It drew blood and everything. Now that fat bitch can't walk for a week.

It felt like three weeks in solitary. No exercise or TV or nothing. I dunno what they expect you to do; think, I guess. I just kept thinking about how my cellmate Natasha Greaves and her mate Curly kept helping themselves to my stuff. It was only a little bit at first, chocolate bars or skin wipes. A few days ago I find out she's been handing out my pack of tampons, paying off her debts like they're her cigarettes. Daft cow probably tried to smoke them too. I stuck her with the toothbrush when we were outside but Curly told the C.O. before I could get her too. They gave me three days in lock up and Natasha has a week in hospital.

So, here is my day so far. The C.O.s took me to my new cell. They were alright about it, bagged up my stuff, even the tampons. My new cellmate is a little pussy-mouse called Chloe. She won't tell me what she did, but I don't care. She speaks so quiet I can barely hear her. Makes a change from Tash with her foghorn Scottish accent.

We had exercise at eleven. It was good to be outside. You don't know how you miss it until you are locked in with these slimy walls. 12:30 was lunch - chicken and mashed potatoes, but not proper chicken. I didn't kill Erol, but I could murder a KFC. In the afternoon I went to my English class. We get paid less than if we work, but you just have to read. I used to like books at school. English Lit was one of the only ones I passed. One of the other girls said she already spoke English, so she shouldn't have to come. The teacher mugged her right off. She said 'that's debatable.' I don't think the stupid mare knew the word. Evenings are worst. After six it goes quiet. No TV, no pub, not even chat. Got nothing better to do than write to you.

Still no word about an appeal. It's getting boring now. They was in such a rush to lock me up, but now . . . I used to rage to the C.O.s about the broken sink in my cell, or about Tash and Curly. Don't even have them now. Just little mouse Chloe quivering away on the bottom bunk.

If what you say is true, then I'm not angry at you, Daniel. I need to hear the truth about Erol, about that day he jumped. Maybe none of this was your fault but you have to tell the truth. I'm beginning to wonder if you even have erectile dysfunction.

See you next week.

Crystal.

10th July

Dear Crys, (can I call you that? it's just Crystal makes me think of meth. I've been watching a lot of Breaking Bad and we all know what happened to that guy.)

Seeing as you appreciate my sense of humour, I would like to make a 'time of the month' joke about your hell in a cell fight with Tash. Then again, I certainly don't want to get on your bad side. Keep sticking it to 'em anyway.

Thanks for letting me visit. I feel so much better after getting my side of the story across. I'll try and fill in the gaps in the story in this letter. After just thirty minutes, I feel I know you so much better than from your letters. You really are quite sweet in person.

I wish I'd known what to expect from a prison. Nobody told me I'd feel so nervous like they were going to find out and not let me leave. All those metal detectors and forms - it might be harder getting in than breaking out. It's lucky they allow books because I don't think the Count of Monte Cristo would have fit up my arse. I remembered you studied it. Have you started reading it yet?

I didn't tell you during the visit, but I nearly didn't come. Thought you might still be angry. Well, you were a bit angry. It was rotten of your family to cancel their visit without telling you.

Thanks for telling me I'm more handsome than the erectile dysfunction guy. You are not so bad yourself - even prettier than the older lady with the stomach problems in the Senokot ads. Anyway, I can assure you, everything is in order down there. From what you told me, there's more sex going on in your prison than in my one-bed flat. Mind you, it's been a while since my girlfriend ran off with her girlfriend. Honestly. She'd probably fit right in in E-block.

I said I'd answer your questions about my version of events, so here goes:

That car park has no CCTV or number plate recognition because the Council won't pay for them to be installed.

The owner of Tasty Toasties identified the guy who looks like me (possibly Mr. Floppy Cock) from the camera footage outside his shop. That's when they threatened to arrest me if I didn't stop wasting police time.

I was watching the news because I don't have friends (well, non World of Warcraft friends) and there was nothing else on the telly. I saw the report about Erol falling from the top of the multi-storey. Recognised his green jacket, and one of the witnesses I saw on the way out. The reporter said they were holding you under suspicion of murder.

I'd heard a bump, but when I looked out of the rear-view, there was nothing there. Sometimes you imagine things, so I just drove off.

When the report had finished, I picked up the phone and went to dial the police station. But how could I be sure? How could they check? Was it a good idea to show up after drinking two glasses of red wine like some tipsy reverend. I needed more time to think.

The next day, I sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair for two hours while they checked my story. I told them I wouldn't be seen dead in that sandwich shop because they put gherkins in their tuna melts and short-change people. The detective told me to leave. He must have thought I was your 'bit on the side' wanting to take the blame. I drove home in the same car that . . . you know.

Whom could I tell? Mother? My workmates? The World of Warcraft community? It would all just get more complicated. So I told my therapist and even she washed her hands of me.

You are an inspiration, Crys. I really enjoyed my visit with you. I hope you enjoy the book. You will get out, and when you do, we'll visit the town library, or maybe go to the cinema. I don't suppose you like online role-playing games.

Dan. (a.k.a Walter White).

13th July

World of Warcraft, Daniel? You better not be into any nasty dungeon master shit, or I'll stop writing.

This whole situation is so ridiculous. The police, the courts, nobody wants you to make the case more complicated. Except me. You have to share what you know with my new solicitor. He won't tell no one. Client-attorney privilege, that's what he tells me.

You can't keep it bottled up. I've seen girls go mental in here because of what's locked up in their heads. Maddy 'nine-fingers' nearly lost another one by kicking off in the dining hall. She's wrong in the head. The C.O. smacked her legs up with the stick, but she got it on the hand trying to protect herself. Maddy told them that she was going to sue, which gave us a laugh. If my conviction gets overturned, I won't see a penny. Know that.

I thought about you a lot after your visit. I'd go to a library with you. Course. There's no free WiFi here and my cellmate is always asking me questions I don't know the answers to. What else am I going to do when I get out?

I'm not going to tell you about the appeal date. If you show up at the courthouse, you'll get done for violating your restraining order, and that will delay the trial. I can't be doing with another three months in here. I trust my new solicitor, Mr. Moncrief. At least he's got a posh name. He seems confident 'we' can beat this. I told him 'we' don't have to look through our porridge for roaches or wonder where the carrots and cucumbers have been before they get put on our plates. 'We' don't have to keep a shiv gripped in our hands during yard time in case Curly or Tash try want payback.

Moncrief says he got hold of footage from a ticket machine showing me coming past with a cig, two minutes after Erol's big splat. The witness who said he saw us together on the top of the car park is going on the stand again. If he admits he was wrong, I could be out of here.

You best print me a library card ready for my release. I hope you are senior enough for that, Mr. Administrator.

Crys.

To Crystal Cornish

Flat 8B Cambridge Heights, South Bretton, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire

3rd August,

Dear Countess of Monte Cristo,

Congratulations on getting out. I knew they couldn't keep you locked up in a maximum-security after the case fell apart. What a turn of events at the hearing! Did you recognise me in my Hasidic Jew costume? Sorry, I didn't follow instructions, but I had to see you, to know what would happen. I would have loved to see the faces of the crown prosecutors, but you know . . . I got forcibly removed.

This is the first time they've allowed me to write a letter. It's been two days since your release and my incarceration. Most of the guards think it's stupid writing a letter. I only got seven days for breach of the restraining order, so I might reach you before the post does. Still, I didn't actually think they would follow through on the threat to imprison me for attending a trial. The bloke in the costume shop said no one would recognise me with the wig and the beard, and the hat and robes. I've probably lost the deposit on it too because I didn't return it. It's in the personal effects lockup with the rest of my stuff.

I'm glad I'm not in a maximum security like you were. I was terrified when they transported me straight from the courtroom to the lockup. That's what they call it: lockup. The guards couldn't stop laughing about the costume. It wasn't so funny for me.

It's not as dangerous as HMP Peterborough. In fact, I'm probably safer here than out in Peterborough city centre on a Friday night. My cellmate is a secretary one of the other men is an HR representative serving time for filing false sexual harassment claims. We're all administrators. I may as well start my own gang because I've lost my job by now. I'm a criminal. No self-respecting council in all of England will employ me.

They don't assign short-term prisoners a counselor. So, I went to church and saw the chaplain. The man was very pushy, asked me a hell of a lot of questions about my beliefs. I thought it best not to tell him about the disguise I wore to get into the court or my subsequent removal. I didn't tell Mother why I can't answer my phone, or why she has to feed Bilbo for the week. I told the chaplain I was in prison for violating a restraining order, so at least I haven't lied in the eyes of God. I just hope Erol forgives me.

It takes a week to get clearance to request library books, so I've got nothing to read, apart from a copy of the Bible the chaplain lent me. Maybe that's how they get you. Have you read anything or done anything amazing since you got out? I bet your mother was glad to see you. Have you forgiven her for thinking you were guilty? I could always come over in my Rabbi outfit to convince her of the real story. People respect Rabbis.

I can't wait to see you, Crystal. I can't wait to hug you, to make plans about what awful jobs we ex-cons might manage to get. You can meet Bilbo, we can eat pizza together, and maybe take a road trip to Nottingham.

What do you say?

Inmate 1596A

9th August

Dear Inmate 1596A,

This letter should be waiting for you when you get home. I'll be around this afternoon to meet Bilbo and welcome you.

Life has been alright since getting out. It's been nearly a week now. Mostly I'm getting used to having a phone again and eating what I want. My mum is so jumpy around me now I've been inside. It's like she's not sure what I might do. You might be the only person who understands what I went through (even though your prison sounds peek).

I owe you one for the info you gave Moncrief. He proved the witness who saw Erol fall would have seen me on top of the car park, too. Only I wasn't there. Can't wait to tell you more about the trail this afternoon when the pizza arrives. I'll get a bottle of red wine too, even though I prefer rum and coke. We could even stay in and watch that Michael Douglas film. What do you reckon?

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Short Stories: Falling Down by Philip Charter

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How do you deal with bullies in prison? You must have your fair share. Unfortunately, violence is frowned upon in government offices. Anyway, I've added some money to your commissary fund and included a picture of myself holding this letter. That way you'll know I'm not some bent copper trying to catfish you.

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Guessy Baradji
Death by Scrabble by Charlie Fish
The genre: crime
4 pages

Pitch: One hot afternoon, a 42-years-old man with his wife whom he hates decides to play Scrabble. But this pointless game is going to be as amazing as dangerous...

My review:  This short story of black humor is surprising. The suspense is perfect. Moreover, the story offers a pretty funny morality.
I highly recommend this story if you want to be chocked and smile because of a weird story.

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She plays SWEATIER, using all her letters. 24 points plus a 50 point bonus. If it wasn't too hot to move I would strangle her right now.

I am getting sweatier. It needs to rain, to clear the air. As soon as that thought crosses my mind, I find a good word. HUMID on a double-word score, using the D of JINXED. The U makes a little splash of saliva when I put it down. Another 22 points. I hope she has lousy letters.

She tells me she has lousy letters. For some reason, I hate her more.

She plays FAN, with the F on a double-letter, and gets up to fill the kettle and turn on the air conditioning.

It's the hottest day for ten years and my wife is turning on the kettle. This is why I hate my wife. I play ZAPS, with the Z doubled, and she gets a static shock off the air conditioning unit. I find this remarkably satisfying.

She sits back down with a heavy sigh and starts fiddling with her letters again. Clack clack. Clack clack. I feel a terrible rage build up inside me. Some inner poison slowly spreading through my limbs, and when it gets to my fingertips I am going to jump out of my chair, spilling the Scrabble tiles over the floor, and I am going to start hitting her again and again and again.

The rage gets to my fingertips and passes. My heart is beating. I'm sweating. I think my face actually twitches. Then I sigh, deeply, and sit back into my chair. The kettle starts whistling. As the whistle builds it makes me feel hotter.

She plays READY on a double-word for 18 points, then goes to pour herself a cup of tea. No I do not want one.

I steal a blank tile from the letter bag when she's not looking, and throw back a V from my rack. She gives me a suspicious look. She sits back down with her cup of tea, making a cup-ring on the table, as I play an 8-letter word: CHEATING, using the A of READY. 64 points, including the 50-point bonus, which means I'm beating her now.

She asks me if I cheated.

I really, really hate her.

She plays IGNORE on the triple-word for 21 points. The score is 153 to her, 155 to me.

The steam rising from her cup of tea makes me feel hotter. I try to make murderous words with the letters on my rack, but the best I can do is SLEEP.

My wife sleeps all the time. She slept through an argument our next-door neighbours had that resulted in a broken door, a smashed TV and a Teletubby Lala doll with all the stuffing coming out. And then she bitched at me for being moody the next day from lack of sleep.

If only there was some way for me to get rid of her.

I spot a chance to use all my letters. EXPLODES, using the X of JINXED. 72 points. That'll show her.

As I put the last letter down, there is a deafening bang and the air conditioning unit fails.

My heart is racing, but not from the shock of the bang. I don't believe it - but it can't be a coincidence. The letters made it happen. I played the word EXPLODES, and it happened - the air conditioning unit exploded. And before, I played the word CHEATING when I cheated. And ZAP when my wife got the electric shock. The words are coming true. The letters are choosing their future. The whole game is - JINXED.

My wife plays SIGN, with the N on a triple-letter, for 10 points.

I have to test this.

I have to play something and see if it happens. Something unlikely, to prove that the letters are making it happen. My rack is ABQYFWE. That doesn't leave me with a lot of options. I start frantically chewing on the B.

I play FLY, using the L of EXPLODES. I sit back in my chair and close my eyes, waiting for the sensation of rising up from my chair. Waiting to fly.

Stupid. I open my eyes, and there's a fly. An insect, buzzing around above the Scrabble board, surfing the thermals from the tepid cup of tea. That proves nothing. The fly could have been there anyway.

I need to play something unambiguous. Something that cannot be misinterpreted. Something absolute and final. Something terminal. Something murderous.

My wife plays CAUTION, using a blank tile for the N. 18 points.

My rack is AQWEUK, plus the B in my mouth. I am awed by the power of the letters, and frustrated that I cannot wield it. Maybe I should cheat again, and pick out the letters I need to spell SLASH or SLAY.

Then it hits me. The perfect word. A powerful, dangerous, terrible word.

I play QUAKE for 19 points.

I wonder if the strength of the quake will be proportionate to how many points it scored. I can feel the trembling energy of potential in my veins. I am commanding fate. I am manipulating destiny.

My wife plays DEATH for 34 points, just as the room starts to shake.

I gasp with surprise and vindication - and the B that I was chewing on gets lodged in my throat. I try to cough. My face goes red, then blue. My throat swells. I draw blood clawing at my neck. The earthquake builds to a climax.

I fall to the floor. My wife just sits there, watching.

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Short Stories: Death By Scrabble by Charlie Fish

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She plays SWEATIER, using all her letters. 24 points plus a 50 point bonus. If it wasn't too hot to move I would strangle her right now. I am getting sweatier. It needs to rain, to clear the air. As soon as that thought crosses my mind, I find a good word.

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There's a Man in the Habit of Hitting Me on the Head with an Umbrella

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There's a Man in the Habit of Hitting Me on the Head with an Umbrella

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Desroches Maxime
There's a Man in the Habit of Hitting Me on the Head with an Umbrella by Fernando Sorrentino
The genre : Humor
3 Pages
Pitch : The story is about a man sitting in a park one day and suddenly starts to get hit by a man with his umbrella cyclically. The beaten man tries several times to escape from him thinks about going to the police but thinks about the possible consequences this could create. He tells us this story 5 years later and the man still hits him on the head and the mute and emotionless man does not get tired. The defeated one even thinks in the end that it would be impossible to live without him despite the various means previously put in place to.

My review:  This short story is both interesting and funny because like the narrator at the beginning we do not understand the situation and the reasons of the man to do this and later as the man struck we get used to the presence of the mute with the umbrella.

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/TherMan.shtml

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The Cellmate, by Crystal Arbogast

I read Crystal Arbogast's short story, The Cellmate. The 6 page short story was rated 3.8 out of 5 by readers and the genre is nonfiction.

This short story tells the story of a unique night in the city of Whitesburg, and the unprecedented encounter between two cellmates, sentenced for different reasons in the city jail. One of the prisoners will be the last man to be hanged in the small town of Whitesburg.

This story is a superb story. As well, I really appreciated this short story based on a true story, it leaves a persistent thrill that lasts a long time after reading. It also allows us to reflect on the fate of prisoners in the United States and on the death sentence.

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Even Doc Handy was known to prescribe toddies made with Andy's brew for the croup. So great was his reputation that Sheriff Turner made it his primary goal to lock the brewer king up every chance that he could.

Andy's thoughts touched on Turner as he made his way down the serpentine path. The bottom of his trousers swayed heavily with his strides as they collected the dew from the dense grass and brush. Andy knew that the region's stills were a source of irritation for the sheriff. In Turner's eye, the mountain people had been living by their own code for too long. As the appointed law officer in the region, he was determined to make them respect his authority.

However, in recent weeks the war that was being waged on moonshiners, had taken a backseat to a special case, which had monopolized the bulk of Sheriff Turner's time. Lloyd Frazier had been found guilty of murdering a woman. Most people knew the kind of person Lloyd had been, quiet and kind of shy. Nobody really understood how he had been capable of such a crime. They did, however, know that Lloyd's mother had been jealous of the victim; they had been seeing the same man.

Annie Frazier had given Lloyd a saddle horse in return for the promise of getting rid of her rival.

It had been difficult to find an executioner to carry out the sentence. Men had resigned rather than be responsible for taking the life of the young man.

News of a hanging had spread quickly throughout the region. Whitesburg had never had a public execution and the subject was on everyone's lips. Andy was vaguely aware of the facts. He knew little of the family, although he had known Annie. They had attended the same small one-room schoolhouse as children. He had glimpsed the boy now and then through the years in town with Annie's father. The old man had loved the boy as his own, and unlike the rest of the family, overlooked Lloyd's illegitimacy. He had also fostered the boy's love of horses, and had promised to get Lloyd the finest mount possible. The promise had turned into a dream following the old man's death. Dejected, the boy looked to his mother for any kind of affection as he continued to withdraw from the rest of the world.

Andy's mind closed on the subject as he approached Old Man Tribbit's door. He had been looking forward to some hot coffee and happy conversation when he arrived, but the sight of the old man's face let him know that this would not happen.

Tribbit had known the boy since childhood and knew of his devotion to his mother. He was also aware of his love of horses.

As the old man led Andy inside he asked, "Well, did you know that young Lloyd dies tomorrow?"

With a shake of his head, the old man continued, "He always did do what that no-account bitch of a woman wanted. She knew how to get to him too. She knew he wanted that chestnut mare something fierce. Lied to him, she did. Told him that the woman had threatened her. Said how afraid she was. Lord knows that boy wouldn't have hurt anyone on his own."

After settling business, Andy said good-bye to the old man, and as he closed the door behind him, he thought of Annie Frazier. She had never been a virtuous woman. It was no surprise to anyone when she turned up pregnant with Lloyd at sixteen. Still, she had been responsible for the boy and cared for him. Annie had never married, and was still a fine looking woman at the age of thirty-six. Andy knew that she had been seeing a railroad man, but didn't think much of it. Annie always had a man.

Andy's thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a sharp sounding voice. "Stop right where you are Andy." He turned to see the sheriff and two of his deputies standing close behind him.

"I'm taking you in for questioning. We've uncovered a stash of bootleg liquor and I think you know something about it."

Andy grinned at the men, knowing that Turner had no such evidence, but decided that it was best to cooperate in order to cover his tracks.

"Whatever you say John."

As Andy was escorted into the jail, another deputy motioned for Turner, and the two whispered softly, looking once in his direction.

"Andy," Turner said, "We only have one more cot left and the cell is occupied by the Frazier boy. You don't have to stay there, I mean, we could make other arrangements."

The thought of spending the night handcuffed to Turner's desk didn't appeal to him. John Turner had an irritating habit of rolling a toothpick back and forth in his mouth, and the vision of being forced to witness the smacking sounds in between lectures on law enforcement hastened his answer.

"I don't mind bunking with Frazier."

As the key turned the lock, a slight movement caught Andy's attention and he found himself staring into a pair of dark eyes. Surprisingly, nothing was said and Andy nodded his head as he sat on the cot. The boy looked at him for a moment and then turned away. Feeling uneasy, Andy lowered himself down on the cot and attempted to find sleep.

The sound of a horse whinnying broke the silence of the cell. Lloyd rose from the cot and moved to the window, staring at the sight below. His chestnut mare was enclosed in a small area behind the town's blacksmith barn. Beyond, were the gallows, but Lloyd's eyes were fixed on the mare.

"She needs to be brushed and one shoe is loose."

Andy opened his eyes at the soft whisper. "I'm sure they'll take care of her."

Lloyd continued as if he had not heard the remark. "She also likes a little taste of sugar now and then."

The boy continued to stand by the window, and Andy finally drifted off to sleep.

The night grew chilly and the single blanket on the cots did a poor job in keeping out the cold. After a while, a slight stirring from the other side of the cell awakened Andy. As he felt Lloyd's presence hovering over him, fear crept into his brain and he found that he could not move. Lloyd placed his own blanket over Andy and carefully spread it evenly over his shivering body. Ashamed and embarrassed by his fears, Andy pretended to be asleep while his cellmate stood by the window and watched below.

Lloyd was removed from the cell early in the morning. Andy had awakened to find that he was alone, and went to the window. The crowd seemed to fill the entire town and the sound of hymns rose into the air. He saw the boy climb the steps but could not bring himself to watch the execution. Down below, the mare paced the small enclosure and snorted nervously.

At midday, Andy was set free. He knew he would be. Sheriff Turner warned Andy to watch his back because he would always be there. As he approached the door he turned and asked, "What about the mare?"

"What about her?" Turner was busy shuffling papers and didn't bother to look up.

"I mean, who'll take care of her now? You think Annie will...."

"Look, I don't have time to worry about a damn horse - least of all that horse. Tanner will probably sell her for as much as he can get to make up for her room and board, even if it means the glue factory. Nobody in Frazier's family came to claim his body, let alone his property. It's up to the blacksmith."

At the end of the day, the sun slanted at the edge of the sky, casting shadows of everything it touched. On the road, which led out of town and forked into the numerous hollows and farms, Andy Sturgil made his way back to his home. He had purchased supplies; coffee, flour, sugar, and a few sacks of sweet wheat middling, without salt. He dug into the side pocket of his coat and filled his palm with sugar. There would not be enough for a huge supply of moonshine that winter. He stopped and held his open hand beneath the mare's lips.

Yes, she was a beautiful horse. He would fix the loose shoe, brush her, and give her a taste of sugar now and then.

As the two figures made their way down the road, the sun set slowly behind the mountains. The night air grew chilly, but Andy wasn't cold.

"I'll take care of her, Boy," he whispered softly.

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Short Stories: The Cellmate by Crystal Arbogast

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Even Doc Handy was known to prescribe toddies made with Andy's brew for the croup. So great was his reputation that Sheriff Turner made it his primary goal to lock the brewer king up every chance that he could. Andy's thoughts touched on Turner as he made his way down the serpentine path.

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Esther Roussel : Bobbleheads, Bobby Wise

I read Bobbleheads review by Bobby Wise. The short story has 9 pages and the genre is horror.
This is the story of a figurine seller going to his competitor. He is about to discover the terrible secret of the success of this store....
I expected a more horrific story... One can too easily guess the end. It was not interesting in terms of morals...

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When the door closed shut, Stacey grabbed the Yellow Pages and flipped it open, finding the letter M for Mel's. His finger trailed down. There. Mel's Toy Shack, 103 Arlington Street, Widdershins.

Stacey could feel his face getting hot. Was this the reason his store had seen such a sudden decline in sales? And if so, what was so special about this new wave of bobbleheads? Could they really be that different from his own? Stacey had to see for himself.

Penning a ring around the address, Stacey tore out the page and slipped it into his pocket. The Yellow Pages went back below the counter, flattening the latest pile of final notice letters.

Widdershins was a two-hour drive, and Stacey wasted no time locking up the shop and jumping into his car. With a roadmap stretched across his lap, Stacey barrelled up the motorway, the radio dulled down to a low whisper. He was too angry to listen to anything.

At just over halfway, Stacey slowed and pulled into a petrol station, filling up. In the distance, dark clouds started to gather.

"£32.60," the attendant said, his yawn landing on the plastic shield between them. Below the cloud of tired, shrinking breath, Stacey noticed a poster, the words' missing' emblazoned across the top. Geraldine Taylor, last seen leaving the local tavern two days ago. Geraldine had green eyes and freckles. A pencil held up a bun of reddish hair. The attendant cleared his throat.

Muttering an apology, Stacey handed over the money for the petrol and thumbed at the loose change from his pocket, deciding against the chocolate bar and energy drink and setting them back down on the counter with a huff. The attendant smirked and prodded at the till deducting the discarded items from the total.

Stacey set off again, his windscreen wipers thwacking away the rain as it fell. When the map told him to take the next exit, Stacey found himself on a much narrower road, surrounded by tall pine trees. The sky had darkened by the time Widdershins came into view some twenty minutes later, and after a quick lap of the high street, Stacey circled back and found a parking space.

One of the locals told him he could find Mel's Toy Shack just beyond the cinema, so Stacey headed that way, contemplating whether or not to visit a cosy-looking coffee shop before the confrontation. Confrontation, Stacey thought. He wasn't even sure what he was going to say.

There had been plenty of time for thinking during the journey up to Widdershins, but Stacey had used that time to play out a range of unrealistic scenarios, none of which were particularly helpful.

Skipping on the coffee, Stacey found Mel's Toy Shack a few streets down, tucked away beneath a gloomy underpass. The neon sign in the front window was blinding, stretching all the way out to the curb. A bell announced Stacey's arrival, and he swept his shoes against the welcome mat, rubbing his hands together to see off the cold. He took a look around, moving between the aisles. The space was small, and the shelves were mostly empty, aside from a few toys and board games.

Stacey scratched at his stubble. He didn't understand. There was nothing extraordinary about Mel's Toy Shack. Most of the toys, from the few he could see, were bland and outdated. Where were these world-famous bobbleheads, Stacey wondered. He found a shop assistant pottering about behind the counter at the front of the store.

"Evening," the assistant said, looking up, "horrible weather we've been having."

But Stacey didn't hear him. He was too busy looking at the shelves lining the wall behind him. Bobblehead figures. Three of them.

But these weren't regular bobblehead figurines. These were different. Stacey squinted at the collection. Two of them were vaguely similar, longish hair, beards, both dressed in shabby attire, a tattered anorak, and scruffy windbreaker, sleeping bags slung over tiny shoulders. Those two looked as though they came as a pair. The last remaining one, though, stood out from the others.

The assistant followed Stacey's gaze.

"Can you believe we started the day with forty of those things!"

Must be nice, Stacey thought, noticing the empty spaces between each figure. The prices listed below each one were extortionate - ten times what Stacey charged for his own.

"Can I see that one?" Stacey asked, "the one on the end there."

The assistant nodded and wiped his hands on his vest, grabbing the figurine and setting it down on the counter.

Stacey glared over the large squarish head, small body, and large, circular eyes. Green eyes, with a glint he couldn't quite place. There were freckles, perfectly painted. And reddish hair, held in place by a pencil. The craftsmanship was incredible, down to every detail.

"You make these in town?" Stacey asked. The material was like nothing he had ever seen or felt before, remarkably different to the beechwood figurines he sold at the emporium.

"You could say that," the assistant grinned, "say, you want me to bag that one up for you?"

Stacey was about to answer when the phone rang. The assistant held up a hand and took the call, turning to glance up at the shelves.

"You saw it in the store earlier, huh?" he said, "what's that? The one with the red raincoat? No, sorry, that one went this afternoon".

Looking around, Stacey palmed the bobblehead that looked eerily like Geraldine Taylor and explored the aisles he hadn't yet seen, wondering if he would find any more bobbleheads.

Instead, he came across a door leading to the backroom. With a quick glance behind him, Stacey ducked inside. He had to find out who Mel's supplier was. There was no way his stock at the emporium could compete, not with this new material, whatever it was. At the far end of the backroom, a loading dock sat in the gloom, rain tapping on the shutters.

To his right, Stacey found an office, peering through the gap in the door before stepping inside. A bank of CCTV screens mapped the wall, cameras covering the store and the street outside.

Stacey watched the shop assistant from above, the phone still pressed against his ear. He wouldn't be distracted for too much longer. Stacey knew he had to find something quick. The desk below the monitors offered little, and Stacey pushed aside old coffee cups and ashtrays filled to the brim with cigarette butts, squinting at random pieces of paper, hoping he might find an invoice from Mel's supplier.

One of the monitors facing the street was suddenly busy with movement, and a car pulled up to the shutters. Stacey heard the thud of a car door closing and moved to the doorway. The shutters opened halfway, and he could see a car trundling quietly in the haze, rain cascading down from an open boot. Stacey moved back towards the store.

He would have to come back another day. Maybe there was a hotel where he could rest up for the night. Either way, he needed to get out of there before he was caught snooping. With his eyes still on the shutter, Stacey turned, his elbow grazing an old broom handle and knocking it away from the wall. Before he could stop it, the broom fell, hitting the floor with a loud clang.

"Derek, that you?"

Stacey chose not to respond, his heart pounding. A figure stooped beneath the shutter, flicking on a light switch. The room was suddenly bright, and Stacey had to shield his eyes.

"Thought you were my cousin," growled the figure, shaking off his jacket and hanging it on the wall, "what are you doing back here, anyway?"

When Stacey's eyes adjusted to the light, he saw a tall man, possibly in his mid-twenties, his dark hair flattened by the rain. There was a holster strapped around his waist, the purple-green metallic glint of what appeared to be a gun poking out over the leather. Stacey thought it looked like some kind of toy.

"I'm guessing you're Mel?"

The figure didn't flinch.

"That's right. And you are?"

"My name's Stacey Olmo. I run a store not too far from here. Olmo's Original Bobblehead Emporium".

"That so. What can I do for you?"

"I'd like to know where you get your bobbleheads," Stacey said boldly, seeing no point in lying. He tried not to look at the holster.

Mel chuckled.

"I'm sure you would! Now tell me, why would I just hand that information over to a competitor?"

Stacey nodded.

"That's fair. Maybe instead, you can tell me a little more about the characters you've created. They're unlike anything I've ever seen before".

Mel sighed deeply, clearly agitated.

"Listen, you're upset, envious even, I get it. Do you know how many Stacey Olmos we've had in here over the past few months? Tons. All of them complaining, all of them wanting to know where we get our bobbleheads. Do yourself a favour, settle up at the front desk and go back to that store of yours. There's only one place people want to get their bobbleheads from now on, and that's Mel's".

"That may be so," Stacey said, glancing over the bobblehead in his hand, "but what will people say when they find out your bobbleheads are inspired by missing posters? Missing locals, to be exact".

Mel looked up and raised an eyebrow.

"Now why would you say a thing like that?"

"I stopped at a petrol station on the way up here. There was a missing poster at the counter," Stacey held up the bobblehead, "safe to say the girl in the poster looks an awful lot like one of your £100 bobbleheads".

Mel went to speak but stopped himself, offering a toothy smile instead.

"Is that why you carry that thing?" Stacey persisted, pointing at the gun on Mel's hip, "why you've covered this whole place with cameras? A little heavy for just your regular toy store, wouldn't you say?"

Mel's hand was fast, the iridescent gun suddenly in his grip, pointing right at Stacey.

"You know, there was me thinking it had been a disappointing night. Looks like that won't be the case after all".

Stacey raised his hands halfway. He had said too much, pushed it too far, and Mel was angry; he could see it in his eyes.

"The self-proclaimed bobblehead king," Mel mocked, circling Stacey as he backed up, "you'll make a fine one. We'll just have to find you a tiny crown".

Stacey's heart was beating faster now, much faster. Was he serious? He couldn't mean to shoot him with that thing, could he? Stacey wasn't prepared to find out. His heel knocked against the fallen broom handle.

"Listen, we can figure this out."

Mel shook his head, stepping forward.

"I'm going to need you to drop the bobblehead and lower your arms," he said, "and maybe crack a little smile. Can't have you looking all scared now, can we?"

Stacey could hear a whirring sound as the trigger felt the pull of Mel's finger. But he was quick, knowing this would be his only opportunity, digging the toe of his boot beneath the broom and flicking it towards Mel's outstretched arm.

The broom smashed against Mel's chest, snapping in half. With a loud grunt, Mel fell onto his back, winded, the gun scattering across the floor. Dropping the bobblehead, Stacey rushed over to meet him, and they tussled, rolling against the dusty concrete, crashing into a stack of cardboard boxes.

Mel wriggled free and got to his feet, landing a punch on Stacey's nose and knocking him back. They grappled again, and Stacey threw Mel to the ground, heading for the gun where it lay. But Mel tripped him at the ankle, and Stacey crashed down once more.

When Mel tried to drag him back by the leg, Stacey kicked him in the chest, sending him sprawling. Stacey took the gun in his hand and turned, trying to steady his aim. As soon as he saw the gun, Mel stopped, hands on his knees, panting.

"You don't know what you've got there, Olmo," he gasped, raising a hand, "hand it over, and we can forget this whole thing ever happened."

Stacey looked down at the gun. The barrel was short, snubbed. The shape reminded Stacey of some sort of bulbous insect. Then, suddenly, the shop assistant appeared in the doorway.

"What's going on out here!?" he yelled.

But Stacey was already pulling down on the trigger, and after a short blast of pale green light, the assistant froze before disappearing entirely, a scream barely in his throat.

There was a noise that followed, a sort of clatter, but Stacey had to shift his focus to Mel, who had picked up one end of the broken broom handle and was now charging toward him.

Stacey yanked at the trigger again, and like the assistant, Mel froze before vanishing. Only this time, when a rattle rang around the backroom, Stacey saw something fall and settle. Picking himself up, his legs trembling with shock, Stacey moved over to the small object in the centre of the room.

Bending down, Stacey almost collapsed when he saw that Mel had been replaced by a tiny version of himself. A bobblehead. Stacey couldn't believe what he was seeing. But there was no mistake. Every detail matched the man who had been standing before him just moments before. The hair, the clothes, the gun holster on his waist, although that was now empty. He was even clutching one half of the broken broom handle, but that too had shrunk to a miniature scale.

Stacey set Mel down and went to seek out the assistant, who, upon inspection, had suffered the same fate. Unlike Mel's angry scowl, the assistant's eyes were wide with terror. Stacey wondered if they could see him, if they were somehow still alive, waiting to be freed. Was there a way of turning them back? Was that even possible?

The thought made Stacey weak, and he palmed at the doorway, his mind racing.

What was this thing, he thought, looking down at the gun, still hot in his palm. What had he done? How would he explain this?

Then he remembered the cameras in the office. He wasted no time, pulling the security tapes from each console and bringing his foot down hard on each of them. At that moment, the bell from the front of the shop rang, loud and sharp.

"I'm telling you," he heard in the distance, "we should have got here earlier, we'll be lucky if there's any left!"

Stacey watched two teenagers pass through the shop, keeping himself hidden in the shadows. They gathered at the counter, talking between themselves, pointing up at the bobbleheads. Stacey thought about crawling beneath the shutter and heading back to Lindell Street, back to his quiet little store.

But he couldn't go back. Not now. Not after what he'd seen here tonight. He glanced over his shoulder. Geraldine. Mel. The assistant. He had made his decision.

When he got to the counter, the two customers already had their wallets open, money in hand. They told Stacey they'd been traveling for three hours and that their friends wouldn't stop talking about the bobblehead figurines they'd bought at Mel's Toy Shack.

Stacey sold them the last two remaining bobbleheads and told them that if they wanted more, they should visit Olmo's Original Bobblehead Emporium on Lindell Street. New stock would be in by the weekend.

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Short Stories: Bobbleheads by Bobby Wise

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When the door closed shut, Stacey grabbed the Yellow Pages and flipped it open, finding the letter M for Mel's. His finger trailed down. There. Mel's Toy Shack, 103 Arlington Street, Widdershins. Stacey could feel his face getting hot. Was this the reason his store had seen such a sudden decline in sales?

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The Day that I Died by Shendl Pratt is the story of the last day of life and preparing to die. The main character is twenty-seven years old, Amber. She lives in a time where everyone has a fixed date of death. After saying goodbye to her family, she is placed in a hotel room to await her death. However, something has gone wrong. She is still alive. She escapes. She outsmarts death.

He begins the first day of the rest of his life.
The story evokes mixed feelings in me. I cannot answer unequivocally whether I liked it or not. It certainly raises reflections on the meaning of human life. Personally, I would not like to know the date of my death. Like Amber, I would try to escape death. I would like to continue living.

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Short Stories: The Day that I Died by Shendl Pratt

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Full online text of The Day that I Died by Shendl Pratt. Other short stories by Shendl Pratt also available along with many others by classic and contemporary authors.

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-An uncomfortable Bed by Guy de Maupassant but we don't know the date.
-The genre is Crime
-This story has 3 pages
-This story is about a man who is in a castle in Picardy with his friends for the hunting season and thinks that his friends is about to do a joke on him.
-I liked the story because there was some suspense and there is a bit of humor in this story. I like crime story

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One autumn I went to stay for the hunting season with some friends in a chateau in Picardy.

My friends were fond of practical joking, as all my friends are. I do not care to know any other sort of people.

When I arrived, they gave me a princely reception, which at once aroused distrust in my breast. We had some capital shooting. They embraced me, they cajoled me, as if they expected to have great fun at my expense.

I said to myself:

"Look out, old ferret! They have something in preparation for you."

During the dinner, the mirth was excessive, far too great, in fact. I thought: "Here are people who take a double share of amusement, and apparently without reason. They must be looking out in their own minds for some good bit of fun. Assuredly I am to be the victim of the joke. Attention!"

During the entire evening, everyone laughed in an exaggerated fashion. I smelled a practical joke in the air, as a dog smells game. But what was it? I was watchful, restless. I did not let a word or a meaning or a gesture escape me. Everyone seemed to me an object of suspicion, and I even looked distrustfully at the faces of the servants.

The hour rang for going to bed, and the whole household came to escort me to my room. Why? They called to me: "Good night." I entered the apartment, shut the door, and remained standing, without moving a single step, holding the wax candle in my hand.

I heard laughter and whispering in the corridor. Without doubt they were spying on me. I cast a glance around the walls, the furniture, the ceiling, the hangings, the floor. I saw nothing to justify suspicion. I heard persons moving about outside my door. I had no doubt they were looking through the keyhole.

An idea came into my head: "My candle may suddenly go out, and leave me in darkness."

Then I went across to the mantelpiece, and lighted all the wax candles that were on it. After that, I cast another glance around me without discovering anything. I advanced with short steps, carefully examining the apartment. Nothing. I inspected every article one after the other. Still nothing. I went over to the window. The shutters, large wooden shutters, were open. I shut them with great care, and then drew the curtains, enormous velvet curtains, and I placed a chair in front of them, so as to have nothing to fear from without.

Then I cautiously sat down. The armchair was solid. I did not venture to get into the bed. However, time was flying; and I ended by coming to the conclusion that I was ridiculous. If they were spying on me, as I supposed, they must, while waiting for the success of the joke they had been preparing for me, have been laughing enormously at my terror. So I made up my mind to go to bed. But the bed was particularly suspicious-looking. I pulled at the curtains. They seemed to be secure. All the same, there was danger. I was going perhaps to receive a cold shower-bath from overhead, or perhaps, the moment I stretched myself out, to find myself sinking under the floor with my mattress. I searched in my memory for all the practical jokes of which I ever had experience. And I did not want to be caught. Ah! certainly not! certainly not! Then I suddenly bethought myself of a precaution which I consider one of extreme efficacy: I caught hold of the side of the mattress gingerly, and very slowly drew it toward me. It came away, followed by the sheet and the rest of the bedclothes. I dragged all these objects into the very middle of the room, facing the entrance door. I made my bed over again as best I could at some distance from the suspected bedstead and the corner which had filled me with such anxiety. Then, I extinguished all the candles, and, groping my way, I slipped under the bedclothes.

For at least another hour, I remained awake, starting at the slightest sound. Everything seemed quiet in the chateau. I fell asleep.

I must have been in a deep sleep for a long time, but all of a sudden, I was awakened with a start by the fall of a heavy body tumbling right on top of my own body, and, at the same time, I received on my face, on my neck, and on my chest a burning liquid which made me utter a howl of pain. And a dreadful noise, as if a sideboard laden with plates and dishes had fallen down, penetrated my ears.

I felt myself suffocating under the weight that was crushing me and preventing me from moving. I stretched out my hand to find out what was the nature of this object. I felt a face, a nose, and whiskers. Then with all my strength I launched out a blow over this face. But I immediately received a hail of cuffings which made me jump straight out of the soaked sheets, and rush in my nightshirt into the corridor, the door of which I found open.

O stupor! it was broad daylight. The noise brought my friends hurrying into the apartment, and we found, sprawling over my improvised bed, the dismayed valet, who, while bringing me my morning cup of tea, had tripped over this obstacle in the middle of the floor, and fallen on his stomach, spilling, in spite of himself, my breakfast over my face.

The precautions I had taken in closing the shutters and going to sleep in the middle of the room had only brought about the interlude I had been striving to avoid.

Ah! how they all laughed that day!

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Short Stories: An Uncomfortable Bed by Guy de Maupassant

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One autumn I went to stay for the hunting season with some friends in a chateau in Picardy. My friends were fond of practical joking, as all my friends are. I do not care to know any other sort of people. When I arrived, they gave me a princely reception, which at once aroused distrust in my breast.

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-The worm by Michael Anderson
-It is an Horror story
-It makes 9 pages
-In the village of Tishmu, a young boy named Paolo is sick with a big fever which gaves him dreams of a giant worm coming from inside the earth in the brazilian rainforest and it is destroying everything in his way. But this worm is real, it is not only in Palolo's dreams, and it is going to the Tishmu village where Paolo is stuck in his bed cause of his sickness.
-I liked this story because there some suspens and we realise only in the middle of the story that the worm actually exist which let some suspens for the end. It as a simple story but it is write very well, very good horror story.

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The ground shuttered. The earth split. And foul gases, detritus, and splintered rock erupted into the jungle like spew from a volcano. And the worm inched closer to the world above, the open air and the scorching humidity of the Brazilian rainforest.

Likewise, Paolo erupted from a troubled sleep with a scream dying in his throat. He was wet with sweat and trembling. The fever had gotten worse, he was chilled, and his head was throbbing with a terrible ache. He sat straight up on his small wicker pallet, and even though his eyes were still closed, he could sense his little sister awake on the even smaller mat next to his. She was huddled close to the adobe wall, shivering, eyes wide, staring at her older brother, older by three years. Paolo was nine.

The dream was a recurring nightmare Young Paolo had had before, and as his mother stroked his damp hair and cooed soothing words into his ear, it began to subside, slither back into the depths of his mind like the thing Paolo saw crawling up to the surface of his dream, the thing that had awakened him, the thing that had made him scream and brought his mother running. The thing that he couldn't quite see.

"It is okay, Paolo." Said his mother, in their native language, as she continued to smooth his rumpled hair, his small head now cuddled on her breast. "It was only a dream." But she knew this dream was different from most, different from normal childhood fantasies. Because Paolo was different: small for his age, quiet, introspective. Not popular with other kids in the village, Paolo kept to himself, his little sister, Elyana, his only real friend. And Paolo was sick. The village Shaman and his mother had been unable to help, and now she caressed him hoping to ease his pain and his nightmare.

His mother kissed Paolo on the forehead, on the tip of his nose, then softly brushed his cheek with her hand. "I love you, Paolo" she said as she gently laid him back on his straw pillow and pulled the thin woven blanket up to his chin. "Sleep well now and dream no more. You will feel better in the morning." She hoped this would be so and kissed his forehead once more, then quietly went to her side of the small room.

Elyana snuggled deeper into the blanket of her own bed and closed her eyes, flicking away a small spider as she did so.

The village of Tishmu, located along the southern bank of the Tapajos River, a tributary of the mighty Amazon, deep in the heart of central Brazil, has been all but forgotten by civilization. The white man has been there, of course, where hasn't he been? And an occasional missionary group will visit and leave scripted words of faith about a God that never quite gets around to actually visiting Tishmu. The people of Tishmu are simple, proud, and strong. They live off the land, and it has been good to them; providing everything from the basic clothing they wear to the hollowed-out logs they use for fishing the plentiful river.

Paolo, his little sister Elyana and his widowed mother call Tishmu home. Tishmu is all they have ever known, all they have ever needed, but strangely, Paolo, even in his sickness, knows there is more. He doesn't know what more there might be or how he knows this, but he feels that the world is much larger than just this tiny spot on the banks of a dangerous river; much larger, much more exciting, and maybe even more dangerous than the river itself. Sometimes he dreams about these larger, more dangerous places. Perhaps this is how his illness began.

And now, struggling with his weariness through another typical day and avoiding the taunts and tricks of the other village children, Paolo gladly seeks the refuge of his simple bed. A refuge fraught with threats of its own, for Paolo knows that as sleep approaches, so might the dream; the frightening nightmare that conjures the monster that is fighting to escape the prison of the earth in which it is now captive.

But Paolo, weakened by this strange malady which conjures dark visions in his head, is powerless to control his dreams, or the beast that dwells within them. He struggles to keep his eyes open and his mind clear of that which haunts his slumber. He watches Elyana carefully as she quietly drifts off into a restless sleep of her own, hoping that she will never be confronted with horrors like that which his mind has unconsciously summoned. Paolo has no explanation for why he's plagued with this sickness or the nightmares it spawns. He doesn't know from where these images might have come, or why; only that the world holds much more than his dreams can imagine.

Paolo is a good-hearted boy: he loves his mother and behaves her without question in all things, and he loves and protects his sister from the mischievousness of the other children who often play too hard for her still fragile six-year-old body. But now, ill as he is, his duties as "man-of-the-family" will not let him do his best to ensure that the garden flourishes and the fish are caught. And now more than ever, Paolo feels that his role in the village is too much for a nine-year-old. He sometimes struggles to hide this fact from the Elders, who might force his mother to take another man. Paolo will do his best not to let this happen. But he must break this fever and heal his troubled mind.

Tears form in his tired eyes as his body tries to relax in preparation for elusive but inevitable sleep. Because of his headaches, it has been a very hard day in the small plot of land allowed his family by the Elders. Tomorrow he must be on the river again, trolling his nets and digging for crayfish, regardless of his health. His mother needs him. But today is done, and Paolo resists sleep, fearing the monster that so often lately invades his dreams. His last vision before losing to a fearful sleep is of his tiny sister cuddled peacefully on her mat in her corner of the room.

Paolo sleeps fitfully as the creature screams in his dream.

The earth erupts again. The forest on the far side of the river, deep in the jungle, releases the beast as the rainforest trembles. The head of the monster breaches the jungle floor: an enormous round head, a gaping maw, rows of razor-sharp teeth, and a gullet large enough to swallow a canoe. The worm, bigger than the white man's trucks and longer than a slip of the river, slithers from its earthen sheath and edges its way blindly towards the Tapajos. Animals scatter as the worm tramples trees and bushes, leaving in its wake crushed flora and slow wildlife. The goal of this mindless creature is not the swift waters of the Amazon's tributary but the thriving village beyond where it senses sustenance and fuel for its escape into the world at large.

Paolo squirms uneasily, sweat dampens the straw beneath him, and he moans in distress as his dream vision enters a new phase: a confrontation is about to take place.

The small hunting party has heard the crunching of foliage and the shrieks of jungle life as it flees the area. And then the hunters see the reason, and they too disperse, but discretely. They are brave men, strong and used to the dangers of the jungle. But they have never seen the likes of this monster; a brute for sure but slow in its peristaltic crawl towards the river. They hide in the thick bush and wait for the proper time to attack the beast. But the fiend is as adept as the hunters, and wily and quicker than its sluggish pace suggests. It swings quickly to its left, just as two spears puncture its rough hide, and ingests the spear throwers from their hiding place in the spongy underbrush. Also too slow are the remaining hunters as the worm rolls completely over them before they too could unloose their crude weapons; their screams drowned beneath the enormous worm.

Their screams became Paolo's screams as the young dreamer awakens abruptly, dripping with sweat. His mother is at his side instantly, again smoothing his wet hair. Elyana's eyes are wide with fright for her older brother.

But unknown to Paolo and his worried family, the worm has stopped. It has become docile and silent. Paolo knows but cannot understand that the worm is only active so long as Paolo sleeps, even erratically. It is as if the power of Paolo's nightmare is driving the worm, forcing it, directing it to the very village that is the source of its being.

The fever rages behind Paolo's brow, but he's awake and clinging to the familiar strength of his mother. He tries to sit, tries to stop the trembling, to be strong, so mama will know that her son, her man, is still capable. He will not cry, but the image of the beast is too real, and he mumbles, "It is coming mama."

This day the sickness is too great: Paolo senses that the great worm is closer, and he can do nothing about it. How can one warn others of a bad dream? And today, his mother has released Paolo from his duties: the garden where tiny worms give life to the soil and maybe to his dreams, the river, his daily chores, and the protection of his little sister from the village bullies. For today is worse, the headache is stronger, his bones are achy, and he struggles to stay awake in the heat of his illness so the beast will not continue its trek through the jungle towards unsuspecting Tishmu. And as loyal Elyana does her best to harvest the meager crop of vegetables from the small garden in his stead, Paolo fights to control thoughts of the worm that he knows are allowing the monster to live, breathe and search for the source of its fearsome strength: Paolo; whose tormented mind, wounded by this infection, feeds the beastly worm.

Yet sick and exhausted, and in spite of his valiant resistance, Paolo succumbs to a fitful sleep.

And as Paolo slumbers restlessly, the worm awakens. It resumes its quest, rolling over the remnants of the bodies of the hunters, brave hunters consumed by the worm as they tried to keep the monster from their village on the north shore of the Tapajos, a companion village across the river from Tishmu. But the worm moves on. And the jungle screams in its wake as the mammoth worm plows its way toward the river.

The North Shore villagers hear it before they see it, but it's too late, the creature raises its massive maw and crashes its bulk down onto the small village as a huge foot might stomp a puddle: huts explode with the pressure, bodies fly as if shot from a sling only to be snapped up by the hungry worm. It coils and slithers, squashing the village to dust, and snatches blindly, guided by smell and instinct, at villagers as they flee the terror that has descended upon them. Too few escape and the village is destroyed. Now, the worm, sated, stretches to its full length and laps thirstily from the Tapajos like the insatiable animal it is.

Paolo awakes, screaming.

And the worm sleeps.

The Tapajos is wide where Tishmu is situated on its southern bank, and the devastation that has occurred on its north shore is not yet known to the villagers of Tishmu as they carry on, ignorant of the ruin of their sister village. But Paolo is not unaware. He has seen, with his mind's eye, the destruction the worm has caused. He knows it's real. He knows it's not over. He knows it's coming.

He must tell someone. The Elders, they'll know what to do.

They don't. Nor do they believe the stricken young boy. A giant hungry worm? Foolishness! But the Elders do take sympathy with his illness. They tried again to alleviate his pain. They relieved his mother of her duties in the village so she could spend more time soothing her son. They even allowed the Shaman to attend to his fever as if Paolo was as important as any Elder. But they couldn't keep him from sleeping.

The Shaman, a wizened old Elder of many years, learned in the healing arts and, so some say, of the magical arts, chanted and danced in the traditional manner to no avail. The smokes and the charms and the potions did nothing to diminish Paolo's condition. On the contrary, it exacerbated the fever. The Shaman's rhythmic movements, the medicinal tonics, and the hypnotic chants put Paolo into a deep trance-like sleep that only strengthened the power of the nightmare.

And the worm awoke.

It slithered towards the Tapajos, mindless of the devastation it had wreaked upon the tiny village along its shore. It hesitated briefly before entering the river as if to gauge the strength of the rapidly flowing waters, then inched its way into the chilly tributary. Now, fully submerged and hidden from sight by the unsuspecting fishermen on the surface, it scuttled along the rocky bottom like an eel hunting for dinner: stealthily, steadily, and with purpose.

Paolo tossed and moaned, struggling with his nightmare. The Shaman could do nothing more, and Paolo's mother's caresses did little to comfort her feverish son. Elyana cowered in her corner, afraid for her brother. It seemed as though she too, was beginning to feel the horrid effects of his affliction.

And the worm continued its hunt.

Halfway across the fecund river, the worm raised its prodigious maw out of the water, to what, breathe? Orient itself? Survey its destination? No matter; the river split like the ground torn asunder and then crashed back into itself, causing white water, torrents, and a great spout that rained upon the river. And then the beast smashed its ugly maw back into the current, splashing waves that upended several small canoes, scattering fishermen to the power of the Tapajos. And the monster continued towards Tishmu.

Several villagers had witnessed the beast in the river and had seen for themselves what violence it promised. The Elders were alerted. The warrior/hunters were gathered, older folk and children were hustled into the jungle away from the river's edge, and the able women chose whatever weapons they could handle and made to stand firm with the men.

Except for the frothing current, the Tapajos had become quiet; the waters had stilled their fearful chaos, the screams of the village fishermen died with the sinking of their canoes. And the worm had vanished - for now.

Tension mounted on the shore of the Tapajos. The villagers waited fearfully as they watched the familiar waters for the return of the beast that had chosen to disrupt their peaceful and contented lifestyle: Everyone ready to defend their village to the death.

Paolo lay squirming on his pallet, twisting with rage. He could feel in his nightmare the horror the villagers were experiencing as they waited for the worm to surface, and he knew it would.

Paolo's mother was torn: standing with the women, a crude garden hoe in her hands, she struggled with the thought of her responsibility to help defend her village, her home, and the people whom she loved and who loved her. And her son, sick in his bed, too ill to move. And Elyana, hopefully, unaware of the danger, now deep in the forest with older villagers, friends who would protect her to the end; if there would be an end.

And the worm split the river again, just off shore. Its gruesome maw crashing down with such force that many of Tishmu's hunter/warriors were sprayed with the river's chilling waters. A cry went up from the villagers; they raised their crude weapons and advanced towards the river. And the worm inched towards the shore.

Elyana, concerned for her brother, sick and helpless in his fragile bed, escaped from the arms of those who would keep her safe and ran back to the village, to their small hut, to Paolo. He was sweating profusely and moaning, twisting in his agony. Elyana was exhausted from her run. She was crying and feeling the illness herself, but fear for Paolo brought her home. She nearly collapsed at his side. Struggling not to pass out from exertion, fatigue, and a fever of her own, Elyana slumped on her brother's pallet and cuddled as closely as possible. She reached out and stroked Paolo's damp hair. She whispered soothing words into his ear, and then Elyana succumbed to a restive sleep.

The beast inched forward, its enormous head on the rocky bank of the Tapajos, positioned to slither into Tishmu. The villagers stood their vigil, raised their arms, and let fly their weapons with all the strength they could command. Then the villagers on the riverbank, warriors, hunters, men, and able women, all charged the beast displaying all the collective vigor they could summon in an attempt to drive it back from where it came.

And Paolo came awake, free of his pain: free of his sickness, free of the fever, free of all distress. And free of the nightmare.

And the worm vanished. The villagers gasped in shock and surprise: the worm simply disappeared back into the depths of the Tapajos before their startled eyes.

And Paolo saw his little sister asleep at his side, shivering as if cold, but his hand on her forehead revealed a damp heat that should not be there. And she was muttering in her dreams. So Paolo comforted Elyana as best he could, left the pallet quietly, covered her with his frayed blanket, and walked out of the hut, wondering where everybody was.

And Elyana dreamed a frightful vision of a fissure in the jungle from which a gigantic black spider emerged.

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Short Stories: The Worm by Michael Anderson

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The ground shuttered. The earth split. And foul gases, detritus, and splintered rock erupted into the jungle like spew from a volcano. And the worm inched closer to the world above, the open air and the scorching humidity of the Brazilian rainforest. Likewise, Paolo erupted from a troubled sleep with a scream dying in his throat.

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CURRAN Jack
Genre: Horror

The protagonist, Seb, travels to Cornwall in England during a storm. He arrives at a Martello Tower that has been converted into a dwelling by his dead friend, Eoin. He explores the tower and finds a chess set laid out on a table. He plays through a game of chess, remembering a tournament match he had with Eoin in which he was defeated. Seb becomes jealous of Eoin's talent and success in chess, and decides to take him down by any means necessary. He starts using a chess engine to cheat in online matches, and eventually uses it to win against Eoin in a tournament. However, Eoin finds out about the cheating and confronts Seb,  they wanted to fight each other. Seb reflects on his actions and the cost of his jealousy.

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Had Eoin changed his mind about living here partway through the renovation? Or had his untimely death cut the work short?

After a more thorough inspection downstairs, Seb noticed a table and two chairs. On the table was a Staunton chess set laid out, ready for a game. The pieces looked pristine and shiny as if they'd been coated with too much varnish.

Seb sat down and played a long sequence of moves almost without thinking. White opening with e4, black responding with the Sicilian Defence. From there, he made the exact sequence of moves that had comprised his first tournament game against Eoin, playing both sides, feeling his way through the memory. To his surprise, he recalled the whole game easily.

For a while, Seb had been content to linger in Eoin's shadow until he realised his moment in the sunshine might never arrive. Eoin glided from victory to stunning victory, and while Seb achieved some notable wins of his own, his jealousy increased faster than his Elo rating. He studied through the long nights and arrived at every tournament better prepared than ever before, but Eoin played with a fluidity and focus that couldn't be matched. He was unpredictable, constantly finding new lines. The best-laid plans crumbled in the face of his chameleon talent.

Seb cultivated a fierce hatred of Eoin; Eoin sometimes forgot his rival's name.

Like almost everyone else, Seb sometimes used a chess engine to win matches online. But deploying such tactics over-the-board was more of a challenge, logistically speaking.

It was after the Sinquefield Cup in St Louis that Seb decided Eoin had to be brought down by any means. In the final of that tournament, Seb played the Kings Indian, and the early game was blitzed out in predictable fashion until Eoin played a line that Seb had never seen before and which at first looked insane. Taken out of his preparation, Seb sweated for eighteen minutes before responding. Minutes later, he'd blundered a pawn and was soon crushed in a vice of two marauding rooks. He played for a draw long after any real hope had drained away and brought his hand down too hard on the top of the game clock, cracking the glass. Eoin stared on impassively with his bright blue eyes.

After that, the gloves came off, and Seb rocketed through the rankings. Some speculated that he was receiving secret instructions from a chess engine. Theories ranged from buzzing implants to a blinking accomplice. He flatly denied the accusations, but they continued to swirl around him.

He beat Eoin in Paris, Moscow, Mexico City. Prize money poured in, but the rumours about foul play intensified. Seb had expected that and prepared for it. Rather than let the embers cool, he threw petrol on the fire. Using fabricated online identities, he posted detailed analyses comparing certain passages of Eoin's play to moves suggested by popular chess engines, implying that Eoin might not be the paragon he presented himself as. It was hardly conclusive - neither was the evidence against Seb - but Seb's goal was not to prove that his rival had cheated but to muddy the water and frustrate his own critics. After all, if everyone was cheating, no one was.

The ploy worked. Eoin was dogged by accusations and bore them more heavily than Seb had. He withdrew from tournament play. In his heart, Seb did not think he'd done anything wrong. Sometimes the path to victory was not a royal road but a winding and filth-encrusted track.

Eoin drove his car into the side of a church in rural Devon at eighty miles an hour. The death was ruled accidental.

Seb wondered if he'd emerged from his great rivalry as the victor or merely the sole survivor. He was a grandmaster, but his reputation was in tatters, and he struggled to remember why he'd been so desperate to climb the rankings in the first place.

Then came the baffling coda - the will in which Eoin bequeathed Seb the White Castle. What was he to make of that? What did it mean?

Seb realised he'd been staring at a white rook for a long time. He shivered and reset the board. The storm outside was intensifying, the rain lashing down in sheets. It would be futile and possibly dangerous to go looking for the Audi now. He'd have to wait until morning or at least until the weather cleared.

As he stood up, he saw in his mind's eye, with almost preternatural clarity, Eoin's face. The shining blue eyes. The tufts of straight black hair. The flat bridge of his nose that he sometimes held between forefinger and thumb when contemplating a move.

Seb had always thought he hated Eoin, but now he wondered if that was true. Those games! He looked back on them fondly now, even the crushing defeats.

He turned back to the board and was surprised to see a white pawn on e4. He'd meant to return all the pieces to their starting squares, but clearly, these memories had fogged his mind, and he'd begun a new game without realising it. His hand hovered over the pawn, then he changed his mind and left it where it was. He went upstairs, but the bed was too wet and dirty to offer any comfort, so instead, he made a nest of his cashmere duffle coat far away from the broken window.

He woke a while later on the other side of the room, prone, his nose pressed hard against the cold stone floor. It was very dark, so he activated the torch on his iPhone before standing up. His breath fogged the air, and his feet felt horribly itchy in his squelching socks. He took the socks off and stuffed them inside the loafers, which he held in his free hand. The stairs felt icy against his bare feet. Halfway down, he stepped on something gelatinous and sticky. In a surge of panic and disgust, he dropped the loafers and reached for the bannister, but his hand closed around air. He careened down the stairs, his pelvis slamming hard on the steps as he fell.

He lay on the floor moaning softly, winded, in agony, disorientated. The iPhone lay a few metres away, the torch still switched on, an upturned spotlight in the dark room.

Something small and sharp was stabbing into the small of his back. He reached behind and retrieved it. It was a white rook from the chess set. He threw it away, stood up, grabbed the iPhone, and pointed the torch at the nearby table. The chess pieces were scattered on the floor around it. A huge black slug had slithered onto the board and was moving ponderously across the squares.

Seb felt a twist of anger in his gut. A slug had caused him to fall down the stairs, and now another one was ruining a beautiful chessboard. He picked up the board and shook it violently. The slug remained where it was but turned its questing antenna in his direction with apparent curiosity. Anger and disgust bubbled inside Seb - he picked up the slug and flung it away.

The board, he now noticed, was marred by a stripe of dark red slime. Why was it red? He looked at his hand and saw that it was coated in the same glistening red substance. He tried to wipe it on his trousers, but the slime stuck like glue. Turning the iPhone torch toward the centre of the room, he saw another dozen or so large black slugs slinking across the floor, leaving trails of crimson slime in their wake.

He moved through the slugs like a man negotiating a minefield. Despite his caution, one of them caressed his heel with its wet, engorged body. When he reached the door, he found it was locked, and the key was missing from his coat pocket. He gripped the unyielding handle tightly and tried to control his breathing.

Back upstairs, he climbed into the recess in the wall that contained the broken window. The storm had settled down, and the breeze wafting through the broken glass was almost pleasant. Was climbing out of the window a good idea? Probably not, but it appeared to be the only escape route. No other moves were possible, and he couldn't bear to stay in this place a minute more.

Eoin, he thought bitterly. Eoin must have known about the slug infestation and had given him this place as a prank or act of petty revenge.

He inched through the jagged shards that stuck out of the window frame and dangled his legs over the drop. He angled the iPhone down and peered along its beam. All he could see was darkness, but he reminded himself that the White Castle wasn't very tall and the ground would be spongy after the rain.

He began lowering himself.

Then he saw, not so far away - the sea. Dark but shimmering slightly in the first light of dawn.

He realised, with a cold rush of terror, that this side of the tower was right on the edge of the cliff. He reached back to grip the window frame but instead touched a sharp triangle of glass. Blood sluiced hotly down his arm. The pain didn't register. He held on.

The piece of glass silently detached itself from the window frame. Seb slipped into the abyss, tumbling through the air, a hoarse but barely audible scream on his lips, the iPhone spinning alongside him like a tiny lighthouse.

Five hours later, a dog walker found his body on the rocks below. The death was ruled accidental.

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Short Stories: The White Castle by Jack Curran

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Had Eoin changed his mind about living here partway through the renovation? Or had his untimely death cut the work short? After a more thorough inspection downstairs, Seb noticed a table and two chairs. On the table was a Staunton chess set laid out, ready for a game.

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The title: " A very Special Skill "
The name of the author: Neil Gordon
There’s no release date.
The genre: horror
Number of pages: 4
The pitch: a psychologist who listens to his grieving patients.
I recommend you read this short story if you like stories with suspence and lots of questioning.

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The seagulls have settled down early to their bellowing. They dot the chimneypots around the park and scream murder at one another. Down below, the dedications on the park benches catch the summer morning light. I know them off by heart. For Theo, who loved this spot. To Emily, forever missed.

My office opens the earliest on the square, before the newsagent, the butcher, the café, or the florist. My clients tend to wake early if they have slept at all. I raise the shutters quietly.

I tidy the small waiting room, fluff the pillows, and water those plants that need it. I used to set out flowers, but I found them too funerary. My clients have had more than enough of that.

In the office, I check my emails and appointments. I have a few regulars, but most of the time, I leave open for walk-ins. I spray neutral scents on the furniture: the solid desk, the two comfortable but firm armchairs, the small, round table that sits between them.

Through the back, I examine my inventory of empty jars. I've sourced them with care from antique and charity shops and car boot sales. I have many hundreds, no two the same, and I pride myself on choosing the best for the job. On the opposite shelf sits a handful of filled jars waiting to be shipped. Each contains a different volume, consistency, and colour of liquid, unique to the clients from whom I have extracted them.

Everything in its right place, I'm ready to flip the sign on the door to "OPEN." I have time to boil the kettle and fill the cafetiere with thick, black coffee before the bell sings out.

My first client is a young man. He looks like a matchstick, drawn out and thin, his head round and heavy. I explain how things work. I bring him through to the office and sit him in the armchair.

I ask the usual questions: Who has he lost? How long ago? How?

His older brother, he tells me. Three weeks ago. Car accident.

I disappear into the back room and return with a modest jar. I've learned to start small. We usually get only drops at this stage.

Maybe this is a mistake, he says.

You're here now, I say, placing the sealed jar in the centre of the round table between us. We may as well talk. His eyes tumble down my face and settle on the jar. It's free, I remind him.

He doesn't leave - they never do - and so we begin. He talks, and I listen. I imagine that I'm unravelling a knot of knots, teasing his fibres apart, probing for the core of his grief. They loosen with ease under my experienced fingertips, only to stretch into a single taut, thick rope as his defences rise. At this early point, where the loss is still raw, the effort is huge. I pull with all my might as if I'm hauling up a heavy bucket from some great depth. Eventually, it snaps. When I open my eyes, his face is less grey, his head better squared between his shoulders. Between us, the jar is no longer empty. I pick it up and examine the grief we have extracted: a pale, cloudy liquid. Only a few spoonfuls, but it's a start.

When I show him out, there are already two others in the waiting room. One is a regular. She's been grieving for so long that it's become a part of her, and while it's normal for each subsequent session to become easier, hers have begun to trend the opposite. She's afraid there will be nothing of her left by the end. And yet, she still comes. My battle with her grief has become another part of her. I hate to say it, but I fear we are becoming of little use to one another.

After the first few hours, I take a break. The jars are piling up, and I must do something before they become immovable. I wake my laptop and log on to the marketplace. It's only here that my art becomes transactional, as eventually, it must. My website is invite-only, and it's taken me years on niche and sometimes questionable forums to cultivate a loyal customer base. That may sound sinister, but it's the price of preserving my clients' privacy. It's not perfect, but I can't very well keep the filled jars to myself - I'm running low on shelf space as it is. And what I have is a very special skill - why should I not monetise it?

I add each jar as a listing, with a photograph and some basic information. After publishing, my anonymous collectors will gather. After the auction closes, I'll pack up each jar and ship it off to the winner at some nondescript PO box. I'm careful never to find out what they do with it.

In the park outside, the seagulls have quietened, and the market is alive with bustle. Halfway down, a dark figure sits on one of the benches - the one with the inscription For Rachel, who fed the birds. In contrast to the bright sunshine, the man is a hole in the world. He rises the moment I flip the sign on the door back to 'OPEN.' Something in my belly tightens as he approaches.

Who has he lost?

I don't know his name, he says. His voice is low. His eyes are shiny, dark beetles. I tense up.

How long ago?

Last night.

I watch him. He's a spider above my bed, watching me back. I don't ask the final question: How?

He intertwines his fingers in his lap. I can see dark flecks under his nails. I wonder if he's an artist.

I go to the back room. I could slip out the back door to where the bins sit, foul and fox-raided, and phone the police. But I don't.

I return with a medium-sized jar, a tall, narrow one with a cork in the top. I've had to guess which I dislike more than anything. I place it between us.

Tell me, I say.

This time there's no knot to unravel, no rope on which to pull. When I close my eyes, his grief is everywhere, black and furious, and I struggle to find purchase. The things he tells me are repugnant, so I force the blood to rise between my ears to drown him out. His grief burns to the touch like I've plunged my hands into a vast belt sander up to the elbows, my brittle bones and ragged nerves quickly filed to dust. His voice persists through the pain, a squalid drone of violence. I grasp at great clods of his searing agony and pull.

By the time I recover, spots bursting in my eyes, he's gone. The tall jar has filled up with an inscrutable black liquid that has pushed out the cork and spilled onto the table. When the dizziness subsides, I close the office and lower the blinds. I try to wipe the bubbling tar from the table, but it leaves sticky residue in the grain and drops thickly onto the floor. I clean the jar as best I can and take a picture. On my laptop, I add it to the online shop, my trembling hands making mistakes as I type. I give it a lot number. In its description, I write simply, 'Murderer.'

I publish, and within seconds there is a clamouring. The numbers rise. I begin to receive urgent messages from customers.

I must have it, one collector writes. I will pay any price.

I check the current bid. It's far higher than I've had before. It continues to rise.

Will there be more? asks another.

I peer through the blinds and see him drifting through the market stalls. He looks like he could melt away in the wind. He stops to chat with one of the sellers, hands idly pushed into his pockets. For the briefest instant, he looks back at me between the blinds.

Yes, I reply.

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Short Stories: A Very Special Skill by Neil Gordon

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The seagulls have settled down early to their bellowing. They dot the chimneypots around the park and scream murder at one another. Down below, the dedications on the park benches catch the summer morning light. I know them off by heart. For Theo, who loved this spot. To Emily, forever missed.