Hello and welcome! On a commute and looking for a short story to pass the time? Or just wanting to read fiction without the commitment of a whole novel? Well, you’ve come to the right place!
This is my collection of original short stories. I’ve included the reading length for each one to help you select based on time at hand. Enjoy! 🙂____________________________________________________
(16 mins)
#speculative #scifi #paranormal #smartphoneaddiction
For this short story, I wanted to write a “Black Mirror” style sci-fi based on a news article I’d read about a real doll on the market that was recalled for collecting private intel on the children who interacted with it. The idea quickly morphed into a creepy allegory about smartphone addiction.
(16 mins)
#ghoststory #paranormal #supernatural #suspense
Years ago I watched a movie called, “The Others” starring Nicole Kidman: a mother and her small children are being haunted by ghosts in a large old house. But there’s a twist at the end. We discover that it’s the mother and her children who are the ghosts, and the so-called ghosts are actually a living family who is being haunted by THEM. So with that movie in mind, I was inspired to write this short story, with a different twist of my own. (By the way, the name Garrin is German for “guardian.”)
(35 min read)
#fantasy #fairytale #monster
With this short story, I wanted to tell a Beauty & the Beast kind of tale but didn’t want the meaning to be obvious. One of my favorite quotes/mantras is by Emily Dickinson (“Tell all the truth but tell it slant … The truth must dazzle gradually, or every man be blind”), so I cloaked my characters in the past, in the Viking age and Norse mythology, with a Christ-type hero.
(32 min read)
#ghoststory #coming-of-age #historical #19thcentury
I’d been wanting to write another ghost story for some time and when an idea finally took form (inspired by a news story about trophy hunting), I realized it’d be ten times better in a pioneer setting. Human beings have a predatory tendency to consume and destroy beauty whenever they find it. So, in this story I explore the instinct to take, to possess, to kill, and how its indulgence can shape a man over time.
(41 min read)
#sci-fi #speculative #factoryfarming #animalcruelty
Most people are aware of the horrors of factory farming but watching undercover footage of graphic abuse is generally avoided. For many it’s easier to read about such things than it is to view it. So how about a front row seat? From inside a pig. No, that’s too anthropomorphic? How about through the mind of a farmer whose consciousness has been uploaded into the memories of a recently deceased pig? Two perspectives, one body, one central nervous system.
(20 min read)
#fable #diversity #inclusion
While visiting the zoo one year, I noticed that if the sun hits a panther just right, you can see the faint outline of hidden spots beneath its black coat. So, I did some research on panthers, leopards, and jaguars and made a fascinating discovery: panthers are melanistic leopards and jaguars. Therefore, a panther can give birth to both black and spotted cubs. With this information, the idea for a fable quickly took shape . . .
GUEST AUTHORS
(3 min read)
#paranormal #spookystory #scarystory
By Lee Ferguson
It’s dark, and quiet. The tips of trees cannot be distinguished from the darkness of the sky, and I can’t see my feet as I place them on the cold, hard ground. The crunching of leaves and twigs as I walk is jarring, and I fear something might be watching from the cold abyss of the forest. In a haze, I finally see a light. It’s a cottage, casting a warm orange glow into the emptiness.
I make my way, hoping for shelter from the shivering cold. I stumble to reach the door and I knock. No answer, so I let myself in. And oh, how warm it is inside! I feel as though I’ve walked in the air of July. There’s a soft orange glow coming from a fire in the main room.
“Hello?” I call out. “I’m sorry to walk in unannounced, but I really need a place to stay for the night.”
There is no response, and while I’m supposed to be feeling warm, a chill consumes my body. Why would someone leave their toasty cottage in the middle of the night, with the fire still roaring? Read More…
SHORT Short Stories
(10 min read)
#existential #death #philsophy
My red-brick elementary school sat nestled against a forest on the edge of town, with a road in front and a soccer field on either side. Though we had swing sets and jungle gyms, many of the kids preferred playing in the woods and we were allowed to do so as long as we kept the schoolyard in sight. But last Thursday night an accident took place on school property when no adults were around, and one of the students had gotten killed. Read More…
(7 min read)
#rapture #apocalypse #antichrist
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard about him (I took it for granted that the Antichrist was male) and thus pictured him as I always did: A tall sinister figure wearing a black cape or robe, facial features blurry (though his eyes were glaring) and distinctly human. Basically a mash-up of all the Disney villains I’d absorbed over the years. And because they always referred to him as “the rise of,” I tended to picture him a little hunched down and then rising up to full height. I knew it meant something about gaining power over the world but I didn’t know much about government systems yet and still tended to imagine ruling powers as being kings and queens and knights. As for the Beast, well he was to rise out of “the sea” specifically, so naturally that’s exactly what I pictured. A monstrous gorilla-like thing slowly coming up out of the ocean as if standing on a platform, beads of water rolling down his coarse fur, head tilted back and ready to roar. I knew this wasn’t correct though as the Beast was supposed to have several heads (a lion, an eagle, a man), hair like a woman, the tail of a scorpion, and the arms and claws of a bear. Or was it the Antichrist who looked like that? Read more…
