Tag: short story

Deserving

The Masons never hurt a soul. With abundant wealth, the childless couple donated to countless charities every year. They were good people.

They didn’t deserve a stillborn.

The doctor held the unmoving child, as he extended trembling arms. His wife slept, peaceful and unaware. The never-existed ghost of a smile played on his daughter’s face. Time froze. What would he say when his wife asked? He’d promised her all would be well. He’d assured her. He was to blame.

As his tear dropped on its cheek, the baby stirred. Before he could comprehend, his Hope blinked and began to cry.

Unseen

The detective studied the rotting corpse laid out on the table in front of him. She had lived the high life, he could tell from her manicured finger nails and pruned eyebrows. She’d made conscious efforts on her appearance, he realised observing a sheen of foundation clinging to skin that stretched over handsome cheekbones. Young and married to a wealthy realtor who was working out of town, nothing about Keira betrayed the cause of her sinister suicide.

He scrutinised her for a sign. Why had she overdosed on sleeping pills? Alas, he couldn’t have known: loneliness left its mark within.

Triggered

Bess stared at a tattered postcard. The sun was setting behind the Empire State Building, once-brilliant brightness browned with years of neglect.

Walking away from the boxes she’d been unpacking, she sat down. She’d bought postcards in all 56 countries she’d visited, stocking boxes upon boxes with frozen memories of a lifetime of adventure.

She was no longer the same. She’d neither left the house nor invited anyone since her husband died. For fifteen years, she lived alone, minding her self, motiveless as if in a trance.

Until the postcards evoked her younger self.

Picking up her laptop, she searched: Seoul.

Memories

Though he had to walk an extra mile, he chose the longer route. That way, he could avoid the forlorn building.

It’d been an impressive construction once. The entire village witnessed the minister inaugurate the glass factory. Thousands of workers marched every morning into the building alight with energy and abuzz with activity. The villagers could afford additional meals and silk garments. For five months everything had been wonderful. Until one afternoon a machine collapsed and the boiling liquid ruined eighty families.

The factory had been abandoned since. And Prem had dropped out of school to replace his father elsewhere.