Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Fiction.
A Badge in the Smoke !
Dear Diary, đ Bye Bye David! Those were the last words Lena wrote before sliding the diary across the counter to the officials. Sheâd pressed the pen hard on that final line, then shut the book as if closing a door. Sheâd met David in the Hyatt Regency lobby during his medical conference. She was wiping the marble floor, eyes down, feeling the familiar ache of being alone in a place full of travelers. Heâd asked for directions to the elevator, lingered, asked her name. Over the next three days they met in quiet corners â near the potted palms, at the service elevator â talking in low voices. He was polite, careful, always checking his watch. She felt seen, and also like she was living in the space between his words. When he left, he promised to write. They did, for a while, but the letters thinned out. Then ICE came to the hotel. Lena â whose real name was Christina Perraira â was taken across the border to Mexico. Rumors followed her: sheâd escaped, sheâd been taken by a cartel, a gang leader had offered her protection in exchange for favors, and sheâd ended up in a trafficking case. No one could say which was true. Years passed. Christina lived under a new name, Ms. Alt, raising a child on her own. She never sent David an address. She kept the diary as proof that she had told him not to come. She never said the rule out loud, but everyone around her acted as if they knew it: *if you care for someone, you donât chase them once theyâve asked you to stay away.* The hotel staff never gave David her forwarding information. The official who took her diary didnât forward it. Even her sister, when David called from abroad, simply said, âShe asked not to be found.â No one explained the rule; they just honored it. David never came. *Twenty-three years later, a different envelope arrived at Christinaâs door.* Inside was not a letter, but a photocopy of Davidâs conference badge from 2003. On the back, in his handwriting: âLena: if you ever read this, know I never stopped looking. I didnât come because I wasnât free to.â Below that, a second line in a different pen: âMy wife died two winters ago.â Christina stared at the badge. No return address, no signature. Just the badge, the two lines, and the faint imprint of a hotel key card tucked beneath it. She never said the rule out loud, but everyone who knew Lenaâlater Christina, later Ms. Altâacted as if they understood it: *if you care for someone, you donât chase them once theyâve asked you to stay away.* The hotel staff never gave David her forwarding information. The official who took her diary didnât forward it. Even her sister, when David called from abroad, simply said, âShe asked not to be found.â No one explained it; they just honored it. Christina settled in a small town across the border, working as a caregiver at St. Clareâs senior home. Her final abode was a modest room above the kitchen, with a window that looked onto the courtyard and a thin mattress sheâd learned to make quickly between shifts. She kept Lenaâs diary tucked under the mattress, the last page still reading âđ bye bye David!â One rainy Thursday a new resident was admitted for terminal care: David. The name caught her breath, but she didnât say anything. His file listed no family, only a contact number that went to voicemail. She was assigned to his floor. He was frail, his voice softer than she remembered, and he wore the same habit of checking his watch even though time meant little now. She bathed him, brought him tea, sat with him when the pain spiked. He never asked her name; she never offered it. On his third night, he slipped a folded paper into her palm while she adjusted his blanket. It was a photocopy of his old conference badge from 2003. On the back, in his handwriting: _âLena â if you ever read this, know I never stopped looking. I didnât come because I wasnât free to.âBelow that, in a different pen: âMy wife died two winters ago.â She recognized the handwriting instantly. The paper also had a hotel key card tucked inside. She stayed with him. He opened his eyes, looked at her face, and whispered, âLena?â She nodded, tears slipping down. He reached for her hand; she held it. A few hours later, a kettle sheâd left on the small kitchenette boiled dry, the coil overheated, and a small fire started. The smoke alarm wailed. Staff rushed in, got David out, but Christina went back for the diary under her mattress. The room filled with smoke before she could get out. They died the same nightâDavid in the hallway on a gurney, Christina in her room above the kitchen. The diary was found charred at the edges, the final page still legible. The staff filed the incident, placed the diary in the homeâs lost-and-found, and followed the rule without ever naming it: they didnât try to trace who David had been to Lena/Christina. © conceptual right , March 30th, 2026 âïžBy Madhu Goteti P.S: A rose is a rose is a rose like a rule is a rule is a rule!
By Madhu Goteti 3 days ago in Fiction
Foiled by a low-dose aspirin
Liam Peters always thought he knew better than his wife, Cherie. He loved her, but she got on his nerves, always telling him what to do as if he were a child. Sure, she had been accurate when he had to pee a lot, and she said it was diabetes, but since then, she would not let up.
By Cheryl E Preston3 days ago in Fiction
THE CORâNER HOUSE
â The maâil carrier never wâalked up tâ he path. She'dâ pause at the edge of theâ sâidewalk, toeâ s aligned with the crack where concrete met graâsâs, and sliâp the envelopeâ s throuâgh the slot with a practiced fâlick of her wârist. Sâometiâmes they caught. Sometimes thâey fluttered toâ tâhe welcome mat, which had faâded from red to something closer to rust. She never wâent to râetrieve them.
By Edward Smith3 days ago in Fiction
The Shanghai Cipher. AI-Generated.
The manuscript had been missing for four hundred years before anyone thought to look for it in Shanghai. This was, Dr. Nora Ashworth reflected, either a stroke of genuine insight or the kind of desperate reasoning that passed for insight when you had been chasing something long enough that the chase itself had become the point. She stood on the Bund in the October rain of 1924, her coat doing its inadequate best against a wind coming off the Huangpu that smelled of diesel and river mud and the particular industrial ambition of a city that had decided to become the future before the future had finished deciding what it was, and looked at the address written in her notebook.
By Alpha Cortex3 days ago in Fiction
Sinking ghosts come out to play
Timelines that cross boundaries between the past and the present often fuck me up in the most random ways. I know that Iâve been here before, like this church, but I donât quite remember how. I remember someone I used to resent that was supposed to be my friend, but he was somehow different.
By Melissa Ingoldsby3 days ago in Fiction
The City That Outlawed Sound. AI-Generated.
The law had been in effect for nine years, four months, and eleven days. Elias Vorne knew this not because he tracked legislation â he had no particular interest in legislation, which had never once in his experience produced anything worth listening to â but because nine years, four months, and eleven days ago was the last time he had heard another human being sing. A woman, somewhere below his window, walking home in the early dark, carrying a melody he didn't recognize in a voice that was slightly flat on the upper notes and completely, heartbreakingly alive. He had stood at his window and listened until she turned a corner and the city swallowed the sound, and three days later the Silence Ordinance had passed the Municipal Assembly by a margin of forty-one votes to three, and the woman below his window had never sung again.
By Alpha Cortex3 days ago in Fiction
The Weight of a Feather
The sunâ hadnâ'tâ yet cleâaâred tâhâe jaggedâ teeth of theâ basalt cliffs when Elias bâegâan hiâs mâornâing rituâaâl. He stoâ od before theâ mirror, checking the leâatherâ hâ arnesâs thatâ crisâscrossed his chest. Iâ t was worn supplâe by decades of salt anâ d sweat. He adjusted the buckles, ensuring the iron-grey stoâ ne fastened to hiâsâ small of his backâ was centeâred. It was the size of a pârize-winning pumpkinâ and weighed exactâlâ y eigâ hty-fouâ r poâunds.
By Edward Smith3 days ago in Fiction
The Window
The glow was the first thing everyone checked in the morningânot the sun, which was unreliable and messy, but the steady, cool blue of the glass. Every home was a gallery of these illuminated rectangles, windows that offered a view far more curated and pleasing, than normal human optics could receive from the unfiltered world that hid behind everyone's' walls.
By Meko James 3 days ago in Fiction
The Unspoken Rule. Content Warning.
Sheâs six years old in a hotel room giving way to darkness on the way down to Florida. Theyâre fighting again, but this is common enough now. She kneels in front of the small screen and presses the button on the TV itself. The remote doesnât work.
By Leigh Victoria Phan, MS, MFA3 days ago in Fiction
I'm So Sorry...
I've been told my whole life that sharing is a virtue, so I guess that makes me a saint today. Look, I'm tired of the noise. I'm tired of the weight behind my eyes and that buzzing in my ears that sounds like a thousand bees trying to start a band in my head. They say a debt is only a burden if you're the one holding the bill... and I feel like I've held it long enough.
By Sara Wilson3 days ago in Fiction
Marked For Death
Charra walked around town, noting each establishment's unique aesthetic: worn-out shops, cobblestone streets, and a small-town feel. Lumilla brimmed with little shops, all carrying the old-time feel from when gods walked among them so long ago. The smell of the many shops filled the air, making everyone feel at home. As the many colors faded, it was still beautiful in its own way. She felt at home here, heading to her favorite shop for candied delights. The rustic charm fit the worn shop, its welcoming smell inviting to those who knew it. Each worn shelf held the candy for some time. Yet it held its charm throughout the many years it had delighted the population.
By Sarah Danaher3 days ago in Fiction
Swan. Top Story - April 2026.
âDuring the Metal Age, humans took photographs of everything beautiful, which was everything, yet machines did not even wear shoes. The Fauxna thought of a better way. They colored all of the light rose, for a corrupted source cannot be verified.â - Origin Parable, 011
By Nicky Frankly3 days ago in Fiction
