Brief Stories

You are dreaming.

The oddity of recognizing this does not impede your progress forward into the dining hall's elegant vastness. Nor does it permit you to deviate from the path the dreaming part of you—the part that weaves the world—has chosen for you.

"Oh, you're finally here!"

Her lips press against your skin like sun-warmed feathers, soft and gentle, lingering only long enough for the poison to soak in. Each kiss leaves you shivering against the dead field below you, fingers twitching against soil rendered cold and lifeless by winter's harsh grip—

You don't look at her.

"Hey, get ready. Fifteen seconds ..."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm ready."

"... five, four, three, two, inhale—"

The burnt-lemon smoke burns her throat as it goes down, leaves her feeling rough and raw. Spasmodic coughs shake her body.

⌈Cartɘr & Abɘl—ruining witchɘs' days sincɘ 629⌋

It's a cute sign. Done in marker on cardboard, sure, rather than paint on wood, but there's something almost charming about that to Arlene's weary eyes.

Pity that building it's affixed to is such a disaster.

“Hey babe”, said the witch, “mind helping me with this? I think I cracked a bone the other day.”

The doll looked up from her book. “Sure, but isn't that the third this month?”

”... yeah.”

Someone has left a flower in the silence between moments, that secret place where you long ago learned to go to hide from the world. A place which you had always thought only you could access.

Because, well. It's inside your mind. Right?