Day 149 Writing Short Stories

Pest

They never saw me as a human being. I was always a pest to them. I didn’t fit into their ideals of what a person has to be and aspire to be. I was never like them. So I became a pest. I became something to be hated. There have been countless tears, hate, and hurt, but somehow I got past all those. I became myself. I became something I wanted to be, and not something the world expected me to be. I never joined their race for nothing. I still can enjoy the little things that made it all worthwhile.

Haunted Apartment

She had thought she was lucky when she had found an apartment in the middle of the city so cheaply. It was a miracle. She had told all her friends and coworkers. Some of them had glanced at her with horror when she had told them which apartment she had gotten. She had interpreted the glances as jealousy, but now she knew better.

It had all started the first night in. All her things were moving around. Someone was touching her clothes and arranging them by their taste. The forks moved to another drawer—the pillows were moved from the couch to the window ledge.

At first, she thought she was losing her mind, but then she had read about the apartment and how no resident stayed there longer than a fortnight. She was still there a month later. She wasn’t willing to let her apartment go for a ghost. Not at least for such a tidy freak ghost, who had made her bed every time she had been too short on time, hurrying to work.

Today was the day; she was going to understand who was haunting the apartment. There were no brutal murders or anything like that in what she had read. She pushed the candles aside and took out the newly bought Ouija board. She poured a full glass of wine before she started. One question after another, she got to know the ghost. The woman was called Magda. She had been trapped there for just shy of a century. She liked cats and books. The woman wished that she could buy her more books to read. The ghost had a specific list of what she wrote down.

They chatted the night away, and she was starting to like Magda. They became best friends.

Sold Soul

He watched his father wither away on the hospital bed. Watching him die was killing him. The week after the funeral, he started to fear everything. He was sure death lurked everywhere, and he wasn’t ready to slip into oblivion. When the man in a dark suit came and asked if he could choose eternal life for a small price, would he do it?

He had laughed the man off at first, but the stranger had insisted. He had nodded in agreement. Suddenly, there had been a piece of paper and a needle, and his bloody thumbprint under the text.

Ever since, he had been walking with a lighter step, knowing he couldn’t die. After every decade, he kept changing cities and jobs. At first, it had been all fun and exciting, but now it was starting to wear him down. The fact that once he wished death to take him, death would come, and his soul belonged to hell. He had been sure that day would never come. Now he wasn’t so sure. He was starting to be scared of life again, fearing that he couldn’t find any meaning in anything, but he was afraid of staying still. He was constantly on the move, chasing after things, fearing that nothing would fill him.

The Prompts are from the book A Year of Creative Writing Prompts.

I feel so bad about skipping these prompts so often lately. There always seems to be a reason not to do them. Perhaps I’m tired, or perhaps my motivation is waning. Or it is because I have been putting my editing over the prompts, starting them while I eat my breakfast. I’m re-reading my sci-fi book one more time before I send it to my editor. I’m already a third of the way in. Then I will have to write the synopsis and the closing letter.

I’m happy that I wrote the prompts today. I have to leave work soon. It was so odd to be back at work yesterday. Also, it was a bit scary, my wrist was so painful at the end of the day, I was sure that it hadn’t healed. I’m still afraid of that, but luckily I have physiotherapy on Monday and I can talk to professionals.

Thank you for reading! Enjoy all the little things ❤