Day 18 Writing Short Stories

Birth

If I were to write a mystery, it would start with haunting. Maybe of a beautiful woman with sorrowful eyes and a past that holds great secrets. I would make her black-and-white. I would make you want to know what happened to her.

But this is not such a mystery. I know who that woman is. It’s me back when I was alive. Back when I knew what my sorrows were and knew nothing of what the future held for me. This is a sort of mystery where you cannot save me. I’m already lost, and I will be the thief, the murderer. I have been watching you. You are ready to give birth. The life you are building for your family looks like a second chance, and I know how to take that chance now.

I stand guard under your window, waiting for the opening. She will come soon. It’s a baby girl, despite you not wanting to know that. You don’t want to know so many things. I see you looking for me, glancing over your shoulder, fearing when the lights flicker. I’m sorry for that. But this is what I must do. Not for revenge. Those who robbed me of my life are long gone. This is for a life that I never got to live. I will make your girl strong. She and I will be twisted into one. She will never know sorrow or loneliness. She will always have me guiding her.

There you are, in pain. You rush to the back of your car. He carries your bags as a proper husband should. He fusses over you all the way to the hospital. Once we are there, I will fight off the other ghosts, sensing you and how open you are to us. I don’t let them take her. She is too precious for them.

You scream. I hold your hand. Then she comes, and I slip in.

She screams. I scream.

—

I use a random number generator to find the style. I’m pretty sure the generator favors mid-range numbers. Today, we had a voice-driven mystery with rebirth, told from the first-person perspective. I didn’t quite get the mystery part right. Maybe there will be one if the story continues. Now it was straightforward what would happen. No mystery here.

I’m feeling oddly refreshed and tired at the same time. The cat is not helping the matter at all. He is napping on my desk, and he always makes me sleepy—silly little cuddly fluff ball. There is no great insight into writing today. My thoughts are on food. I’m reading Mo Wilde’s The Wilderness Cure and how she tries to forage all her food for a year from the local nature. It really gives perspective on ecological food production, and the answer is not mass-produced vegetarian products or unseasonal vegetables flown from the other side of the world to our shops. It’s a highly interesting discourse on our food production and how to eat so that it leaves a modest ecological footprint.

Thank you for reading! Have a mysterious day ❤