Was it the morphine that made my mother smile for the first time in years?
“Do you see Johnny?” she asked.
“Mom, your brother died years ago.”
“But he’s here,” she said, closing her eyes forever.
“Strange, right?” I asked the nurse.
“No, someday someone will come for you, too.”
Bud is a disabled veteran who writes short stories and flash fiction.
“It would be scary on your own, this tunnel.”
“Yeah, glad we can go together. Makes it almost normal.”
“I know, like we’re going for a walk. Take my hand, till we reach the light.”
“Didn’t think it’d be like this, did you?”
“No. I wish we could tell everyone.”
Clare is an enthusiastic reader and writer of historical fiction, a doting grandmother, volunteer ESOL teacher, gardener, and knitter.
The key hung around his neck. He’d tried every lock in the house.
Years passed and he forgot about it.
When he was eighty, his old eyes spotted the tiny door. He blew the cobwebs away, tried the key and the door opened.
Pain and breath left his body.
Freedom.
Nathan Hystad is a writer from Sherwood Park, Alberta. Sometimes he writes a lot of words and sometimes 50 is all that is needed for his story.