Fiction

It was not exactly an old town, or one that was particularly well known. The houses neither new nor falling down.  There was an odd feeling about the place, however.

I woke, startled by my phone buzzing beside me, as the only sound in the room. Through bleary eyes, I stared at the screen, trying to understand what I saw. I read the time in the top corner: 3 AM! Who on earth was texting me now?

Francis was a time traveler born in 1900. He found an old lantern in his parents attic at the age of seven. It was in an old wood crate that had nothing but the lantern in it.

“You oaf!” a man barks. It hurts my ears. Sweet, jingly jangly noises and a different man’s jolly tone sound from someplace scratchy nearby. I peek and it’s too bright.

The creature peered out from behind a boulder. Its single red eye glinted in the moonlight. There was nothing but darkness where the other eye should’ve been.

The Teller

James is asleep, and dreaming of dreaming of a beautiful girl.

A dark expanse is all you see when you awaken.

"Hello?"

Dreams.

I go biking near dusk, when the sun skims the surface of the horizon and the owls begin to hoot and the bugs begin to bite. 

“This is forever, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I don’t want anything to change between us. Ever. We’ll always be together . . . right?”

I trudge down the leaf-strewn road, hugging myself against the frigid bursts of wind tugging at my jacket. I hop over a puddle and glance up as the clock-tower strikes six. I should’ve been home by now.

 As my classmates and I are dismissed from school, I decide to take the long way to my bus stop. For I have quite some thinking to do. I watch the birds fly. The squirrels scrambling for shelter as the howling wind picks up.