Short Fiction
Short Story
First Prize - 2019 Islands Short Fiction Contest, Youth Category
Calm Before the Storm
Marina stepped out onto the porch and breathed in the salty ocean air. Now she stood in front of a little wooden beach house facing the water. Her mother turned to face away from the suitcases and placed her hand on Marina’s shoulder.
“This vacation will cheer you up, honey.”
Marina sighed, and watched as her brother slipped clumsily out of the backseat of the car, barely pausing before rushing down to the shore.
“Sebastian, slow down! You might hurt yourself!”
Her mother followed him, holding a beach bag in one hand, and a towel in the other.
The door to her parent’s room was left ajar, and Marina saw her father emptying the contents of his suitcase into an old, wooden credenza. He glanced up at her.
“Why don’t you join your mother and Sebastian on the beach?”
“I need to unpack.”
She hauled her suitcase up the step ladder that lead to the small room she shared with her brother.
Marina sat, staring at the loose floorboard placed awkwardly in the middle of the room. She ran her hand over the worn-out wood, remembering how she used to play make-believe games and pretend she was a spy, her “secret documents” concealed by the imperfections of the old cabin. That is how children see the world, Marina thought. Every new discovery becomes a great adventure. Sebastian thought that way. Her room in the beach house had a big window overlooking the beach, and she could see Sebastian crouched over, staring intently at a starfish sitting on the edge of the shoreline.
That night, her father rushed around the kitchen roasting brussel sprouts and attempting to shoo away a stray cat that had wandered into the house. Sebastian sat on the floor, enjoying the chaos caused by their unwelcome visitor.
During dinner, Marina pushed brussel sprouts and charred meat around her plate, as her father tried to coax Sebastian into trying the unfamiliar food that had been presented to him. They sat mostly in silence for a while, then after accepting defeat, her father fed Sebastian a peanut butter sandwich. Meanwhile, her mother sat on the porch, feeding the cat their leftovers.
The first night felt very long. Marina lay in bed for hours watching waves spill over the shore. She wasn’t used to the silence that filled the little house. When she finally fell asleep she dreamt that she was swimming. Drifting through the water, watching fish swim past her, their scales reflecting the light of the full moon. She swam up to the surface, and just as she started to bring her head out of the water … she awoke.
She could see the sun starting to rise as she glanced out the window, but once she was awake she couldn’t get back to sleep. Instead, she sat on the landing, with her knees pressed to her chest.
Another day passed, and she stayed inside, alone in the empty house. She watched her mother and Sebastian from the window, while her father wandered along the beach.
That night she lit a candle and lay in bed reading until her eyes started to feel heavy. Lightning shot across the sky and waves crashed against the shore. Dark clouds loomed overhead as whitecaps rippled over the deep blue sea. The last sound she remembered hearing before falling asleep was the rain hitting the roof.
She had the same dream from the previous night, but this time when she lifted her head out of the water she heard music. She couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but it rang clearly in her ears.
Again, she awoke abruptly. The candle still burned and it was dark outside. She could hear the crashing waves and the wind, but there was no music. Feeling dazed and confused she sat in bed wide awake. She knew it was a dream, but the sound had seemed so real. Minutes passed, and she lay very still making no noise, hoping that the beautiful music would return. Suddenly, the rain stopped.
At first she tried to fall back asleep, but her curiosity overcame her. She climbed down the step ladder and rushed to the kitchen door. She slowly turned the handle, it made a loud click, and the door slid open.
She felt a freezing gust of wind and immediately felt the urge to go back inside, but she pushed herself to start walking down to the beach. As she looked up at the full moon she heard the singing again. This time she could tell that it was coming from the water. So she began to move towards the dock.
The sand was much warmer than the ground, but the wind had grown stronger. She began climbing up to the top of the wooden dock and very slowly started walking towards the edge, her eyes fixed on the moon above.
She stared out into the water, and her dream started playing in the back of her mind. She swam through the crystal waters surrounded by colourful, shimmering ocean life. This time she swam for even longer. She glided through beautiful reefs and underwater caves with stones and coral. The tempestuous wind now swirled around her, but she hardly noticed. As the warm waters of her imagination consumed her, nothing seemed to matter, and it felt as though time had stopped.
Marina felt herself leaning over the edge of the dock, but she didn’t feel frightened. Somehow, she’d lost complete control of her actions, but it didn’t matter.
She felt the wind rush past her as she slowly moved towards the deep blue ocean. As she landed she broke the surface of the water. All her worries melted away. Then very slowly, she began to sink. This time she knew it was real. There were no reefs or caves. Just the sandy ocean floor.
Short Story
The Black Cat
A black cat with piercing yellow eyes and sharp, pointy whiskers wandered the streets of Montreal. He meandered along, his outstretched legs twisting around the lamp posts and potted plants that crowded the sidewalk. The city lights twinkled against the inky blackness of the sky and bicycles with thin metal frames whizzed past. A shiver ran down his spine, causing his hair to stand on end. He paused, and flicked his tail, just as the first lamp post lantern flickered on.
At that moment, in the upstairs bedroom of a small house, a six-year-old girl lay awake. The house fit tightly in between two others. It was made of brick,with dark grey trim, arched doorways, and was crawling with ivy. The inside was narrow and tall, with hanging lamps, and outdated furniture. Small plants were scattered around the kitchen, and empty tea cups had been left on top of the many piles of books stacked in the corners of each room. The girl’s room was the smallest in the house and was mostly taken up by a little bed, with a canopy draped overhead. An array of storybooks lay in a pile at the foot of her bed.
She caught a glimpse of the lamp post lantern outside her window and immediately leaped out of bed to watch the street below. She peered down at the sidewalk and saw a black cat gazing out into the distance. A sudden, uncontrollable urge overcame her and, without thinking, she rushed to the front door and dashed down the stairs. The pavement was cool beneath her bare feet and she tried to make sense of the inundation of blurry figures lining the dimly-lit street in front of her. Eventually, she managed to focus her attention on the street lamp she’d seen from her bedroom window and she made her way across the street to inspect the area, but when she reached the lamp post, she found that the cat had disappeared.
Feeling cold and disheartened, she returned to her bedroom, and climbed back into bed. She lay awake and a shiver ran down her spine as she thought of the mystery cat. She remembered the little piano they used to have in the front hall of their house. In the summertime, her mother used to open all the windows and then sit down to play and sing her favourite songs. Linnea used to run into different rooms, dancing and singing along. A couple months after they sold the piano, she saw the black cat for the first time.
The next morning, she stood on the same street corner, holding her mother’s hand. The city seemed different, illuminated by the light of the mid-morning sun. She could see cracks in the tall, narrow buildings surrounding her blurs of colour and movement whizzed past. A group of cyclists crossed the road, ringing their bells and signalling to nearby traffic. One man used his voice to make a sound effect, somewhat similar to a bell.
“Ring, ring, ring!” he exclaimed as he rode alongside the rest of the peloton.
She squinted, and furrowed her brow, while staring off into the distance.
“Linnea, dear, what’s wrong?”
“There was a cat here last night.”
“Last night?”
“Yes.”
“That must have been a dream, ma cherie. Reading those books has given you an overactive imagination.” Linnea smiled half heartedly.
“Come, we’ll stop for a cup of coffee.”
When they arrived at the cafe, her mother handed her a cup of bitter, milky coffee. Linnea didn’t care for coffee, but she took a sip anyways.
“Merci, maman.”
When they returned home, her mother began to climb the stairs leading up to their tiny home. Just as Linnea turned to face the stairs, she spotted a silhouette of the black cat against the brick wall nearby. She quickly looked away, and tried to ignore the sudden chill that filled the air.
That evening, as Linnea was getting ready for bed, her mother asked her if she needed anything before bedtime.
“No, thank you.” Linnea responded. She could tell that her mother was tired.
“Alright, shut the lights off, please.”
Linnea nodded and walked over to her door. She kissed her mother’s forehead, and placed her hand over the lightswitch. Just then, she caught another glimpse of the cat’s silhouette move against the far wall. The cat flicked his tail and Linnea dug her fingernails into the palm of her hand.
“Maman, I know why I couldn’t find that cat the other night.”
“Why’s that?”
“He lives in the shadows. He doesn’t go away when you turn the light out but you can only see his shadow in the light.”
“How do you know that?”
Linnea shut the lights off.
“I can still feel him.”
Short Story
Originally Published by: The Ariadne Literary Journal
Tomorrow
It was only a couple of months ago that the rationing had begun. With a mass shortage of resources, people had not yet started to panic. There was even an air of hope, as public pushback had led to more resistance from many communities all over the world. Strikes were held, students were taught about the impacts of climate change, and some politicians managed to take steps towards a more sustainable future. Unfortunately, it was this boost of confidence that seemed to lead to a nearly immediate demise. People even made promises to affect change. Everyone pretended to care about an issue that felt impersonal and, all of a sudden, it was too late.
Margaret stood over her kitchen sink, drinking expired orange juice. A sour expression crossed her face. The curtains were drawn shut, and the only light in the kitchen came from a small light above the stove. She poured a packet of instant oatmeal into a bowl, stirred it methodically, and brought it over to the kitchen table. As she passed her toaster oven, situated in the corner of the kitchen counter, she turned on the radio. Just as she swallowed her first bite of oatmeal, the announcer voice switched from an animated, cheerful reporter, announcing the weather, to a deeper, serious voice.
“We now interrupt our scheduled programming for an emergency alert. Citizens from all over the globe are reporting an unprecedented high in local temperatures. The end of the Paris agreement pledges to keep temperatures between 1.5C and 2C, have resulted in all time…”
Margaret walked back to her kitchen sink, stopping briefly to change the station. She poured the rest of her orange juice down the drain.
“The government has released previously classified reports detailing how deforestation has caused natural disaster due to the lack of absorption of record-level CO2 emissions...” Margaret placed her empty bowl in the sink. When she turned on the tap, the water that ran out was as thick as mud, and heavily saturated with debris. She changed the station again.
“Rapidly rising sea levels are causing citizens to flee their homes...”
Margaret turned the radio off, and returned to her washing up duties. She stood at the sink for the better part of an hour, scrubbing the bowl violently with her dish sponge, further diffusing chunks of dirt into the bristles. Finally, she pushed her gray hair out of her face using the back of her hand, set down the sponge, and placed her bowl and juice glass in the drying rack beside the sink. She then set about completing other household chores, in silence.
First, she pulled her broom out of the pantry, and began dusting countertops and pushing large piles of trash further into the corners. After she had finished sweeping, she pulled an old rag and a bottle of glass cleaning solution out of her cupboard drawer. As she walked around the house she haphazardly sprayed cleaner at various mirror surfaces, often forgetting to wipe the liquid up with her cloth. She also sprayed her windows, however, many of her windows had been smashed. So, as she swatted at the glass, broken shards fell to the ground, and blood began to trickle down her hands and arms.
She then decided to see how her garden was faring. She put on gardening gloves, grabbed her trowel and her bucket, and got to work. The air outside was thick and warm, and she wiped her brow with the back of her sleeve as she knelt over her withered chrysanthemums. As she continued to plunge her trowel into the dry earth, she heard voices carry across the garden, and noticed her neighbours having a heated argument nearby. One of them was a disheveled, desperate looking young woman, holding a child, and the other was a gray-haired man with a furrowed brow. The woman was pleading to the man, but her pleas were simply unanswered.
At the other end of the street, she caught a glimpse of two men in uniforms looting bags into a van that had markings similar to an ambulance labeled “security.” This had been happening for months. The security force circled the block. They pillaged people’s homes through large scale neighbourhood raids, and carted their bounty off to government-sanctioned bunkers.
She wondered if they would return tomorrow.
Within the week, people would become obsolete. Only the towering wastelands and junkyards would be left behind to decorate the surface of the Earth. Margaret thought of this as she tended to her beloved garden. She could feel a bead of sweat slide down her forehead, but she ignored the discomfort, knowing that it wouldn’t matter soon.
Her house was located in a small suburb, where the front lawns used to be a lush green. Margaret remembered a time in the not-so-distant past, before the apocalypse had begun, when her neighbours spent summers sitting on beach chairs, relaxing and enjoying exchanging pleasantries with passersby. Now, the smog hung heavily in the air, and people retreated into their homes, hoping to be lucky enough to escape the outside world. Margaret used to sit in her tiny living room, watching the T.V. and drinking homemade lemonade. The news stations used to report stories about newly imposed tariffs, deteriorating mental health, and the outrageous antics of a politician. She’d contemplated adopting a pet to keep her company through the long nights in her lonely little house, but by the time she got around to taking any further steps, she knew an animal had no place in her little corner of the world.
Margaret soon died, along with the last remaining members of her neighbourhood, and then of the world. Government officials, and a few people who were deemed important enough to be saved, were hidden away from the rest of society, and given provisions. The ruling class outlived the general public, but soon enough they died as well.
Many animals died, though some resilient creatures pressed on. Insects, and some desert species that were used to harsh conditions, survived. Life continued, just as it had always done. New species evolved and adapted to the new conditions. Humanity had left its mark on the planet, but our existence had very little effect in the grand scheme. But really, with roughly one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe, you couldn’t have thought you truly mattered. Could you?
The last remaining artifacts left behind by humanity lingered for some time, before fading away into the abyss. The last piece of technology existed in a modest house with a small garden. Perched on the kitchen counter was a small, wireless radio.
“This is a pre-recorded message only to be played in case of an emergency. Please stay inside your home. Follow the instructions given by your neighbourhood officials, abide by the rules set in place for your community, and you will be safe…”