Category: Short Stories

no. 1 Her yellow plissé trousers were a bit dishevelled by this time of night, the combination with a yellow leopard print jacket probably more than daring on others, seemed perfectly in the ordinary worn by her. Her blonde hair was already marred at the roots by the brown showing there, disclosing her true hair…

The pond was lying still in the middle of the park, a stone-grey surface mirroring the clouds above. There was a small boy at the edge of the pond, he was bathed in birds; doves and sparrows flurrying around him in a storm. They were hopping on the stone floor in confused circles, traipsing on…

He was the maker of many things but most of all he made time. Time for the things that mattered most, like his grandchildren, his cooking, his writing. The art of making time was quite a complicated business, involving a lot of physics and mechanics and all sorts of matters that required a ready mind….

This train station was odd, somehow. It was nestled in the middle of nowhere, fields of wheat spreading out on the side opposite the only platform. There was a round roof to the platform, overgrown with ivy and rust from the rains that had washed over it for decades. It was slowly and steadily decaying,…

The greenhouse was enormously tall, with different bows and turrets making up its roof. On bright summer days, when the sun shone and children were running around the pond outside, popsicle melting onto their hands, the whiteness of its Victorian skeleton and structure looked inviting, calling to mind not quite true memories of childhood Sundays…

It was a strange sight, those three girls, only there was no one there to behold it – and if there had been, they probably would not have believed their eyes. They were not visible to someone who would have walked down on the streets, out on an occasional midnight stroll; only if someone on…

Manchmal stellte sie sich vor, der Strick an dem die Schaukel befestig war, würde reissen. Genau in der Sekunde, bevor die Schwerkraft sie wieder nach unten zöge, würde die letzte Faser mit einem leisen Seufzer endlich nachgeben und sie, Lilith, würde mitsamt Schaukel in den wolkenzerfetzten Sonnenuntergang hinausstürzen. Der Gedanke machte ihr nie Angst, sondern…

A light laugh pearled from her mouth. This is the only way I can describe it, I swear to you if I could say it differently, I would. I hate figures of speech just as much as you do, probably even more. But this woman was different, her poise and elegance not to be matched…

a long journey home The sea is lying perfectly still, enclosed as it is by these high mountains which have surrounded it since eternity and more. Dusk has fallen over the city which lies at the peak of the sea enclave, perched right in the valley between two high mountain ranges sloping their way against…

The big marble hallway felt empty as a church when the clock strikes three in the morning, although it was only early afternoon. Heavy sunlight filtered in through the windows, illuminating the countless oil portraits suspended from the wall, each one more intricate, more colourful than the last. Giant rivers of red velvet curtains were…

In some ways she envied him, and in some ways she wished more than anything else to never become like him. It was a strange ambiguity, something that intrigued her about him and his careless ways, just as much as it repelled her. He was like a magnet to her, and there were times when…

He’d always wondered, all these years he’d known her why she loved the sea so much and why she was pulled to it almost with magnetic intensity, every summer as soon as the days got lighter all she wanted to do was escape, head south, to where the waves crashed onto pebbly beaches.   Sometimes…

Feverishly he walks along the edges of his mind, searching for the words that will make her stay, he knocks at the walls of her mind to find what is hidden behind it, the real reason why she’d said what she just said but he finds himself strangely unable to form any coherent thought. His…

„Mein Leben war so lang in vielen Aspekten, und so unglaublich kurz in vielen anderen. Ich erinnere mich nicht mehr mit Sicherheit an die grossen Dinge. Ich weiss nicht mehr, wie mein Hochzeitskleid ausgesehen hat, was das erste Wort meines ersten Kindes war. Erinnerungen sind eine seltsame Sache. Ich weiss nichts mehr von den grossen…

She took long, deep strokes in the simmering summer heat. She’d always loved swimming for its robotic and reliable motions, for the space it opened up for thinking the instant her mind went places while her body moved automatically; left arm, right arm, left, breathe; left arm, right arm, left, breathe. But not even she…