[Ongoing] A collection of unsettling or unusual short stories. Some have monsters, some have humor, some draw tears, some make you think, and some have artwork. Each is a revealing glance of someone's life.
Every writer has their own methods of comi...
Original story below, but you can find a revamped version in my collection "The Joke's on Me: and six other twisted stories of absurdity and regret", available on Amazon!
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Where I live the electricity cuts a lot and my parents say it’s the government’s fault. But the government doesn’t get in trouble the way I do when I play with the light switches and I don’t think it’s fair because they do it every day and everything cuts off not just the lights.
That’s why we have a lot of battery-powered stuff like flashlights and radios and my Gameboy which I can’t really play with when it’s dark because I can’t see the screen. In winter we use radiators and I’m glad those don’t need electricity because it gets so cold I can’t feel my nose and I think it would fall off like that video my friend Gabby showed me of a guy who had frostbite.
In summer it’s the opposite and I hate it because when the electricity cuts we can’t use the air conditioner and everyone looks like they jumped in a pool but really they’re just sweating. But I like summer at night because we all go out on the balcony with candles and some snacks and everyone in the buildings around us is doing the same thing. It’s kind of like we’re camping together and we can hear everyone talk but not very clearly so it just sounds like a lot of humming and laughing.
Without electricity we also can’t use the elevator which is annoying because we live on the tenth floor. But if mom wants to buy stuff like soap or onions we don’t need to use the elevator because Amo has a shop right under our building. Mom just ties a rope to a basket and clips a list and money to it and lowers it down from the balcony for Amo to fill it so we can pull it back up.
Amo’s shop has everything and sometimes the list is so long we have to send the basket down two or three times. He also has a plastic jar filled with little colorful bouncy balls but he doesn’t put them in the basket because they aren’t on mom’s list.
But when we do have electricity mom sends me down the elevator with the list and money and the basket and Amo always gives me a bouncy ball for free. I like Amo because he asks me which color I want instead of just picking one even if the color I want is all the way at the bottom. I also like him because he talks to me about politics and sports and the weather like he does with mom and dad.
The bouncy balls are small and shiny and they bounce very high. They also smell nice and I like how they squeak against my teeth when I bite them in half. The two halves bounce very high too but they don’t go straight and I used to like bouncing them all around the elevator on the way up home but I can’t do that anymore.
That’s because once a bouncy ball half fell through the crack between the elevator floor and the wall. I didn’t hear it land so I dropped the other half on purpose but I didn’t hear it land either. The next time I got a bouncy ball I dropped the whole thing down but I couldn’t tell if it landed because dad was with me and he said I shouldn’t do that because it would bother the elevator monster.
