Tiny Windows: A Collection Of Flash Fiction

Tiny Windows

"Short stories are tiny windows into other worlds and other minds and dreams. They are journeys you can make to the far side of the universe and still be back in time for dinner."

Neil Gaiman

"What's that on your forehead?" Edgar asked Allan. They were inside Edgar's office. Edgar was sitting behind his desk and Allan was sitting in front of it. Allan was a writer and Edgar was a publisher he was meeting for the first time. Allan was thirty-two and Edgar was in his fifties.

"What?"

Edgar leaned towards him to get a closer look. "That," he pointed at his forehead. "They look like... tiny windows."

"You're sure? Probably just stains."

"Yep, could be stain that looks like windows," Edgar said. "Wipe it off."

Allan took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead with it.

"It's still there," Edgar said. "I could even see the handles." He looked around. "If that were shadows, nothing around here would cast it."

"I met with some people this morning before I got here," Allan said. "And they saw nothing. I've been married for five years and my wife and my kid haven't seen anything peculiar on my head."

"Oh," Edgar quipped and thought for a few moments. "Did you know that my favorite genres are fantasy and paranormal?"

Allan shook his head.

"That's because I have third eye," Edgar revealed. "It's true... but I don't always see things, it's an on-and-off thing." He stared at his forehead again. "But now, I'm seeing things. Windows. Why windows?"

Allan could only flash a nervous smile.

"Maybe, a paranormal creature is living inside you and uses that windows to look out to the world." Edgar chuckled. "I don't know." He paused and stared at his forehead again. "Salt," he continued. "Distill some salt in water and wash your forehead with it for seven days before you sleep, it will probably remove it."

The first thing Allan did when he got home that day was look in the mirror.

There was nothing on his forehead.

But still, he followed what Edgar suggested-he wiped his forehead with saltwater for seven days.

And at the eight day, a soft knocking on his forehead woke him up at the wee hours.

He saw a small lizard-like creature with blue, scaly skin, around eight inches tall, standing on the bed beside him and looking at his forehead while groping it.

"What happened to the windows here?" the small creature, who was wearing a blue suit, asked him.

"Windows?"

"Yeah, windows."

"Why would there be windows there?"

"I use them to look inside your head," the creature said.

"Why would you be looking inside my head?"

"To read ideas or premises or plots that you're hiding there that I could write into novels," the creature said. "You see, you've always dreamed of being a writer, but you really can't write, all you have are plots and ideas. But mind you, they were brilliant story ideas. Then one day, frustrated, you throw some coins into this well, which unbeknownst to you, is truly magical, and you wished that something would come help you turn those plots into novels-and it's me who came. Every time you sit in front of your computer, I whisper the words, the phrases, the sentences to you. Sometimes, I even edit your work."

"I-I'm just dreaming right now, I think..."

"Yeah, you're dreaming," the creature said. "But I'm real, I exist, it's just that I can only show myself in dreams."

"I-I'm waking myself now..."

"It would do your writing career good if we'd continue talking, Allan..."

"I'm really waking myself now..."

Allan blinked repeatedly, then he closed his eyes and opened them again. He saw himself still inside his bedroom, in his bed, but with no creature beside him feeling his forehead. He remembered the wishing well and his desperate wish three years ago but he was certain that it didn't come true. All the novels he wrote afterwards, he wrote it without the help of a paranormal creature.

Fast forward a few years, the creature didn't appear to him again, and there were tons of story ideas in Allan's head, every day, a new one would pop inside his head, a premise so epic, but they remained just that-story ideas, premises, plots.

He couldn't write them into proper novels. ®