March 25, 2019
I flung open every window in the room, inhaling the scent of freshly decaying flowers through every opening I created. When I reached the end of my relentless pursuit to bring daylight into this musty place, I stood to face the garden outside the girl's window. Spanning the ample grounds were endless sculptures crafted from marble and crafted from dense foilage. The grass was a fervent green without any fault to be seen, each individual blade of grass dappled with sparkling sunlight. Every area of the Munson's yard was primmed beyond what might be considered satisfactory. Yet, no one seemed to spy what lay directly below the window sill, hidden by newly-planted evergreens that would soon eclipse the window. At the foot of the wall were the remnants of a garden that had been painstakingly planted, again and again. The family had hired four gardeners to maintain the garden, yet despite all efforts, the flowers and vegetables and any trace of life continued to die. No one could explain it, so after some time they gave up altogether. After pondering for what could have only been a moment, I turned to face the bed, framed by soaring bedposts that touched the elevated ceiling and brimming with comforters and plush pillows. In the sudden gusts of wind that wafted through the windows, the blush-red curtains fluttered, as unearthly as phantoms in the dark. The child's eyes, round as billiard balls in a bleach-blonde skull, glinted in the harsh light of morning. For a moment, I could almost swear they were black.
YOU ARE READING
YAWP: A Collection of Short Stories
Short StoryShort stories I have written over the past five years that I may never finish-ranging from a preacher who lied about the word of God to a little girl with monsters in her basement, these are all stories I wrote myself and may never continue. In the...
