dreamszilla

Hannah Goss's insightful vignette about two very different sisters. Image generated with OpenAI You are surprised to find how much your little sister has changed after her first semester of college. You come home from winter break, your fourth and final one, tired from six hours of nonstop driving, and set your duffle bag on the living room floor. Your sister is already home: Her drive is half yours. She barely looks up from her spot on the couch where she's laying on her back, her feet dangling over one couch arm, and her crop top and low-rise leggings revealing a new belly button piercing. You think: Mom would have killed you if you had done that. She's texting someone, her face narrowed in concentration, her thumbs dancing across the screen like hyperactive claws. She looks up at you briefly, her eyes dancing over you and she asks, "Are you really wearing that?'" You stand your ground, as if you are dealing with a mountain lion ready to poun...

An old lady returns to her childhood home, but can't face her demons alone, in Leah Erickson's spine-tinglingly creepy story. Image generated with OpenAI When the doorbell rang, she was already standing in the vestibule. The late summer sun was shining through the transom, which still had its original wavy glass, so that Miriam was bathed in rippling patterns of shadow and light, like being underwater. So much else about the old house had changed since she had seen it last. Walls torn down to make an open floor plan. Dark scarred wood painted over in glossy white. The floors, which had been painted a garish turquoise when she had squatted there as a girl, had been stripped and sanded down, stained and burnished to a mellow golden glow. It hardly resembled the house that had haunted her dreams for the past fifty years. The doorbell rang again. Miriam glanced into the gilt-edged entryway mirror, as though to check to see who would look back. Was she seventeen, or ...

Ashwini fantasises about academic success, Suman about the perfect husband - but one woman sees her fantasies as escape, the other as inspiration; by Amita Basu. Image generated with OpenAI ACT I "I get up excited every day," said Ashwini, blowing on her steaming filter-coffee. "I can't wait to begin the day. But, I also feel dissatisfied, wondering what it was that I achieved yesterday. I mean, I work all day. I strike things off my To Do list... Still, I guess it's better to get up excited, than to struggle to get up, right? I do still get depressed, occasionally. But you know what I've discovered? It's that frustration that I feel, even on the best days, that already contains the seeds of depression. I mean, if even on the best days you wonder what you achieved yesterday - that's bad, no?" "Anything's better than being depressed," said Suman, palms clasped to cool around her white ceramic mug of cold coffee. They...

Georgia Baldwin, old and lonely, gladly spends time with her curmudgeonly neighbour, and maybe one day they'll understand each other better; by Jonathan Lash. Image generated with OpenAI Georgia Baldwin swayed gently on the old glider, stretching to give an occasional push with her short legs. She watched the beads of condensation that ran down the sides of the glass of sweet tea staining the low table. It was hot, but she didn't really mind. Washington's muggy heat bothered her less and less as she grew older. She turned to her neighbor, Henry Gray, sitting in the green painted wicker rocker. "Why are you looking so cross, Henry?" "You need to oil that thing, Georgie, so it doesn't squeak when you swing." "Why? It's a comforting sound." "No, it's aggravating." "To you. Not to me. It's like the cicadas. It's a summer sound." "I could oil it for you." "No thanks....