M.K. Lee's Blog: Telling Tales, page 122
March 3, 2019
Diary Drabble: Condemn
Condemn, they screamed in the streets. Condemn, they muttered under their breath from the galleries in the court. Across dining tables, and from the comfort of living rooms up and down the country, condemn was the single shared thought. No one listened to alternative arguments. No one really knew what they had been accused of. The law had found them guilty, just because those laws were twisted and manipulated to make it so that didn’t matter at all. They say that witchhunts are over, a produc...
March 2, 2019
What Makes A Home
Four walls alone are rarely enough to make a home. A home needs love, friendship, listening. No ornament on a shelf can bring life to a room if there is no love in it. No colour stroked on to a wall adds brightness if gentle hands do not caress. No heat will bring warmth to surroundings that lack affection. And no food eaten at the table will fill, if arms do not embrace, hold close. Home is more than our possessions, grander than anything we own. Home is not the places we dwell. It is those...
March 1, 2019
Tomorrow
When did tomorrow become too late?
Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll tell him. Tomorrow I’ll find the words to sum up all the chaos that’s been turning paces round the inside of my skull for a lifetime.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow I’ll stop making excuses, find courage that I tell myself I have for every other occasion when for this, courage seems like an impossible task.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll call, tomorrow I’ll say something, tomorrow I’ll be the person I could be, were I only to open my mouth.
Tomorrow. He...
February 26, 2019
Diesel
By day she plays make believe in her grandparent’s pantry, pretending she is in the cab of a train. But by night the train takes her to all kinds of places, making frequent stops at an abandoned platform where she fears she’ll never escape. Is it merely the stuff of nightmares, or is there a more grisly story to tell?
The pantry cupboard in my grandparent’s house was next to the front door.
It occupied a floor space of barely a square metre, but there was space enough for shelf upon shelf of...
February 24, 2019
Diary Drabble: Threat
The look Erdan gives him from across the ice is one of threat, putting all the hair up on the back of Onan’s neck. Onan pretends not to see, eyes forward as he continues his lap around the rink. The whoosh behind him warns of Erdan coming. Onan takes a wide side step and hears Erdan swear under his breath when he almost topples. Then Erdan falls into stride beside him, matching Onan step for step as they skate.
“Can we not do anything without trying to out-compete one another?” Onan asks, spi...
Diary Drabble: Sunshine
He sleeps in a ray of sunshine, tracking the movement of its heat across the carpeted floor. It’s an arduous task; one paw outside the warm zone and he has to roll over, or at its very worst, actually get up.
Sometimes the clouds seal that heat altogether, and no amount of glaring at that greyness overhead makes any difference. Still, at least it’s not raining, or that worse abomination, snow.
He stretches, giving up on the heat and instead seeking out food. His bowl is full of fresh biscuit...
Diary Drabble: Answer
Gautam’s heart is in his throat, the tension in his stomach a hard, gripping knot. Kunnar’s eyes are growing rounder by the minute, and his fingers flare wide down by his side; just as Gautam’s seen them do on so many occasions when Kunnar has been stuck for words.
Gautam begs – silently – for him to answer. At this stage he’ll gladly take any words from him, good or bad. Kunnar shifts, licks his lips, then gives a smile that says he’s ready to speak.
“Are you sure about this?” Kunnar asks, w...
Diary Drabble: Marble
The marble busts played eerie guard to the entrance of the hallway, which itself crept out in chequered tiles to form a circle, before reaching up to the old oak stairs. In this welcoming room there were no signs of life at all. Footsteps echoed on occasion, ricocheting upstairs on to the mezzanine announcing when anyone was home.
The hallway used to be more animated, when laughter bounced back and forth between its walls. Until one day silence had fallen. Even the air feels paused, like it...
Diary Drabble: Collide
When wealth meets power, two horrible forces collide. Not these two qualities alone, but what putting them together make those with both become. This has always been true. No matter the reason, no matter the century, wealth and power together breeds greed. And greed breeds, aside from an inflated ego and sense of self importance, fear. Fear of losing that power, wealth and the freedoms they would deny any other at any cost. It’s why they suppress, oppose what is different, target all the thin...
Diary Drabble: Nuclear
When the cooling tower at the nuclear power station failed, a deathly silence fell on the town. Everyone knew the drill, monitoring their phones for instructions. They’d been warned if this station failed, it would be more catastrophic than any other. Why the powers-that-be approved its building anyway, knowing the damage it might cause, nobody knew. Well, they did, they just hoped their elected government didn’t value money more than human life.
The siren sounded first an eerie wail putting...
