M.K. Lee's Blog: Telling Tales, page 125

Diary Drabble: Fix

His heart is in his throat. If the comptuer girl can’t fix his laptop. his entire thesis will be lost. He kept meaning to back it up, start writing with something he could access anywhere. But something always happened that would interrupt him, and then he’d forget. All the source material. All the images he’d stored. All the statistics carefully put into graphs to give the best representation of his findings. All could be lost because he is a clumsy idiot, who should know better than to leav...

Diary Drabble: Fast

When the car speeding past them honked their horn, Vincent shrank deeper into his seat.

“They’re driving too fast,” Frank said before Vincent could open his mouth. “I’m sticking to the speed limit.”

“I never said a word.”

“But you felt several, probably.”

“They made me jump. It wasn’t a reflection on your driving.”

Frank’s eyes narrowed. Vincent slid his hand into his lap and squeezed his thigh. “I know you’re nervous. But you’re not on your own. Promise.”

“I know,” Frank said, covering...

Diary Drabble: Price

What price are we willing to pay for ignoring all the damage we’re doing? What value do we place on the quality of our lives? This world isn’t infinite. Using all these resources to build a better world? When the resources are all gone, what do we reach for then? We taint our oceans, and pollute our skies, ignoring evidence and modeling systems predicting the storm that is coming. All to achieve our demands; we’ll have it all. A few will, anyway. Not those of us without power. Who will pick u...

Diary Drabble: Nightmare

Maybe it was an exaggeration to call them a nightmare. Mostly because it was the day they seeped mischief into instead of the night.

The moment they arrived – always unannounced, so there was no way of preparing for it – chaos descended and peace was shattered. Cliched words, perhaps, but so appropriate; how can such small things make this much noise and create so much disruption?

A calmer storm might be brought in on the back of a hurricane or flood. At least someone might rescue you from...

Diary Drabble: Anomoly

The anomaly on the geological map wasn’t obvious when visiting the hill. It only looked like a mound halfway up, like an overzealous mole had been adding an annex to its duplex or something. But the lump of different was so out of place with the surrounding geology, that it might as well be a beacon. It was newer, perfectly welded within the rock. Yet no metamorphosis showed between – no change of composition by either heat or pressure. Though we became aware of it, and its blight on the land...

Diary Drabble: Discipline

It takes discipline to go to the gym every Tuesday and Thursday, and swim maybe once or twice a week. It takes discipline to watch whatever drama is unfolding on Twitter and not comment, even if people seem to go out of their way to make his blood boil. But it takes Steven more than discipline, willpower, and resolve not to be the first to message after his dinner with Peter. And when he admits he doesn’t want to wait, tries to put it off for a few hours. It’s pointless. Steven presses the ph...

Diary Drabble: Architect

It was an architect who found it. She’d visited the site wanting to imagine the potential structure in front of her. The building, that was due to be demolished to make way for her project, was little more than a mass of crumbling brick. But to one side of a former doorway she spotted it. Dark. Square. Newer than the brickwork, polished to a sheen. A headstone, she realised, even for the od position. Unmarked so no way of knowing who was inside. No one had been in the building for decades. Wh...

Pale

So you’re standing in the queue for the checkout, clunky red basket in hand and bouncing off of your thigh in semi-impatience. There’s only one person in front of you but whatever they’re buying seems to be taking an age to be scanned.

Biting down the sigh you want to expel from your throat, you settle for tapping your fingers in a piano-scale rhythm on the screen of the phone in your hand. Really. Mozart has nothing on you when you’re stuck in a queue with nothing else to do.

You look at the...

Bared And Armored

This facade he wears is not something thrown together one evening on a whim; it’s a wall he’s been perfecting ever since he discovered the power of hiding behind a mask as a teen. Mirror-rehearsed quirked brows and confident smiles when he’s feeling anything but, above layer upon layer of beautiful armor, adorned with kohl-lined eyes and glitter-tipped nails. Drawing eyes wherever he turns, with so few really seeing him.

Some days, when the sun is shining and all he sees around him is good thi...

Diary Drabble: Taste

Did I laugh too loud? Was I too quick to answer? Did every word I said sound as stupid out loud as it now does in my head?

His lips are still bruised from his kisses, and he can still taste his smile. His skin hums in memory of the brush of his palms over his back. It was a perfect moment. But what happens now?

His phone buzzes on the nightstand. He snatches it up in hope. His heart thrums and his breath catches, rereading his message.

“Can’t sleep. Can’t stop thinking about you. When can I...