Haunted
Author : Jeff Deignan
Let me tell you a ghost story.
I see my sister every day, while she eats and sleeps through the minutes and hours. She walks, she talks- but never to me. The cold, white rooms always seem to threaten to swallow her as she traipses about, and me as I sit and listen through the one-way mirror. To hear her voice, one would think that nothing was wrong, and that at one o’clock all was well.
I live in an apartment, in the Ashland complex just west of town. She lived on campus, before an overcast Tuesday. Elena, my sister, drove to the store around that time for some little groceries, even though the fridge was nearly full. The accident didn’t hurt her much, either, and I can only imagine what went on in her head as she and I rolled through the air in her little foreign car.
They got me back after a few tries, some surgery, and a coma. But my sister always insists that I’m in the ground, dead and gone. Elena hasn’t responded to a single thing I’ve said since that day. And she insists to this day that I’m dead, that the bionics and machinery that keep me living, working, never brought me back after my heart stopped. Elena only talks to the ghosts in her room now, a faux family minus me.
So riddle me this: who’s the more haunted, this machine or her mind?
___________________
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows
365 Tomorrows Merchandise: The 365 Tomorrows Store
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow
The Past
365tomorrows launched August 1st, 2005 with the lofty goal of providing a new story every day for a year. We’ve been on the wire ever since. Our stories are a mix of those lovingly hand crafted by a talented pool of staff writers, and select stories received by submission.
The archives are deep, feel free to dive in.
Flash Fiction
"Flash fiction is fiction with its teeth bared and its claws extended, lithe and muscular with no extra fat. It pounces in the first paragraph, and if those claws aren’t embedded in the reader by the start of the second, the story began a paragraph too soon. There is no margin for error. Every word must be essential, and if it isn’t essential, it must be eliminated."
Kathy Kachelries
Founding Member
Submissions
We're open to submissions of original Science or Speculative Fiction of 600 words or less. We are only accepting work which you previously haven't sold or given away the rights to. That means your work must not have been published elsewhere, either in print or on the web. When your story is accepted, you're giving us first electronic publication rights and non-exclusive subsequent publication rights. You retain ownership over your story. We are not a paying market.
Voices of Tomorrow
Voices of Tomorrow is the official podcast of 365tomorrows, with audio versions of many of the stories published here.
If you're interested in recording stories for Voices of Tomorrow, or for any other inquiries, please contact ssmith@365tomorrows.com