Short story

December 25, 2025 1 comment

12 Days of Xmas: Fabric Softener

The day started off terrible and got worse.

She woke up with a laggy feeling, as though some invisible weight was pulling her down. When she ate food, it left her with a vaguely nauseated feeling that didn’t get better as the day progressed.

Am I getting sick? she wondered. Not realizing that it wasn’t that she was coming down with an illness but that some part of the universe was trying to warn her.

She filled the washing machine and started the water running as she measured out the detergent and poured it in, wondering that the usually translucent white detergent was cloudy and maybe a bit thick. She just thought that it might be a new brand until the last bit dripped out of the cup and her eyes focused on the bottle where it said "Fabric softener."

"Oh no," she muttered, staring into the machine.

The fabric softener was already in there, there was nothing she could do about that. She sighed. She would have to let the machine finish running then wash the clothes again with actual laundry detergent.

She wondered where the fabric softener had come from. Finally decided that it was probably a mistake the last time they ordered groceries. It was nearly the same label as the laundry detergent they usually got.

She closed the washing machine lid and went to wash her hands. It looked like it was going to be twice as long as she’d planned for the laundry to be done.

Heading into the kitchen to make some lunch, she turned on the TV in passing. It was a surprise to find that rather than her usual show it was some kind of news program playing, a bright red "BREAKING NEWS!" ribbon covering the top of the screen.

She walked close to the TV, staring in horrified fascination.

Fires. Screams. The urgent tone of the reporters’ voices. Everything blended together into a sense of unreality.

Santa’s sleigh had fallen off the top of the Hinckle building during the Happy Holidays Parade, and it turned out that it had been built more solidly than anyone could have expected.

A ten-meter long heavy metal frame attached by thick ropes decorated to look like reins to nine cast iron reindeer with sharp yet brittle metal antlers dropped from a height of more than 152 meters onto a crowd of people.

It was a bloodbath.

She stared in shock, her hands hanging limp at her sides.

Her family had gone to the parade. She had planned to go too, but the discomfort in her stomach had made her decide to stay home. They had promised to bring her back some parade candy.

The nauseated feeling grew until it enveloped her whole body. Then she dropped to the floor, unconscious.

The day had started off bad and had become nightmare levels of terrible. And like the fabric softener that had already gone into the washing machine, once it had happened it could not be undone. No matter how much she wished things could be different.

=END=

~Harper Kingsley

https://paypal.me/harperkingsley.

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https://ko-fi.com/harperwck.

https://www.youtube.com/c/HarperKingsley.

https://amazon.com/shop/harperkingsley0.
https://www.harperkingsley.net/blog.
https://kimichee.com.

https://harperkingsley.bsky.social.
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I accidentally added fabric softener to the washing machine instead of detergent. I don’t even know where the fabric softener came from, only the label looks exactly like the All Free and Clear we usually get except it has a little "Fabric Softener" on the label that the grocery shopper probably didn’t even notice.

There’s a reason I believe all liquid fabric softeners should come in blue or pink jugs. You should be able to differentiate it from laundry soap without having to read the whole label.

May 13, 2025 0 comments

SHORT FIC: A Snapshot In Time

TITLE: A Snapshot In Time
AUTHOR: Harper Kingsley
GENRE: aftermath of a fall, introspection

When I first woke up, everything was in shades of black and white. Color was slow to seep back into the world, and it was like her hair was blond and her dress was pink. Then the hair and dresses of the other women popped into focus, while the sky above them still looked like an expanse of pure white. Not a single speck of blue in sight.

The bug resting against my face had looked massive as it made its approach. Landing ever so gently on the tip of my nose, where it for some reason decided to stay. I was just relieved it wasn’t running around all over on my face.

That’s the most hateful part of bugs. The suddenness of their appearance. The way they could be just there, purely noticeable. Then they can do whatever. Jump up. Fly. Skitter under the furniture. Disappear.

But I couldn’t move.

I lay there on the ground face up, body splayed out haphazardly. The shock didn’t give me the option to feel pain.

I was hoping someone was calling an ambulance. I definitely didn’t want them to flop me around and paralyze me or something.

But it was eerie to look up and see them standing over me as the green slipped back onto the grass. To notice the complete soullessness of their gazes as they looked down at me. As they spoke to each other over top of me and I didn’t see a single one showing concern.

I stared at them, these semi-familiar strangers. There was the sense that I knew them, but I could not identify the relationship at the moment.

A pain was building in my body, centered on the back of my head. The pain radiated outward in an endless ache, no sense of throbbing whatsoever. Just pain.

It was a nameless torment. I didn’t even have the words to describe what I was feeling.

I had never really been hurt before. Like, I’d heard about "kids cracking their heads on the playground" and I’ve seen the aftermath when someone bit through their lip or scraped their leg. But I’d never really been hurt hurt before.

I don’t think I have.

I’d never been to the hospital for anything related to a fall or an accident. It was something I knew as natural as breathing, which felt a bit hard as the fall had knocked the wind out of me.

As the color refilled the world, the memories and the thoughts were returning. The me that had been missing was coming back. It was as though my brain’s processes were coming back on line a bit at a time.

And by the time I was loaded onto the ambulance that a kind elderly person called by using the emergency device strapped to their wrist, the sky had become so bright.

A brilliant blue sky. Warm temperatures that weren’t too hot. Everything comfortable and perfect.

It was a beautiful day.

And my step-mother had tried to kill me.

=END=

~Harper Kingsley

https://paypal.me/harperkingsley.

https://patreon.com/harperkingsley.

https://ko-fi.com/harperwck.

https://amazon.com/shop/harperkingsley0.
https://www.harperkingsley.net/blog.
https://kimichee.com.

https://www.youtube.com/c/HarperKingsley.

https://harperkingsley.bsky.social.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/HarperKingsley.

May 12, 2025 0 comments

SHORT FICTION: In a Paper World Full of Paper People

TITLE: In a Paper World Full of Paper People
AUTHOR: Harper Kingsley
GENRE: science fiction, introspection

It was called “paper skin,” though its real scientific name was something long and largely unpronounceable. Everyone knew what paper skin was though. The fear of it was an ever growing concern. A rising stress level that left parents weeping in the night as they feared they or their children would be infected.

It was highly communicable. Lingering on hard surfaces for four hours and in fabric for close to ten. And once it got inside the human body, its effects were swift and devastating.

Blood that refused to clot and skin layers that became thin and brittle to the point that simply touching anything with an edge could cause the skin to split open.

A person with paper skin could die from a paper cut. A simple touch could cause the inside to come outside as the person bled and bled.

It was horrifying to watch. But hard to look away. Because there was no cure, no vaccine, no treatment other than to never let the infected ever come to harm.

The victims of paper skin lived in bubbles or muffled themselves with layers of cloth. They kept bandages on them at all times and carried injectors full of drugs that were supposed to help their blood coagulate. But in the end, it was a paper towel to hold back a river. Even if it took years, no one survived paper skin.

They were separated. Segregated. Surrounded by people wearing hazardous material suits, because their blood always seemed to want out of their bodies, and their blood carried the infection that was taking their lives.

People feared having paper skin. Dreaded it and fought the inevitably of it, this human plague that was taking hundreds and thousands of lives with every passing day.

The world had become harsh and terrifying. The invisible prickles on a maple seed became like hypodermic needles. The edge of a table became a blade. The strands of a person’s hair or the licking of a cat’s tongue could result in flesh shearing off to the bone.

Every day was a day of neverending fear. Mortality had never felt so close at hand. Yet here it was.

The world was full of paper people desperately avoiding the rain. Coating themselves in wax, but knowing that nothing lasts forever. It only exists for right now.

=END=

~Harper Kingsley

https://paypal.me/harperkingsley.

https://patreon.com/harperkingsley.

https://ko-fi.com/harperwck.

https://amazon.com/shop/harperkingsley0.
https://www.harperkingsley.net/blog.
https://kimichee.com.

https://www.youtube.com/c/HarperKingsley.

https://harperkingsley.bsky.social.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/HarperKingsley.

March 12, 2024 1 comment

SHORT FIC: Apricot Sunrise

For Kevin

Up all night. Exhausted. Bone tired. Weariness dragging down.

Whoever said crime doesn’t sleep wasn’t lying. It had been nonstop action all night. There was a scent of soot and body odor clinging to her skin.

Elisa looked at her phone to check the time. Grimaced at the crack running across the screen. Meta-grade materials her left foot. She’d slammed the thing into one recalcitrant face and now look at it: crack city.

The thought of having to get a new phone made her want to have a headache. Even with the cloud, there was still a lot of personal stuff she’d have to transfer over. And there was always the nagging sense of something being forgotten, left behind, whenever she got a new phone or device and had to abandon the old.

Nostalgia was almost a suffering friend on her part, rather than the thoughtful softness that other people got to enjoy.

She shoved the phone back in her utility belt and finished her slog to Canaverra Bridge. It was the perfect spot to watch the sunrise, the rippling blue water and the clean scent of ocean a cleansing backdrop.

Being a superhero wasn’t all cheery media smiles and punching villains in the face. It was tiring work, especially for a second-rate hero like her.

She didn’t have any illusions about her place in the world. She wasn’t a frontline hero. Just one of the grunts that cleaned up ground level criminals. And that was fine with her.

Superheroing was a job. One that paid her bills and let her live the life she wanted.

It hadn’t been her dream. It was a paycheck she worked hard for and earned with blood, sweat, and tears. Mostly not her own. She had a powerful right hook and wasn’t afraid to use it.

Her lips curved up when she realized she’d made it on time. Barely.

Ghostly wavering light at first rising up over the mountains. Then the spill of golden light as the sky brightened beneath the clouds. Then the first piercing rays of sunlight.

The sun rose, beautiful in the early morning chill. And Elisa watched it happen.

Beautiful.

=END=