Short story

1 comment on "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.

https://patreon.com/harperkingsley.

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.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/HarperKingsley.

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.

The Way of the Househusband 01 at Amazon
0 comments on "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.

All Systems Red at Amazon
0 comments on "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.

Fortress in the Eye of Time at Amazon
0 comments on "12 Days of Xmas: Year of the Snake"

Year of the Snake

She had been born in the year of the Snake, that’s what the paper restaurant placemat said. Dara traced her finger over her birth year and frowned a little.

She liked rabbits and she liked dogs. She wouldn’t have minded being a tiger or a dragon. Even the chibi ox printed on the placemat had a charm to it.

But she was a snake. The one thing she was most afraid of in the world.

Ophidiophobia. A fear of snakes. That’s what Wikipedia said she had.

When she was really small–like still wearing pull-ups small–she’d been sitting in the yard on a checkered blanket playing with her dolls when she’d felt something crawling over her toes and up her leg. And she’d looked, and even without know what it was, she’d been absolutely terrified.

Now, as a big girl, she knew that it had been a garter snake and that it couldn’t hurt her. But when she’d been small… Seeing that thing crawling on her leg had left a deep scar on her psyche.

Even thinking about snakes sent a chill over her skin and made her stomach ache. She was terrified of them, with their blank black eyes and the way their tongues would flick out as they tasted the air. Or when they ate something and their whole heads would open up to reveal that maw lined by sharp fangs.

She hated snakes.

And now, looking at the placemat, she found out she was a snake.

Dara sighed and moved her plate to cover the placemat, refusing to look at it.

No matter what good words were said about snakes, she didn’t think she could bear being something she was so scared of.

Why couldn’t I have been a dog? she thought.

"Hey Dad," she said, "can we get a dog?"

"A dog?" Izan looked at his daughter, wondering where this had come from. The way her brain worked was a complete mystery to him. Even looking into her eyes, he could never tell what she was thinking.

Dara licked her fork. "Yeah. A dog. Can we get one? It doesn’t have to be a big one." She held her hands a few inches apart to represent a size. "We can get a little one. A cute little dog. I’ll take care of it. Feed it. Walk it. I’ll even pick up it’s poop!"

"Well…"

"Please Dad? I really want one and… and… It’s… It’s my year!"

"It’s your year?"

"Yeah. It’s my year. So we should get a dog that’s born in the same year as me and we’ll be best friends because we’ll be the same!"

Izan looked at her pleading face, then sighed. "I’ll have to talk to your mom."

Dara grinned, knowing that she’d be getting a dog. She kicked her feet and scooped up another forkful of fried rice. "We’ll have to get a collar and a leash and all kinds of toys! I’m so excited."

Izan watched his daughter eat and couldn’t help smiling to himself. She was humming under her breath, and her feet couldn’t stay still, little white laces dangling. She was so happy that he couldn’t bear to break her mood.

I guess this is the year we’re getting a dog, he thought.

=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.