Sunday, October 13, 2024

The Shortest Story I Ever Wrote

Once after midnight I was out walking when a man with the face and features of an owl came up to me unexpectedly out of the dark. He was clad in black from head to toe. He would not let me pass, but stared at me silently.

“What do you want of me?” said I.

“Who?” he said.

“I get that you’re an owl. But you haven’t answered my question.”

“Nor will I. Walk beside me a while.”

I stepped around him, and went on down the empty block.

“I’m beside you,” he said. “If you know it or not.”

I was alone in the street. There were no lights ahead, and none shone from the blocky black slabs of buildings on either side of the pavement, only a dim white bulb depending from the streetlamp at the corner I had just left. Still the road ahead grew brighter, though without any further detail becoming visible.

I raised my hands before my eyes. They had aged visibly since I had last seen them. 

The sleeves of my coat had turned to grey feathers.

--Thorn.

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