The Quiet Forest

The Trees are pale. Their leaves are white. Their branches are thick. No light reaches the ground below, as the leaves reflect it all. From afar it glistens like marble. Venturing into it is forbidden to man. Beasts of white, are it’s rightful residents. The wind dares not go through it. At it’s center there is a tower, reaching just below the leaves. It has been abandoned centuries ago. Inside, a spiral staircase adorns its interior, extending far below its ground level. Beyond the darkness below, a massive circular library is seen. The bookcases are arranged in what seems like an endless maze. At the maze’s exit lies a broken orb, next to withered bones. They are separated across the place. The two hands are joined, as if pleading mercy. Whatever abominations were made here, are long since forgotten.

The Trip Backwards

Fading into a ventilation duct, a cloud of smoke disappears. Rewind for a bit. You see a bed spoiled with a red substance. Rewind again. You see a gun falling to the ground. Rewind. You witness the face of a man trying to fit a gun into his mouth. Rewind. The man is writing into a piece of paper hastily. Rewind. The man exits the living room naked. Rewind. He is raping a corpse. Rewind. The man slits the throat of a young woman. Rewind. The woman insults him shamelessly. Rewind. The man closes the door behind him in fury, then proceed to request lunch from his wife. Rewind. The man leaves a taxi and enters his apartment building. Rewind. The man throws a box into a garbage container, then pulls over a taxi cab. Rewind. The man is leaving a giant corporation building with a box containing his belongings. Rewind. He is being yelled at by an old looking man. Rewind. The man is asked to meet his boss at his office. Rewind. The man arrives late into his cubicle. Rewind. The man leaves a bus near a big corporate building. Rewind. The man leaves his home, frowning as he looks at his watch. Rewind. A young teen leaves the house, whilst the man yells at him. Rewind. The man and the teen are having a quarrel. Rewind. The man searches his almost empty wallet. Rewind. The man wakes up late, noticing his son leaving in a hurry. Rewind. The man is dreaming of his younger years with a girl called Samantha.

The words written on the paper weren’t clear. He was crying as he wrote them. His tears spoiled the ink, and he didn’t care. He desperately wished to write his mind before he leaves forever. Only the address line, and the first two words remained clean. It began with: “Dear Samantha..” It was meant for his first love. That address is no longer hers.

The Regret

He had no visible facial features. A shadow was in the way of identifying them. The wind begins to shake the leaves on a nearby tree. He turns his head to the sight of a young boy. The boy is holding the hand of a small child beside him. As they take the ice-cream from the stand. The man looks away to the other side. He sees a man and a woman sitting on the grass. The woman treats the man with a muffin she made. He smiles and does the same for her. The young boy and his small sister suddenly arrive in his line of sight. He looks at them as they walk towards their parents, the happy couple on the grass. The little girl looks back and notices him. She runs towards him as she yells “Grandpa! Grandpa!” He replies “Yes, my darling?” “Why are you staying here all alone?” The shadow on his face dissipates slowly as he says “I am not alone, I have you, your brother, my son with his beautiful wife, your mother over there.” He looks upward to the rustling leaves as he continues: “Do you remember your grandmother? She was really lonely. No one was beside her during her last breath. She had no one to comfort her as she slipped away from our world to the next. I feel regret for leaving her go through that all alone. I want to extinguish these feelings of regret.” She replies: “But we’ll always be by your side!” He looks at her and says: “You must, lest you become enveloped by regret, like me.” He grabs her hand and they go to the bright patch of grass to sit with their family.

The Abstract

Shards resembling glass, float amidst this dimension. Upon a closer inspection, a scene emerges, repeating itself endlessly. One shows sunsets amidst a vast sky filled with white clouds. Another shows black waves upon an endless sea of grey sand. Delving further towards the darkness that is expelling these shards results in more vivid visions appearing upon their surface. Some show two hands, one of flesh and one of bone, attempting to grasp each other. Others show religious symbols appearing in chronological order, absorbing one another to form new symbols. The source of these shards is witnessed. Light barely illuminates this object. Its composition is unknown. Its shape morphs between a cube and a globe. The shards seep from its surface, appearing liquid at first, but solidifying as they drift away. “The answer for everything may lie within.” an observer mumbles, as he attempts to reach out to the object. As one of the shards touch his skin, he fades like smoke. Darker shards start to emerge.

The Small Family

It is at Night. A small home with an old lady. Faint light is cast upon her through a window from an exterior lamp post. Her son is asleep on the couch across from the soap opera showing on the television. She looks at his sleeping face, reminded by his expression before she woke him up for school years ago. She sits beside him, laying her head on his shoulder as she slowly falls into sleep. The son shifts slightly, and wakes up to the sight of his mother’s sleeping face. He turns off the television and covers her with part of his blanket. He notices a tear falling slowly across her cheek as the warmth of her gentle smile engulfs him. A memory of him running away from home passes through his mind. He regrets every moment of loneliness he put her through because of his selfishness. With a gentle swipe of his hand, he removes the tear, smiling as he looks at her beautiful sleeping face. He relaxes his head on the couch and goes back to sleep. He dreams about his happiest moments in life with her.

The Flower

Every day he walks five miles from his home to a village nearby. He visits a flowering shop, looks around and leaves without buying a thing. At his home he had a beautiful flower that he kept nurturing everyday. The flower never withered nor died. It only kept changing it’s colors ever so slightly throughout the days. One day he found that its color turned maroon. As he arrived to the flower shop he was greeted by a new person, not the girl that usually slumped behind her desk, looking through the window, waiting for a real customer. He asked this new attendant: “What happened to the girl that was here before?”, “She’s feeling a bit under the weather today.” the new guy replied. He was concerned: “Could you tell me where I can find her?”, “She lives with her grandmother in that little brown house across the street.” He approached her home, knocked on the door but there was no answer. He went inside, went through the rooms until he saw her sitting beside her grandmother on a small wooden chair. She said “My nanny may not live another day. How could I ever go on without her?” The man couldn’t speak a word. He apologized and left the house with a sad image in his mind. When he woke up the next day, he noticed the flower had become pale colored. As he arrived to the village he saw a funeral being conducted. He asked the town folk who was the dead, and they said it’s the flower girl’s grandmother. He saw the girl and couldn’t bear the sight of her sad face. He returned home and laid next to the flower as it slowly withered in front of him. “I may have not been able to save you, but I know of a life that I can save from this despair.” The next day he went to the shop and found the girl. He approached her and said “Do you know of how colorful a flower can be when it’s happy?” She lifted her eyes from the window and landed her sight onto him, reminded by a gentle story she heard from her grandmother. He kept visiting her day after day, and as each day passes, he noticed she smiled more often and more sincerely. They were in love.

The Knight and The Girl

A girl, white as the moon, sleeping. A knight that approaches her and tells stories. He repeats this for months, years. She never wakes at his presence. The girl’s home is caught in a battle. Incidentally she awakens and sees the knight bleeding at the door. He was guarding her chambers till the very last breath. She looks upon his body, she has never seen him before, yet she felt he was a valuable friend and that his existence brings peace to her mind. She doesn’t understand why this happened. She cries as she approaches him. He whispers with his dying breath in her ear: “Live, my child. Never lose hope in this world.” His body lies eternally still. She escapes from the window, the mansion is burning down from within. She runs of to the forests where no one ever saw here again.