This is an original fiction piece written for StoryADay September. Read more & follow here.
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         As usual, I wake up three minutes before my alarm goes off. I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, noticing for the first time a crack in the paint above our bed. I wonder how long it would take for the crack to grow enough that a chip of paint would fall in my mouth as I slept. I recall that vague idea we all hear growing up about the average human eating such-and-such number of spiders in their lifetime, and the only conclusions us laypersons ever arrived at to explain this is that they must crawl into our mouths while we slept. This is disconcerting to some, but I’ve never really found much of a problem with it. We let so many other things inside of us, “spiders” is perhaps the least illogical of them all. Hot water strained through the ground, dried, and roasted seeds of an otherwise tasty berry? Omelets made with what are more or less the products of daily chicken periods? The squashed and processed remains of a peanut and a grape spread on dry-heated, germ-infused, ground-up wheat plants? Gummi Bears? Wives?
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This is an original fiction piece written for StoryADay September. Read more & follow here. Today’s story is based on the first part of my favorite short story, Anton Chekhov‘s “The Lady with the Little Dog“. It’s a retelling from the woman’s perspective, trying to capture Chekhov’s tone and style.
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I

Anna Sergeevna knew not whether to wear the beret again this day, as the dust and sun of Yalta were beginning to change its color.  She looked at herself in the mirror that so many had peered in before and would thereafter.  It had been hers for the past five days.  What all had this mirror seen?  What lovers had found themselves stealing a glance at the Other in this room; not at a person, but a reflection mediated by polished glass, preventing them from seeing the truest contours of human flesh.  Anna scolded herself.  Now was not the time for such sentimentalities.  She decided to wear the beret.  Putting it on reminded her of her husband’s feeblest attempts to cover his own shiny zenith that burned so easily.  He was so self-conscious about it.  But why?  Not for what she may think about it–that much was certain.  It was for all of them–all those that could provide medals, accolades, and honor.  She realized then that this was the purpose behind his fortuitous side-whiskers: compensation.  She believed his lack of hair made him distinguished-looking in certain lights; at certain, ephemeral moments where he may have said the right thing or noticed a different shade of rouge she had picked up on a whim.  He was a lackey.  These moments were few.
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This is an original fiction piece written for StoryADay September. Read more & follow here.
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It’s not until you’re laying there that you realize how different reality is from the movies–especially in this case.

That moment exposes the assumptions you had about how this sort of thing would happen, and the various details and nuances of those assumptions are really affected by the cultural influences you take in.

The biggest difference? For me, at least, it was the sound. Or rather, to be more specific, the lack of it.

Music. Squeal. Cursing. Bending of metal. Breaking of glass. Breaking of branches. Landing of body.

And then, silence.
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