Snow in April

The planetoid was my entrance to a better life. Its gravity was a fraction of Earth’s, and its temperature was always warm with a gentle breeze. I could run all day. “Did it exist? Or, was it only a dream I confused with a memory?” 

That was the last time I was happy.

The rushing plants powder her hand as the train gains speed. The village shrank behind, the first chapter of her life had ended. The future is wide open, a sense of wonder. She'll forever come back to this moment because it'll never get better than this for her.

The entrance to the other world was underwater, exactly where the scrolls said. 

“The aquatic life will build the bridge you seek for,” it read. The only requirement is to liberate myself from attachments in this world because they will impede my crossing.

A civilization existed before ours, they achieved big things, and then disappeared.

 The talking relics said that their last outpost was on the red planet, but they must have gone by now. We must find out for all feline kind. 

Our destiny is tied to theirs.

“It worked!” 

“It's a portal to heaven,” that we thought. “Democracy has failed us, the president is insane, and he's tiring apart our country; there is no future for our children here.” So, we sold everything and prepared to migrate. “The other side can't be worse.”

We blew the exit so nobody else crosses after us. A big mistake. 

Grandma Bella had a friend, Lucy, who had a bonny gray fur and the ability to see your fortune in her dreams.

Both used to have their teeth checked every year before the rib festival, where both competed to be the faster bone chewer in the county.

Their relationship grew tense, their differences couldn’t be reconciled. The end was unavoidable. 

“You know where the entrance to Paradise city is if you change your mind,” Adam said. 

Eve didn’t look back, “Put on some clothes Adam, you’d catch a cold.”

Norman is the last human on Earth. He has been living alone in that old house for years. Suddenly, someone knocks at the door.

“Have you seen those new images from space?” 

“Do you refer to those taken by the Webb telescope?” 

“Yes, those. Just see all those crosses! It makes me yearn to know God's creation.” 

“Those are made by light diffraction, grandpa.” “

And diffraction was made by God, my son.”

Miko yearns to help ownerless robots and other sentient beings. “It’s immoral to build sentient tools, we have a responsibility towards them, we cannot just toss them out!” 

No matter how many she helped today, tomorrow there will be more; sometimes it can be overwhelming.

The giant woman claimed the tower with her gorilla pet and fought back. 

Once the gorilla claimed a safe place, she let the airplanes finish her. 

Pictures of the event show evidence of tears rolling her chicks. She has been crying before falling.

In exchange for succeeding, his parents gave his first son to the devil. 

As many times before, Satan took away the boy and trained him in the fine arts of evil. 

The boy grew up to be a hedge fund manager, a trade that gives him the means to inflict pain legally.

If I could count the times she entertained me by hiding her true personality, the number would amount to the number of days since we met. 

Never show yourself as you are in front of strangers. Is that all what am I for her? How long shall I wait until she shows me her true self?

There is no original idea. 

I saw an old book about the life of the anonymous writer who was the real author Don Quijote. 

This ghostwriter wrote the story after learning of a real person who built his life around a cavalry story he read in a lost Moorish book. 

Eventually, I came across this very same idea in a Borges' story.

The story world is a lottery with a limited number of balls.

The scuba-diving tour gouged the prices after the underwater ruins were found. People flood the resort wanting to snatch a gold coin. To make things more interesting, that gal in the group gave the looks. I think she is onto something, I’ll find out tonight.

“Self destruction is an art,” my mother told me before she passed away. 

So, I began by joining a cult of like-minded sisters. Together, we explored fringe rituals and performed in public. 

My best act is jumping in the way of bike riders wearing a wicked smile.

Jack was seeking inspiration when a couple broke in, dancing with ferocity, with passion.

“This is it,” he thought, “A living couplet, a rhyme without rhythm, an ode to love in present tense, all that I write so eloquently about, and yet I haven’t experienced by myself.”

A door opened in the middle of the night, a new chance to make all wrongs right. 

The dark void and silence ended at once, and a white warm light was all around. 

I heard sounds, voices. 

The vanilla smell of milk, the heartbeat of my mother. 

I was born again.

The psychic police interrogation was not fun.

All they needed to get intel was an attractive gal and psychedelic gas, in that order. 

“I deny whatever you have on me,” I said. 

“Okay, open your mouth.” She wiggled her sticky strawberry tongue. Dread overwhelmed me. 

Sister Margaret's story began in a small town in the South West where she learned the fine arts of American self-defense at the tender age of seven. 

She is now a legend in Costa Rica where she runs an orphanage. Nobody dare to mess with her.

Every Sunday morning after mom left, dad sat alone at home and played his old records, remembering, or perhaps regretting. 

One day, I stepped in and said: “Can I listen, papa?” “Of course, sweet child o’ mine,” and then he carefully adjusted the headphones' volume for me.

I always wanted to test my fear limits by floating alone in the water in complete darkness, so I waited until midnight and entered the hotel pool alone. 

I was starting to get sleepy, soothed by the warm water, when I felt a tingling sensation in my foot. 

Unfortunately, I was not alone.

The incongruences of their mother ship configuration mesmerized me at first, but annoyed me after a while. I could not make any sense of the functionality of its parts, or whether its ‘parts’ were actually its crew. Perhaps the whole ship was a sentient machine.

The working area of the subject to spy is a filthy office where fast-food packaging and flies are predominant. Hence, we decided to deploy a cyber-fly to relay audio and video to our agents in the base station. 

Unfortunately, the subject’s cat neutralized our cyber-flies.

A shape-shifting labyrinth can easily fool you; it’s like trying to solve a problem having only ambivalent information. Hence, I decided to fool my captors by giving me access to an extra dimension: I will build a ladder, climb to the wall, and map my way out.

“Before leaving this world, I would like to leave an unwritten note for all of you, my dear lovers,” he paused, anticipating the effect. “I loved all of you, y'know, polyandry. I couldn't help it, life is short, so goodbye.” 

His funeral was interesting.

Earth is a polluted wasteland beyond recovery. We did it, and we're ashamed of it, I am. 

In time, we made contact with aliens out there, and when they came, they evacuated the cetacean and other sentient species, but not us. 

Humans were not worth being rescued, I got it.

After the big war, all the high aspirations of humanity vanished at once. The carnage that followed the fallout was barbaric, humanity had lost its path again. 

Only materfamilias had the instinct to preserve society, preparing us for the next renaissance, and subsequent downfall.

“The snacks you brought today were delicious,” Godzilla said with a rasping tone.

 “I know your taste for living creatures,” 

Momoko sounded distant. “Something’s wrong?” 

“Oh, it’s nothing. I don’t want to talk about it. I’ll only bring disharmony between us.”

A bit of cosmetic work and it’ll be ready. Human teens are security risks, parents trust them around; they can hear things; they are perfect moles.

“Replace the congressman's daughter, and wait for activation; it's simple. I must get rid of her body, though.”

Nobody could have known the job I do. A puppet show without puppets, travelling around, bringing kids together for the show, and feeding my master. For a while, it was good. 

But kids don’t go out as before, and the show must go on. “We must change the bait,” I said.

“I’m afraid your wife is experiencing a sort of cognitive dissonance, one we cannot treat with medications,” the colony’s doctor said. “She is somewhere else mentally. I'd recommend electroshock therapy right away.” 

“Okay doctor, make her come back to reality.”

Hidden in plain sight is a peculiar Buenos Aires’ place called 'Parque Chas,' where the mysterious morphs into the mundane. It’s believed that its topological incongruity entangles inter-reality gateways. 

“Parque Chas is the place where everything you ever lost exists.”

I found it on the floor, broken. Some sort of acid leaked from its rear, the fight must have been brutal. I took it home, cleaned it, and power it on. It started to self-repair so I left. 

The next day it was gone, as well as my car and my hunting rifle.

In the library, the small rodent raised the glass key it had carefully attached to the end of a long wooden club just when the Moon light was shining over the old book. An azure light shone, and the message that was written with invisible ink became readable.

Mnemosine apprentices must endure the scourge of the priestess of eternal focus, who will tie them up with silk ropes to then tickle their most sensitive body parts. 

“You must show an immutable attitude of stoicism before you can start your formal training.”

“There you are Malthusa, patroness of the lonely souls!” I crafted that insult just for her. 

“You know how to tease me, my love,” she used that bubbling voice I hate. 

“Your death is imminent. Rejoice!” 

That is so cheap as an insult that must be the truth.

The smoke of the wet wood fire was enough to ignite primal fears in the siblings. 

“They’ll find us tomorrow,” said Gretel to cheer up her brother, Hansel, unaware of the wendigo that had been following them for hours. “We’ll be fine.” 

Dinner was almost ready.

Feared by most, the Dông mushroom, which grows under the shade of trees in Vietnam, is known to produce madness in men, and to induce prophetic dreams in young girls. 

Cai Tran famously reported seeing levitating whales before a tsunami hit Sanriku, Japan, in 1896.

The rain never stopped. 

Isn't it ironic that in the last moments of my life, surrounded by strangers, I finally understand how often I neglected the supreme gift that was to be alive?

“Do not haunt me! I asked you before. We had an agreement!” she said in anger. “It's time to move on. You may not understand it, but I still have a life ahead. We'll meet again, in another realm,” and then added more calmly, “But not too soon I hope.”