Tag: Stories in Monochrome

The Message That Hadn’t Been Sent Yet

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Stories in Monochrome

The storm started before sundown and never bothered to stop. Snow slid sideways across the window like the world was being erased one line at a time. Out here, the weather didn’t arrive politely. It came the way bad news comes — sudden, cold, and without asking if you were ready.

I had been alone in the station since noon.

Most days were like that.
Just me, the wires, and whatever passed through them.

People think telegraph work is exciting because messages travel fast. Truth is, the faster the message moves, the less it has to do with you. You just sit there, tapping out words that belong to other people, lives that never once stop to wonder who carried their news across the miles.

I used to imagine the wires as tethers stretched across the country.
Thin lines tying one lonely place to another.

After a few winters out here, you stop feeling tethered.
You start feeling like the knot nobody checks anymore.

The lamp hissed beside me, throwing a weak circle of light across the desk. The rest of the room sat in shadow, the corners dark enough to swallow a man whole if he leaned back too far. The stove had gone low, and I hadn’t bothered to feed it. Coal was for nights when someone might come through.

No one was coming through tonight.

The key clicked once under my fingers, just to make sure the line was still alive. A habit more than anything. When the storm got bad, the wires sometimes went quiet, and the silence could make a man start hearing things he shouldn’t.

Click.

Nothing back.

Good.

I reached for the paper roll and fed it through the register, listening to the small mechanical chatter that meant the machine still remembered its job, even if nobody else did.

For a while, that was all there was.

Wind.
Lamp.
The soft tick of metal.

Then the register started moving.

Not fast. Not urgent. Just steady.

I frowned and leaned closer, watching the strip of paper curl out across the desk, the punched dots marching along in neat little lines.

No call sign first.

No operator on the line.

Just the message.

I waited for the signal to stop, thinking maybe some fool down the line had bumped his key. It happened sometimes when the weather got bad. Loose hands, tired eyes, a man tapping nonsense because he didn’t feel like going home to whatever waited there.

But the tapping didn’t sound like nonsense.

It sounded careful.

Deliberate.

I pulled the tape free and held it closer to the lamp, squinting at the pattern, letting my fingers run along the holes the way a blind man reads a page.

It took a minute for the words to settle in my head.

STATION 14 WILL CLOSE AFTER FIRE
NO SURVIVORS INSIDE
DO NOT REMAIN

My first thought wasn’t ghosts.

It was the railroad.

Everything out here came down to the railroad.
If the line held, the town held.
If the line broke, the town dried up like a creek in August.

I’d seen it before.

Not here, but back east, when I was still green enough to think grown men knew what they were doing. The summer of the strike, when the yards filled with shouting and smoke and men who hadn’t been paid in weeks. Engines sitting cold on the tracks while soldiers stood guard like the trains were prisoners instead of iron.

We barely held the line together then.

Some towns never did.

I rubbed my thumb along the edge of the tape, feeling the thin paper curl under my hand.

Ten years, the message said.

Ten years from now.

Could the railroad survive another hit like that?

Could this place?

I looked around the station, at the stove, the desk, the little clock the company sent when they built the line through here. Nothing fancy. Nothing worth much to anyone but the men who worked it.

This job was the first thing I’d ever done that didn’t belong to my father.

He’d sent me west with two shirts, a watch that didn’t keep proper time, and a letter of introduction that opened just enough doors to get me out of his house. Said a man ought to learn how to stand on his own legs where nobody knew his name.

Most folks out here still didn’t take me serious.

To them I was the boy shipped west by a railroad man with friends in the company office, another soft-handed son sent out where nobody cared if he failed.

Truth was, I didn’t know if I believed in myself either, not at first.

But the wires made sense.

Dots.
Lines.
Signals that meant the same thing no matter who sent them.

Out here, the machine didn’t care whose son I was.

It only cared if I got the message right.

And this one…

This one I wished I hadn’t.

STATION 14 WILL CLOSE AFTER FIRE
NO SURVIVORS INSIDE
DO NOT REMAIN

I wanted to tell someone.

Supervisor.
Dispatcher.
Anybody.

But the storm had the line half dead already, and even if I got through, what would I say?

A message from ten years ahead says the railroad’s going to fall apart?

Out here in the middle of nowhere, a man could shout the truth into the wires all night long and still sound like a fool on the other end.

The lamp flickered, and the shadows shifted across the wall like the room itself wasn’t sure it believed me either.

Then the tape started moving again.

Slow.

Steady.

No sound from the key this time.

Just the paper sliding forward like something inside the machine had decided it wasn’t finished talking.

I didn’t touch it right away.

Didn’t breathe either.

When the strip finally stopped, I leaned in and pulled it free, holding it up where the lamp could reach it.

This time the message was shorter.

Only one line.

The holes looked clean, sharp, like they’d been punched by a careful hand.

I read it once.

Then again.

Then I looked at the clock on the wall.

January 14.

I lowered my eyes back to the tape.

MESSAGE SENT JANUARY 14
TEN YEARS FROM NOW

The wind hit the side of the station hard enough to rattle the glass, and for a second I thought the whole place might tear loose from the ground and go sliding off into the dark.

I could leave.

The thought came quick.

Just put on my coat.
Walk out.
Let the station sit empty.

Nobody would know until morning.

Nobody would care until later.

I looked at the key.

Looked at the stove.

Looked at the lamp burning low beside the window where the snow kept falling the same way it had all night.

I sat back down.

Fed the tape through again.

Set my fingers on the key.

If the message was coming from ten years ahead, then maybe the line still ran both ways.

Maybe the wires didn’t care what year it was.

My hand hovered before I pressed the lever.

STATION 14 RECEIVED
WHO SENT THIS
WHAT HAPPENS

The machine sat quiet.

The wind howled.

The lamp flickered low enough to make the shadows crawl.

For a moment I thought that was the end of it.

Then the register started again.

Not fast.

Not slow.

Just steady.

I watched the tape roll out across the desk, my hands flat against the wood, afraid if I moved the whole thing might stop.

When it finished, I didn’t want to read it.

But a man alone in a place like this doesn’t get the luxury of not knowing.

I picked up the strip.

Held it to the light.

YOU SENT IT

The lamp sputtered once, then steadied.

Outside, the wires kept singing in the storm, stretched tight across the miles, holding one lonely station to another, same as always.

Only now I couldn’t tell if they were keeping me tethered to the world…

or keeping something else from letting go.

The Night Watches Back

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Rain slid down the café window in thin silver lines.

Inside, the lights were low and patient. Bottles stood behind the bar like quiet sentries. A cup of coffee cooled beside an untouched plate, the room carrying the faint smell of roasted beans, wet coats, and something fried hours ago.

Klaire stood near the glass holding the long wooden board used for slicing bread and meat. The worn wood rested against her hip like it belonged there. Thin knife lines crossed its surface, years of quiet work pressed deep into the grain.

Outside, the streetlights flickered.

The intermittent buzz from their tired wiring drifted through the rain. Moths circled the glowing globe of the nearest lamp, occasionally striking it as if they simply didn’t care what happened next.

Someone’s dogs barked in the distance.

Homes went dark one by one. Somewhere out there people were settling into beds, finishing conversations, turning off televisions.

I suppose it is like that somewhere in some town in the world.

It just doesn’t describe mine.

“The city never sleeps.”

Klaire had heard that phrase all her life. She never knew who said it first, but she knew it was true.

More happens in the night than anyone ever admits.

Young love blooming in the back seat of a borrowed car.
A waitress stepping outside for a cigarette, three pats and a wink away from paying her light bill.
A delivery truck driver staring at a flickering candle stuck into a blueberry muffin while wondering how forty-five years managed to pass him by.

Klaire had seen them all.

Not by name.

By posture.

You learn things when you work nights.

You learn who counts coins before ordering.

You learn who sits too long over a single cup of coffee.

You learn the shape loneliness makes in a person’s shoulders before they ever say a word.

Klaire had seen a woman cry quietly over a plate of eggs once, the tears slipping into the yolk before the fork ever touched it.

A man in a pressed suit once sat where the window light fell hardest, staring into his coffee like it owed him answers his expensive apartment never gave him.

And there was the father who came in every Thursday night, always ten days late on the rent, pretending the slice of pie was for someone waiting at home.

The night carried all of them.

Smoke-filled bars. Back alleys. Neon signs humming over people searching for relief from something they couldn’t quite name.

But pain is patient.

It waits.

And the night always knows where to find it.

Klaire shifted the board in her hands. Tonight it felt heavier than usual, as if the wood had absorbed the quiet mass of every story that had passed across the counter.

Her reflection watched her through the rain.

The glass turned her into two women.

One standing inside.

One trapped in the weather.

For a moment Klaire wondered which one was real.

Maybe the one in the glass was the version who had left this city years ago. The one who found a mate, moved somewhere warm, and forgot what neon light looked like through falling rain.

But life rarely follows the road we draw for it.

Klaire wiped the inside of the glass with her sleeve, though it made no difference. The rain outside didn’t care what she could see.

Somewhere down the street a siren wailed and faded into the dark.

Inside, the clock ticked.

Klaire stood there quietly, still holding the board meant for bread and meat, while the quiet mass of the city pressed against the glass.

Her reflection watched her through the rain.

Klaire didn’t wave.

After a moment, neither woman moved.

Thanks Di

The Quiet Between Storms

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Stories in Monochrome
Episode: The Quiet Between Storms

The rain didn’t knock. It pressed itself against the window like it had a right to be there.

She sat in the chair beside the glass, lace sleeves drinking in what little light the afternoon had left. The room was narrow, wood-paneled, holding the smell of old dust and colder days. Outside, the sky had folded in on itself—low, heavy, undecided. Inside, she folded her hands the same way.

There are people who perform their sadness.

She was not one of them.

Her grief was private, disciplined. Almost forensic. She examined it the way some people study fingerprints—turning it under the light, tracing its ridges, asking where it began and who it belonged to. She had once believed that love lived in the body like a pulse. Now she knew better. Love lives in the core. It survives there long after pride burns off and explanations dry up.

The rain sketched restless patterns on the glass. If you watched long enough, it looked like language. A secret code only the sky understood.

She wondered when she had become fluent in silence.

There had been a time—before the hospital corridors, before the unanswered calls—when she believed everything could be repaired with honesty. Say the right words. Hold the right hand. Pull the right emotional cord and the machinery of two hearts would start again.

But some wires don’t reconnect.

Some silences aren’t pauses. They are verdicts.

She shifted in the chair, lace tightening at her elbows. The skin at her wrist was pale where a bracelet used to sit. The absence felt louder than the metal ever had. Objects leave ghosts. So do people.

She wasn’t angry. That would have been easier.

Anger has movement. It gives you something to throw.

This was something else.

This was the long, slow realization that love can end without drama. No slammed doors. No shattered glass. Just a gradual thinning. A quieting. Two people drifting like separate drops of rain, sliding down the same pane, never quite touching again.

Her reflection hovered faintly in the window—half face, half shadow. She studied it the way she once studied him, searching for clues. Was there something she missed? A tremor in his voice? A look that lingered too long somewhere else? Or had the unraveling been mutual—two hands loosening their grip at the same time?

Outside, a car passed. Its tires hissed across wet pavement. The sound felt like a reminder: the world continues. Even when you want it to stall. Even when you sit perfectly still.

She closed her eyes.

There, beneath the ache, beneath the analysis and the restraint, something steady remained. Not hope exactly. Not bitterness either.

Just awareness.

She could survive this.

The rain softened. The sky lightened by a shade no one would notice unless they were watching carefully. She had become good at watching carefully.

Careful is what heartbreak teaches you.

She stood at last and placed her palm against the cool glass. For a moment, the chill startled her. Then it steadied her.

Not everything that breaks you is meant to destroy you.

Some things strip you back to your core so you can see what still beats.

And in the quiet between storms, that is enough.

Dirt You Don’t Swallow

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I learned early you don’t eat another man’s dirt.

Not in this city.

Not if you plan on walking it tomorrow.

The alley was narrow enough to hold a secret and long enough to bury one. Rain had passed through an hour ago, left the bricks sweating and the pavement slick like old oil. Streetlamp overhead flickered—weak pulse, tired heart. It painted my shadow tall and crooked against the wall.

She was halfway down the corridor of dark by then.

Didn’t look back.

Heels tapping soft. Measured. Like she’d rehearsed it.

I could’ve called her name. Could’ve let it echo off the brick, let it beg a little. Pride’s a funny thing—it talks loud when you’re alone and goes mute when it’s time to prove itself. I felt it rise in my throat anyway. Bitter. Hot.

I swallowed.

But not that.

There’s a difference between swallowing words and swallowing dirt. Words heal. Dirt settles in your lungs.

I’ve watched men eat it before. Watched them nod and grin while somebody else pressed their face into the ground. They tell themselves it’s strategy. Survival. Temporary.

But dirt multiplies.

You take one mouthful, and before long you’re chewing gravel every morning just to get out of bed. You forget what clean air tastes like.

I’ve done things I don’t talk about. Stood in rooms where the air felt heavy enough to bruise. Bent just enough to keep breathing. But I never knelt long enough for it to stick.

Tonight was close.

The man she chose—he’s got money, reach, hands that don’t shake. He wanted me to step aside quiet. Smile while he erased me. Shake his hand like we were gentlemen and not wolves circling the same scrap of warmth.

All it would’ve taken was one nod.

One concession.

One mouthful.

The light cut across my face and showed me what I’d look like if I agreed.

Smaller.

She slowed near the mouth of the alley. Maybe waiting. Maybe hoping I’d run. That I’d make it messy. Give her something dramatic to carry home.

I stayed where I was.

The city doesn’t reward dignity. It doesn’t hand out medals for restraint. It just keeps moving. Drains fill. Neon hums. Taxis slide past like nothing happened.

But I knew.

Better to go home alone, pride cracked but breathing, than let another man decide how deep you kneel.

She turned the corner.

Gone.

The alley felt wider after that. Or maybe emptier. Hard to tell the difference some nights.

I adjusted my hat. Smoothed the front of my coat. Let the rain-cool air settle into my chest. It stung. That was fine. Pain’s clean compared to shame.

You don’t eat another man’s dirt.

Not for love.

Not for leverage.

Not to stay in a story that isn’t yours anymore.

I stepped out of the alley and into the streetlight like a man who’d lost something.

But not himself.

Winter’s Slow Burn

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It’s always easiest in the winter.

The cold stiffens things. Numbs the soft tissue. Makes it easier to pack her away into that special box we build for the things that make us uncomfortable. Regret. Longing. Questions with no return address.

In the summer everything breathes too loud. In the winter, silence feels honest.

I sit here with damp cheeks.

The voices arrive like they always do.

“What kind of man are you? Pull yourself together.”

They mean well. Or they think they do. There’s always a script for men. Be steady. Be solid. Don’t leak.

It would be easier if I had done something obvious. Something unforgivable. Something I could circle in red ink and confess to. At least then the ending would have structure. A cause. A clean narrative.

But ambiguity lingers like breath in cold air.

For weeks I told myself she never really saw me. That I stood there open and she looked past me. It preserved something in me to believe that. Made the ache cleaner.

I move through the world now like a man slightly out of phase. Smiling when required. Laughing on cue. Telling jokes that land just well enough to pass inspection. I even went on a few dates, just to see if the machinery still worked.

“There are plenty of fish in the sea.”

“What you need is someone for the night.”

Advice dispensed like loose change.

Do people even believe the things that come out of their mouths? Or do they just speak because silence makes them nervous?

This isn’t about replacement. It’s about recognition.

I could sit here and say she never saw me.

Perhaps I never saw her.

If I’m honest — for once — it’s probably both.

There were moments I mistook her quiet for contentment. Moments she mistook my restraint for indifference. We were standing inches apart, translating each other poorly.

I thought love meant stability. She might have needed expansion. I thought silence meant peace. She might have heard distance.

No one storms out when this happens.

Things just cool.

An empty room doesn’t echo because someone smashed it. It echoes because no one is speaking inside it anymore.

Winter makes it easier to pretend that’s natural.

But maybe the slow burn was always there — not fire consuming us, but warmth fading a degree at a time until we were both shivering, pretending not to notice.

Maybe being seen begins with learning how to see.

And maybe next time, I’ll look closer.

Writer’s Workshop Prompt – 05312024

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CHALLENGE RESPONSE – FICTION

Here is my response to Writer’s Workshop

The sun through the 4th floor glass felt good, It was partly on my shoulder and partly on my face. It was good to the feel the warmth. I’d been so cold lately. Nothing, I did made me warm enough. Even when AC went out and it was 90’s degrees in the house, I was okay everyone was else, but they kept their complaints out of earshot. I appreciated that.

I’m sitting thinking about the one who got away. The one who was supposed to make things better and all that. I never knew if they really happened or was it something said we believed in publicly, but thought was a crock of shit privately. “The One” worked at Aunt Peg’s candy shop in the local mall. I must have spent hundreds of dollars on soft peppermint sticks that summer.

The neighborhood paperboy loved me. He made a dollar for every trip to the candy shop. You see, I never could muster up enough courage to actually go up to the counter and ask for the candy.

“Do you even like peppermint?” Maynard, the paperboy asked

I didn’t answer. I did my best to give him an evil leer. Although, I don’t think it was working very well.

“Look, if this is all about the girl? She’s right there. Just talk to her.” Maynard took his dollar and left. That was the last day of summer and I never said a word to the girl.

I still eat soft peppermint sticks when I can find them. Those puff balls seem to have cornered the market. Some marketing genius started this whole mess.

Yep, Aunt Peg’s soft peppermint sticks were the best!

Brothers in Arms

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PROSE – VETERAN’S DAY REFLECTION

I’ve said on this blog that we have two families in life. The one we are born with and the one we choose. This concept has always been more than words for me. It’s been the way I was raised, and I live still. Today, Veteran’s Day, I going to take a moment and showcase my brothers.

These yahoo’s on each side of me are veterans.

The above picture is one of the few times we were together. Our lives are hectic, but we made it happen that day. The gentleman flashing the peace sign is the oldest. He was in the Marine Corps and whipped my skinny butt into shape before Army basic training. On the opposite side, he was in the Army Signal Corps and taught me what it meant to be a member of the Signal Corps. Their guidance and toughness laid the cornerstone of who I am.

Brother
Brother
Brother
Cousin

Each of these men also served in the military; the top three were in the Navy, and my cousin was in the Army. These men helped me put the pieces back together again after my wife died. They reminded me who I was and what I stood for. I’m indebted to them for life.

As veterans, service and duty aren’t things we are born to; it’s what we learn. In many ways, we are the better for it. In others, that is a cost. Some more than others, but a cost, just the same. During the time we wore the uniform, we did our thang. Nothing or no one can take that away from us. It’s an honor to be among you all.

Happy Veteran’s Day