A curated collection of coming-of-age short stories to read.
By Jamie F. Bell
The air, sharp enough to cut glass, carried the muffled sound of traffic from three streets over. Here, in the narrow canyon between two brick warehouses, the only noise was the squeak of boots on packed snow and the shallow, steaming breaths of children trying to be invisible. A single string of malfunctioning Christmas lights, stapled to a fire escape, flickered a frantic, festive Morse code onto the ice-crusted brickwork.
By Jamie F. Bell
The sound wasn't just in their ears; it was in their teeth. The rhythmic slap-slap-slap of their winter boots on the polished linoleum floor of the Portage & Main concourse was a frantic drumbeat against the deep, indifferent hum of the city's circulation systems. Each gasp for air tasted of pine-scented floor cleaner and the metallic chill that clung to the grates in the walls, a flavour unique to the places built to connect other, better places.
By Jamie F. Bell
The cold was a physical presence, a thing that scraped at the lungs and turned the moisture of your breath into a cloud of tiny, instantly freezing knives. It was the kind of cold that made the city’s festive lights look brittle, like coloured glass about to shatter. Steam plumed from sewer grates along Portage Avenue, ghostly and slow in the windless dark, while the hollow chime of a distant bus announcement echoed off the icy facades of office towers.
By Jamie F. Bell
The cold doesn't just bite; it holds on. It seeps through the seams of Norman’s worn parka, a persistent ache in his bones that feels older than his sixteen years. Downtown Winnipeg is a monochrome photograph of itself, all grey slush and greyer buildings, but the Christmas lights strung across Portage Avenue try to argue otherwise, their colours bleeding weakly onto the salt-stained pavement.
By Jamie F. Bell
The old community hall felt the deep ache of winter, the kind that settled into the bones of the building itself. Outside, the world was a canvas of muted whites and greys, the snow piled high against the windows, blurring the edges of the vast, silent land. Inside, a low hum of an electric heater fought a losing battle against the cold, its warmth clinging only to the immediate vicinity of the worn wooden table where the children sat, their breath occasionally fogging the air as they leaned over the scattered papers. The afternoon light, thin and watery, struggled through the frosted panes, casting long, distorted shadows that danced with the slight tremors of the old building.
By Jamie F. Bell
A faint, electric hum from the fairy lights strung haphazardly across the living room window was the loudest thing in the house. Outside, the night pressed in, a heavy blanket of fresh snow muffling the usual city rumble, leaving only the distant, mournful cry of a single car horn. Inside, the air was thick with the ghost of pine needles and burnt sugar, a cloying sweetness that clung to the back of Leo's throat.
By Jamie F. Bell
The edit suite smelled of stale pizza, nervous sweat, and overheating processors. Three days until the summer showcase and we were deep in the render-cave, that special kind of hell where time warps and the only god is the blue progress bar. I was trying to colour-correct a short film made by a shy fourteen-year-old about his pet lizard, while beside me, Sam was locked in a silent, furious battle with his own timeline. His documentary. The ticking time bomb.
By Jamie F. Bell
The crow was exquisite. Thrown from dark, iron-rich clay and salt-glazed to a finish that shimmered like wet stone, it was a masterpiece of understated menace. It was also the third one to appear in as many weeks. Ben found this one nestled in the geraniums of the window box outside the Sea-Stone Pottery Co-op, its blank ceramic eyes staring directly at the front door. It was a message, and like the two before it, it was intended for the board.
By Jamie F. Bell
The smell should have been calming: salt from the nearby inlet, damp cedar from the rainforest pressing in on all sides, and the faint, dusty scent of the old rehearsal hall. But what Siobhan smelled was malice. It clung to the air like the coastal fog. The centrepiece for the final performance, a delicate cascade of hand-blown glass spheres meant to represent a constellation, lay in a glittering, razor-sharp pile on the sprung floor. It wasn’t just broken. It was annihilated.
By Jamie F. Bell
The heat coming off the pavement in the alley was a physical blow. It was only ten in the morning, but Montreal’s summer had decided to dispense with pleasantries. The air, thick enough to chew, smelled of hot asphalt, ozone, and something else… something like wilting flowers and ozone. That was the mural. That was the problem. It covered the entire side of a brick warehouse, and from a distance, it looked fine. Up close, you could see the sickness.
By Jamie F. Bell
The air in Priya’s office was a tangible thing, thick with recycled oxygen, the scent of ozone from the server farm two floors below, and the oppressive humidity of a Toronto July that had long ago forgotten what a temperate summer felt like. Outside her triple-paned window, the city shimmered under a perpetual ochre haze, the CN Tower a barely-visible spike piercing a soupy sky. The only sound was the hum of the building’s life support and the tinny, delayed voice of Mr. Hesh arguing with her from a boardroom in orbital low-grav.
By Jamie F. Bell
The Haddington Park, known simply as 'the Ravine,' stretches under a heavy, grey Winnipeg sky. Snow, fresh and deep, muffles all sound, leaving the skeletal trees and rusted playground equipment in stark, cold relief. The air bites with a crisp, dry chill, and the only movement comes from a young man, bundled against the elements, and his white-muzzled Labrador.
By Jamie F. Bell
The wind, a raw edge against the skin, swept through Central Park, carrying with it the faint scent of woodsmoke and a crystalline silence. Fresh snow, too fine to hold a print for long, dusted the skeletal branches of elm trees and settled in drifts around the iron benches. The late afternoon light, a pale, anemic thing, struggled to push through the low, bruised sky, casting long, indistinct shadows that stretched across the frozen pathways. It was the kind of cold that seemed to seep into the bones, but also sharpened the senses, making every crunch of ice underfoot a declarative statement.
By Jamie F. Bell
The air on Xylos carried a metallic tang, like old batteries and ozone. A sky the color of bruised plums stretched overhead, fissured with lines of pulsing green light that seemed to mend and break anew. Below, the city sprawled, a landscape of polished obsidian and structures that defied terrestrial geometry, leaning into the perpetually dim light. This was not a place built for ease, but for a purpose Joey was only beginning to grasp, and he was quite possibly the only one who truly didn’t belong.
By Leaf Richards
A dilated, rain-slicked afternoon inside a dilapidated greenhouse where Simon and Jessie have taken shelter. The air smells of wet concrete, tomato vines, and teenage anxiety.
By Jamie F. Bell
Inside the humid, rain-battered school greenhouse, Jack confronts Sammie over a perceived betrayal involving a private sketchbook.
By Eva Suluk
Nighttime at an abandoned limestone quarry. The ground is slick with spring mud and oil. A large bonfire burns near the water's edge, casting long, erratic shadows against the rock walls. The air smells of burning plastic, wet earth, and gasoline.
By Jamie F. Bell
On a deserted, rain-slicked shortcut, a truck breakdown forces two friends into a high-stakes emotional confrontation amidst the mud and cold.
By Eva Suluk
A rural highway in the middle of a whiteout snowstorm, transitioning to the claustrophobic interior of a pickup truck, and finally a heated mechanic's garage.
By Eva Suluk
Inside a wrecked truck on a remote logging road during a heavy snowstorm. The engine is dead, the temperature is dropping, and the silence is heavier than the snow.
By Tony Eetak
Tommy, a young musician, is mesmerized by an old acoustic guitar in the dusty display of a Winnipeg pawn shop. He holds it, feeling an instant connection, but can't afford it. His friend Ed arrives, and after witnessing Tommy's despair, makes an unexpected gesture that changes everything.
By Tony Eetak
The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and something indefinable—the last gasp of summer’s green, giving way to the sharp, metallic tang of encroaching autumn. The sun, a low, bruised orange orb, bled light across the rows of raspberry canes, their leaves now a dull, tired green, some already flecked with the rust of impending dormancy. Dust, disturbed by our boots, hung briefly, stubbornly, in the heavy air. The quiet was immense, broken only by the hum of late-season insects and the crunch of shale underfoot, each step an echo in the vast, indifferent landscape. Another season, another cycle, winding down. Another year of trying.