Find humor in the bleakest situations, where wit and irreverence cut through serious themes. These stories offer a unique blend of laughter and uncomfortable truths.
By Jamie F. Bell
A group of cynical teenagers are in a dilapidated cyberpunk classroom with their eccentric professor, discussing the abstract concept of art in a technologically advanced, corporately controlled, and socially decaying city. Their academic discussion is suddenly interrupted by a violent corporate lockdown, hinting at a hidden secret.
By Jamie F. Bell
A quiet, damp gravel patch off a forgotten secondary highway, surrounded by the rotting grandeur of late autumn.
By Leaf Richards
The prairie wind howled its familiar, desolate tune against the snow-drifted panes of Aunt Cathy’s kitchen. Inside, the air hummed with the strained warmth of a wood stove and the sharp, almost metallic scent of a freshly plucked goose. Vicky stood before the vast, white bird, her breath still misting faintly as the last vestiges of outdoor cold clung to her. The scene was set for a Christmas meal, yet the silence felt heavier than usual, laden with the recent, raw absence that no amount of festive bustle could truly displace.
By Jamie F. Bell
The campus, normally a vibrant hub, felt muted under the perpetual autumn drizzle. Leaves, slick with rain, plastered themselves to the pavement, forming grotesque mosaics that reflected the city's neon pulse. An electric hum, a low thrum beneath the concrete, seemed to vibrate through the soles of Wally's well-worn boots, a constant reminder that this was not home, not really, not ever in the way a spruce forest hummed with wind, or snow muffled sound into a perfect, vast silence.
By Jamie F. Bell
The attic smelled of time. Not the musty, decaying smell of forgotten things, but the sharp, clean scent of old paper, cedar planks, and the faint, almost metallic tang of hot dust on the single bare bulb. A fan in the corner stirred the thick, soupy air, doing little more than rearrange the heat. Projected on the slanted ceiling, a grainy, silent image of their town’s main street flickered, a ghost from fifty years ago.
By Jamie F. Bell
The new subdivision was a ghost town of good intentions. Skeletons of half-built houses stood against the bruised purple sky, their windows empty sockets. The only finished things were the roads, perfect black ribbons of tarmac that went nowhere, and the electrical substation, a huge, caged beast crouched at the edge of it all, humming its single, monotonous note into the thick, humid air of the last night of August.
By Jamie F. Bell
The tide was on its way out, leaving the beach a mess of kelp and glistening stones. The late August sky over the Moray Firth was the colour of slate, and a hard wind whipped in from the sea, carrying the scent of salt and cold distances. It was a day for walking with your head down, shoulders hunched, and your thoughts turned inward.
By Jamie F. Bell
The roof of the old Monarch Mill was the best place in town to see the stars. Up here, the orange glow of the streetlights was muted, and the sky opened up, vast and pricked with light. The gritty surface of the tar paper was still warm from the day's heat, a pleasant contrast to the cooling late-August air that carried the faint, metallic scent of the nearby rail yard.
By Jamie F. Bell
The heat was a physical weight, the kind of southern Ontario humidity that made the air feel like wet wool. Below the lip of the quarry, the water was a deceptive sheet of turquoise, hiding its depth, its cold, and now, the thing they had just dragged from its gut. The effort had left them breathless, not from the exertion but from the sudden, sharp reality of the object sitting on the flat rock between them.
