Write my story (Part 1)
A SciFi Short Story
Issue #440 Keith’s SciFi Musings December 17, 2023
I remember it was a Sunday. Sunday morning. I remember that because normally I would have picked up my mother to take her to church, only this Sunday she wasn’t feeling so good so she called to say she would stay home. I knew that meant she had to be feeling pretty damned sick (as you can tell right there, I’m not a church-goer), so I asked if she needed me to come by. You know, to bring her something, or just to be around. Like me, she lived alone, plus she only lived a few blocks away. She said she would be fine, she just needed to rest. I said OK, but figured I would drop by later to check in on her just the same.
After I hung up the phone (yes, I am 43 years old and still have a landline) I sat there on the side of the bed trying to decide what to do to pass the time until whenever it was that I would walk over to Mom’s. I looked around the room at all the mess; clothes scattered across the floor which hadn’t been swept in probably a few months, torn curtains. Fill in the blanks of how you would imagine it, and there you have it or close enough. But like I said, I lived alone so I figured what did it matter? No visitors, no girlfriend, so seriously; what did it matter? Who cared?
I was starting to contemplate my loneliness - as I usually did - as an excuse for whatever business I wasn’t taking care of; why my weight scale got frightened every time I got too close, why my dreadlocks seemed to frighten everyone else except for my mother, who pretended not to notice, why I called myself a writer, even though I hadn’t written anything except my signature in more than a decade.
And that’s when I noticed the book. Right beside me on the bed, as if it had been there all along. It was bound in what looked like purple leather ( I say looked like because somehow touching it wasn’t something I was prepared to do yet), with a strange embossed design on the front that looked like an angry face capturing the last enraged moments of something not quite human.
I shivered. And then it spoke…
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