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Rain Falls Fast: a Short Fiction

For National Short Story Month (like last year), I’m experimenting with writing more short stories.

The prompt from Dylan Drakes’ randomizer is an affectionate yet reckless street performer having to prove her innocence in a dark fantasy/sci-fi mind transfer short story.

Features: dark, potentially triggering imagery.

The way the rain came down wasn’t good for business. Nobody has got time for buskers when it’s pouring down rain. They’re busy shielding themselves from the tears from the sky, and it’s so damn loud. I wish I could just blame the noise on the howl of the wind, the tip-tap of rain on awnings, but it’s all those thoughts.

People’s thoughts get louder – and sadder – on rainy days. Folks wanting to jump from bridges. Take too many pills. It’s enough to break your heart. I’d switch places with them if they’d let me. Bury me six feet under instead.

I never cared about something as petty as my life. But the rain falls fast. Their thoughts loud. And I want to mother them. Protect them from the darkness in their minds.

So, one by one, I guided them out of the rain, out of the city, to a tent. The circus. Where there are clowns and a ringmaster and fire breathers and elephants. Tigers doing tricks. Fortune tellers with crystal balls.

One called me “selfish” as I led the people with the loud thoughts to the circus. “Self-centered” like an accusation. And it stung me like a wasp sting.

“You’re not as sweet as you seem,” a performer hissed.

An eyebrow arched, I had a million questions. I must have allowed him into my mind and vice versa because the words continued there.

Prove this is altruistic, he demanded, prove you’re not doing this just to quiet the streets. To silence your mind.

I wanted a little peace, it was true. Their thoughts interrupted my ability to play my violin. But I genuinely cared. I wanted what was best. Tell me you are innocent. That this is for the people and not for you, Clare.

His wheedling stuck with me. He wasn’t wrong. I was selfish. I always have been. Taking them to the circus wasn’t just charity. It was to quiet my mind. To still the streets. To leave behind the voices.

And yet, one persistent, reckless voice remained, telling me the streets would be so much quieter without a busker, a violinist, named Clare.

I never cared about something as petty as my life. But the rain falls fast. My thoughts loud.

Isabelle Palerma

A Peek into a Sleepless City

Sleeping is illegal. Dreaming is monetized. They said it was for our safety. But it wasn’t.

The city never sleeps. Why should it…?

The Regime is watching. Always watching…

Interested in more?

Wait until the official blurb comes out.

Maybe you’ll just have to stay awake to find out. 😉

Isabelle Palerma

Heartbreakers: a Short Fiction

“A love story told backwards, starting from the ending.”

trigger warning: begins with a vague implication of suicide.

I don’t know how to tell you this, and maybe it’s better I don’t.

And I know one day, I’d break your heart.

Maybe it’s better I don’t.

I’m lying in a hospital bed, a mixture of medicine and whiskey in my stomach. I’m dying, Fiona.

I used to write you letters after you left me. They weren’t exactly love letters. Well, I’m not sure you ever read them, but they were begging for forgiveness, Fiona. I know I messed up along the way. I see where I screwed up now.

I sent you little photographs I took. I don’t know if you ever looked at them, Fiona, but I took small photos. Random things here & there. Pictures I thought you’d like. The moon. A watch tower. Sometimes, I’d include things I’d find on walks. Bird feathers. Business cards floating around, then stomped on by passing cars.

Anyway. I thought about us a lot before I ended up here in the hospital.

About our story.

The way you slammed the door the last night we were together. The way the stars blinked as I tried to hide my tears when I told you to get out of my house. I watched you leave. You didn’t have a car or a bus pass, but you held your chin high and walked away.

I wonder where you walked to, but you never came back like I thought you would. We had fought one last time. Screamed one last time over some stupid thing. I accused you of cheating. You told me I was stupid and suspicious.

Fiona, you were right. I was stupid and suspicious.

You were too lovely to be mine.

I knew I couldn’t keep you. I was bound to destroy something so beautiful.

I remember the glint in your eye. The hurt look in your green eyes.

A part of me wanted to rush over, to beg forgiveness, but I barrelled on anyway like an idiot, accusing you.

It was just an accusation before I shouted.

But before the accusations, before the shouting, we were in bed together, it was nice. My breath was like cigarettes and whiskey. I hadn’t known it at the time. It was just us holding one another, watching some black-and-white film. Some classic movie you begged me to see. And when I turned to kiss you, you asked me to brush my teeth.

My feelings were too delicate, I guess.

I didn’t know the brutish combination of cigarettes and whiskey.

I could have just brushed them instead of turned into a monster.

But even before the film, there was a girl who loved a boy.

She held him near and whispered away his ghosts – the ones who troubled him like that of his former friends who didn’t understand him or his mother who told him nobody would love him.

And Fiona, I wanted to ask you to marry me one day. I truly did.

And we went out on dates. I took you out and showed you off. You with your lustrous dark hair and beautiful eyes like jade. You whose hair I brushed at bedtime, after making love.

It was backwards and all out of order. I fell in love with you the moment I saw you, but I couldn’t because you were too lovely and I knew one day, you’d break my heart.

Isabelle Palerma

An Excerpt from my WIP

Hey y’all,

Long time no updates. So, while I’m still working on GP, I’m also working on a few other projects – a chapbook and a couple of novels. One is a dark fantasy novel; the other of them is dystopian sci-fi.

I thought some of you might be interested in seeing an excerpt from it while I continue to work on my other projects.

I need to see you. It’s urgent. The words shimmer before dissolving into an array of scintillating pixels and vanish from my screen. As I yank my starched lab coat off and tug my scuffed-up leather jacket on, my thoughts splinter between the contents of the message and its sender, my best friend, Nahia Winters.

Meet at my place? I text back, scrunching up my eyebrows.

As the laboratory doors slide open, the chatter of my colleagues escalates, echoing against the linoleum. Most of them are headed to a downtown zone-out café. Some hipster joint with the hottest headsets, most up-to-date Dream technology, and most recently uploaded dreams.

After a fourteen-hour stint at the lab, I don’t blame them, but the word “urgent” buzzes through my veins like a stimulant. It makes the concept of rest impossible. Anyway, Nahia’s a Tier-1A Dreamer. Worst case scenario, she can lend me a headset and upload a dream for me.

“You coming, Simon?” Jonathan calls, glancing over his shoulder at me.

I wave him on, flashing him a small but genuine smile. “Got some personal stuff I’m dealing with,” I admit, “but thanks, anyway, bro.”

He nods. “Sure thing.”

I watch as he catches up to the rest of the group, grateful he doesn’t ask any follow-up questions.

A ping as Nahia reply comes through. I’m already there. Our texts glimmer: individual letters become dancing dots, then disappear before sending me back to my home screen. All evidence of our exchange disintegrates rapidly. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I shake my head in disbelief. “How does she have access to my phone?” I mutter, rolling my eyes. She’s the Dreamer, and I’m the scientist, and I can’t operate basic tech like she does.

Shit. It occurs to me. Nahia might be in trouble. I sprint out of the sterile space and hurry to the Aeroline station. Once I am at the station, I gnaw on my lower lip, contemplating how to ask Nahia if she’s in trouble without rousing suspicion of the monitors.

I loathe the monitors. They’re the ones who capture the outspoken ones.

I’m certain they’ll capture everyone who speaks out against the Regime one of these days – the way they surveil our phones and emails and now, how they check the Dreamers’ dream content for any signs of unrest or revolutionary thought.

Focus, Simon, I remind myself as I slide into the seat and flash my pass at the scanner. My heart begins to hammer in my chest as it dawns on me that Nahia’s probably already in trouble with the monitors if she’s showing up at my apartment during peak Dreamer hours. So, as we begin our ascent through the clouds, I start scheming.

Interested in reading more? Let me know! I’m always looking for more readers.

Isabelle Palerma

Lost: a Short Fiction

Take a line from one of your favorite songs and make it your first sentence. (July 28, 2025, First Line Prompt.)

“i think i saw you in my sleep, darling. i think i saw you in my dreams.” (“such small hands”, la dispute.)

I think I saw you in my sleep, darling. I think I saw you in my dreams. I’ve been having the same series of dreams for months now, and it’s always the same girl in them, holding the same rabbit, whispering words in a language I don’t understand.

It’s haunting me how I see so much that I don’t comprehend, but it’s you. I think it’s you I saw in my sleep. You hold a rabbit in your arms and stare at me, your eyes dead and cold, always whispering words I cannot fathom.

But I want to.

I want to understand. Because it’s been months of these dreams, your crooked smile, my broken heart. I feel like I’m failing you somehow because you keep reappearing like a resurrection, and yet, every time, I don’t understand. I can’t understand.

You must know how stupid it makes me feel to see you each time and gaze into your hollow, empty eyes and not be able to make out a single syllable.

Every night, I see you in my dreams until one night, you’re there, and you whisper a word I recognize, “Lost,” you utter.

And before I can even begin to formulate my reply, I feel my stomach sink and I hurtle backwards into my bed and awaken.

The next night, when I dream you, your eyes glisten and don’t look so empty, and instead of speaking a foreign language, you simply say the same word again and again until it seems meaningless practically, “Lost. Lost. Lost. Lost. Lost.” Like a litany. Like a prayer.

I want to help you. Your rabbit has run away, and I ask you if your rabbit is lost. You shake your head violently.

“Lost,” you whisper again.

Darling, I want to know what is lost, but I’m starting to think it might be you.

Isabelle Palerma

This short story is entirely my own content – no A.I. used to create this.