fiction

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.

Spirits Follow Me Here, Too: a Short Fiction (Part IV)

May is National Short Story Month, and in honor of National Short Story Month, I decided to write a short story combining my interest in tarot and witchcraft with fiction. I hope you enjoy the result. Please be sure to check out Part I here, Part II here, and Part III here.

This next portion might be potentially triggering to some readers, so, if you are sensitive to intimate partner violence or domestic violence, please read with caution or don’t read at all. And remember, I do have resources available if you need helplines.

But falling in love was like falling into a pool – you never know its depths until you’re already submerged. I was drowning, and I couldn’t even raise my hands above my head to show I needed someone to save me.

Yet something so beautiful as falling became as hideous as looking a monster in the eye day after day, night after night. When she first swung at me, I think it struck us both by surprise. The look on her face was pure shock, and when I cried, she begged me to forgive her.

I didn’t know how to form words. How do you say anything when you’re choking on the water from drowning? How do you speak when you’re submerged?

This was no longer beauty like stained glass, but broken like the shards of glass I had swept up all my life. This was the impossible, ugly thing I told myself I never wanted in the first place but here I was, a broom in my hand, sweeping up her sins and my mistakes.

I wanted to forgive Vee, but another part of me wanted to run. Nothing about it made sense. I was entangled in this relationship, but I felt as though I needed to escape it before things deepened darker than a bruise.

It could be beautiful.

But it could be so ugly, too.

And even here the spirits followed me, listening to the tears fall. Listening to me choke on my own failings and watched me disentangle myself from the girl I thought I loved.

Was this avenue worth pursuing or should I escape before I submerge completely?

Isabelle Palerma

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

The Golden Compass: a Short Fiction

For National Short Story Month, I’m experimenting with writing more short stories.

Now, I’ve recently discovered that the United States’ current administration is slashing funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and continuing to ban more books by BIPOC authors as well as LGBTQIA+ authors.

As a result, I thought it’d be important to write short stories, based on titles alone, prompted by books that have been banned. I’m choosing to write based on fiction I haven’t read so as not to encourage the story I write.

This one is called “The Golden Compass” by Philip Pullman.

The Golden Compass

‘Whenever you are lost,” Papa whispered to me, his voice near vanishing in the noise that has surrounded us, “you can find me using this.”

“Using what?” I asked in reply, but before he could answer, I felt the heaviness in my pocket as he had slipped something into it.

I almost spoke, but he hushed me. I almost took out what he had suggested to find him with, reaching into my pocket, but he stopped me. “Not yet,” he said, his tone stern.

And with that, it was as though the northern winds had uprooted him and pulled him from my very side. The chatter, too, that had surrounded us faded to a faint murmur.

I pulled the gift – if you could call it that – from my pocket. A golden compass.

Papa appeared. “Lana, I haven’t even been gone three days yet, and you’re already summoning me?” he scolded me.

How had three days already passed?

As though reading my mind, Papa explained, “Time moves differently when we lose someone. When they die, grief alters the way time flows. Sometimes, days blur together into weeks. Other times, hours crawl agonizingly slow. It can all rush together because there’s no one around to remind you.”

It was weird, but that hit deeper than I expected. Grief had punched a hole in my chest, and I didn’t even know that I had lost him completely. I figured he was just another state away, maybe on another trip.

But dead? Gone? I didn’t know how to process this. And all the noise was back too.

“Were you feeling lost, Lana?” Papa asked, his voice feeble yet familiar. It was as though he were speaking directly into my ear.

“I am now,” I admitted, tears streaming down my face. “I didn’t know you died.”

“Oh, my sweet, death only kills my body. My spirit is in this compass, and that’s the good part. Don’t lose this compass, and you’ll always have me.”

I nodded but still felt disoriented, even though the compass pointed in the direction of home.

Isabelle Palerma

According to several sources, including Reactor magazine, The Golden Compass was banned in several places because of its promotion of atheism and attacks against Christianity.

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

The Pigman: a Short Fiction

For National Short Story Month, I’m experimenting with writing more short stories.

This second one is called “The Pigman” by Paul Zindel.

The Pigman

Called me “The Pigman” since I worked with pigs. Told me I stank like one too. Always kept away from people. They wanted nothing to do with me anyhow. Only went into town to do my shopping but noticed sometimes, the shopgirl looking at me extra-long. I figured it was because of the stink.

I wanted to say sorry. She looked sweet. The type you’d figure for an angel. The kind of girl you didn’t expect to see working at a grocery store but want to take out to dinner.

But I was just The Pigman. What’d I know about women?

I had a wife once.

She left me. Not because of the pigs. She understood what it meant to be a farmer’s wife. Naw, she got bored of me. Told me I didn’t have a personality anymore. That it must have dried up when our boy Charlie died.

Ain’t that what happens to folks though? When someone dies, a part of you just goes with them?

Anyway, this shopgirl had sad eyes. She looked like maybe she’d understand some things. Maybe she’d be okay with quiet. Maybe we’d listen to music and hold hands.

I’m not just The Pigman, after all.

“Hey,” I said to her one afternoon after she bundled all my groceries together into a sack. She looked at me with those sad, green eyes. She looked like she wanted to say something back.

“Yeah?” she said finally, her voice soft.

“What do you do for fun?” I asked, keeping my voice low. Felt like maybe I could spook her. I didn’t think I smelled bad. Got a shower before I left the house, but maybe there’s a lingering stink. Pigs are clean animals though, you know, unlike what folks think.

Her lips twisted up into a smile. “I like to dance,” she admitted, “but usually, my feet are sore after work, so sometimes, I just like to listen to music.”

“Maybe,” I said, then hesitated. I gnawed the corner of my cheek. “Maybe we could listen to music together some time. I’ve got a good little setup. Nothing too fancy, but some keen speakers. A decent sound system.”

“Yeah?” she answered back. “I think I’d like that.”

I nodded. “Great. Stop by my farm. It’s the only one on top of the old hill. You’ll find your way.”

“Hey,” she called as I was leaving, “what should I call you?”

I prayed she wouldn’t call me Pigman – not to my face or behind my back.

“How about my name?” I suggested. “It’s been years since anybody’s had the decency to do that.”

Her smile widened. “Of course I’d call you by your name. I’m asking what your name is, you old goose.”

It was my turn to smile. Maybe she didn’t know me as The Pigman. Maybe she just didn’t know what to call me. “Jonathan,” I told her, “call me Jonathan.”

“And I’m Penelope.”

Jonathan and Penelope.

I could get used to the sound of that.

Isabelle Palerma

According to Kaitlin Oglesby, The Pigman is banned in places like Texas and Missouri because of alcohol use and partying, scenes involving abusive family and manipulation, and due to language.

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

A Seraphic Metamorphosis: a Short Fiction (Part II)

You take a deep breath, not sure whether to believe this man named Micah, but what choice do you have? You cannot stay locked in his bathroom with a pair of nail clippers forever.

As you trudge out of the bathroom, he offers you a weak smile – not the generous grin from before. “You’re not a mutant,” he says, as if that’s going to make you feel any better.

“Gee, thanks,” you mutter.

He shrugs. “I’m trying here.”

That’s when it hits you with all of the strength of a bullet train. Yes, you might have slept with Micah last night, but you’re in a relationship.

Your girlfriend won’t be mad. She probably is sleeping with someone else too, but she will be jealous you slept on silk sheets and the guy you slept with has a bidet, which probably cost more than your rent and monthly utility bill.

Anyway. You should probably hurry back to Shiloh, but right now, you have more questions than answers, and he’s out of bed and making eggs that smell to die for.

Finally, you say, “What do you mean you know all about the feathers on my finger?”

He turns to you, flipping the omelet. “I mean,” he says in a pedantic tone, “I know what they are. Why they showed up.”

You want to find out more. Your mouth is watering. You’re hungry. You’re not sure if you’re hungry for details or for the cheddar-and-ham omelet he is preparing like a three-star Michelin star chef. But before he can elaborate, your phone begins to blare your familiar melody, “A Seraphic Metamorphosis”, by your favorite band, Compensated Endeavor. He grins and grabs you by the waist, grinding against you.

You smile, the tiny wings on your pinkie fluttering. Sheepishly, you jam your hand against the skin of your hip, wishing you were dressed. “It’s my ring tone,” you mumble, “I better answer that.”

Shiloh’s voice floods your ear, breathless and frightened and small, “Hey,” she says, “it’s your mom. Something with her heart.”

You listen to her breathing and can hear your own heart whooshing in your ear. This is not good. You look down at your hand – the flittering feathers have vanished.

Like they were never there at all.

… to be continued.

Isabelle Palerma

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