short story

The Dinner: a Short Fiction

“Write a scene set around a table. Communicate each character’s emotions only through how they interact with food.” ( July 4, 2026, Molly Aitken.)

Ethan Porter spears his ribeye and carves into it, barely ripping his gaze from it as his daughter Frances speaks in hushed tones. Frances had returned home from college the night before. He crams a bite of the thick chunk of meat into his mouth, chewing noisily.

Frances swishes a bit of the dry Merlot in her mouth before dragging her fork around on the plate, moving around a few pieces of wilted spinach. She glances up. “Mother,” she says, her voice nearly a whisper. “I have something to tell you.”

Ethan gulps down his gigantic bite and belches. “Whatever you have to say, you can tell both of us.”

Frances’ eyes dart over to her father. Gingerly, she scrapes a tiny bite of potato and chews it. She nods, swallowing the morsel. “Of course.”

Her father continues to shovel more food into his mouth, chuckling to himself. As he loads his fork with meat, he urges Frances with a grunt, “Go on.”

Frances glances at her mother. The girl, lost in thought, drops a small spinach leaf onto her tongue and closes her eyes briefly.

Jessica, Frances’ mother, cuts her ribeye into cubes and when she is certain neither her daughter nor Ethan are paying attention, slips the steak pieces underneath the table to their hungry beagle, Juniper. As soon as she sees Ethan’s beady eyes flash in her direction, she snaps to attention and devours her ribeye with a forced smile.

Then, her wan grin intact, she turns to her daughter. “What is it, doll? You said you had something to tell us.”

Frances sighs and drops another bite of potatoes into her mouth. She chews them silently. She doesn’t speak.

Finally, Jessica breaks the quiet. “It’s not your…” She hesitates. Things like this are hard to bring up. Sensitive. “You’re not…” She pauses again. “Are you… are you in any kind of trouble?” Jessica finally asks, chewing her ribeye so carefully it looks as though she is chewing gum.

Frances’ mouth drops open. A bit of spinach clings to the gap between her front teeth. Had her fourteen-year-old brother Lucas been home, he would have either laughed at her or pointed it out.

Instead, the silence is spectacularly loud.

Finally, she dabs her mouth with a napkin and shakes her head. “No, Mother,” Frances responds firmly, “I’m not in trouble.”

“Then what is it?” Ethan booms, grabbing his bourbon glass and chugging it down as though it were cheap cola — not an expensive liquor.

“Is there any dessert?” Frances asks, glancing away.

“What the hell is going on?” Ethan demands, rising from his seat.

“Daddy, please.” Frances gazes up at him, a bit of ribeye still dangling from her dinner fork.

Jessica, who has been feeding Juniper scraps, glances over at her husband. His face is red and puffy with anger, and his hand is still clenched around the glass. He stabs the ribeye with his fork and bites into it, ripping into it with his teeth and glaring at his family.

“It’s nothing really,” Frances insists, “but I have switched majors.”

Ethan’s eyes bulge out, and his already ruddy face goes more scarlet. His cough is harsh and brash — more of a bark than a cough. When he finally stops coughing, Frances tells them, “I’m no longer studying political science. I’m majoring in Art History.”

Ethan’s head slumps down, the bite of ribeye dislodges and his eyes roll back in his head, watery, unfocused. He rasps out a few mumbled words, then tries again. On his second attempt, they’re more clear but still muddled.

“It doesn’t matter,” he chokes out, slouching forward, “you’ll always be a failure to me.” With one final gasping breath, he falls face-first into what’s left of his mangled steak and mashed potatoes.

Quietly, Jessica stands up and gets a cloth napkin to wipe the meal from her dead husband’s face.

The rest of the dinner is silent.

Isabelle Palerma

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

Pieces of You [Her]: a Short Fiction

Write a story based on a line from a movie. (June 28, 2025, Out of the Box Prompt.)

“The worst part is I’m starting to forget. I have to constantly make myself remember her. Every day.” (Ricardo Morales from “The Secret in their Eyes”.)

Still frame from the film “The Secret in their Eyes”.

How can you forget the person you love? How can I have looked you in the eye morning after morning, kissed you good night and now, your name is all but a cypher. A code I cannot break. Everything I do, and yet I cannot conjure up the memories of you as I once did.

You are my love. In my notepad – the one where I jot my most important information into – I write your name over and over until it looks like a meaningless scribble, scrawled letters without any context.

I’m too young for this forgetting disease. But they told me it’s not the brain plaque like some folks get. It’s something different, and, of course, the doctors have explained it to me in a thousand different ways. Each time, I think I understand and I write it down, but when I try to read it later, none of it makes sense.

I curl my hand into a fist and slam it onto my desk. It’s frustrating. I feel like a child, or worse, a lab rat.

Telling myself I’ll remember makes no difference. I always end up forgetting. Your name is just empty syllables. Even when I say it, it is ash in my mouth.

I want to curse, but all the words are the same. I curl my hand into a fist and slam it onto my desk. When I look into a mirror, I scarcely recognize the woman I have become. When I pass you in the hall, you are a stranger. Weeping, I beg you to remind me who you are, who we were.

So, you do.

You don’t just say our names, but you tell the history of us. The way you kiss me like the very act of kissing would braid our souls together. You tell me how though you always loved me, you never married me.

At this, I feel my brows furrow.

You explain, “I never wanted to steal your wild. You were a flower I did not want to pluck from the earth.”

I feel myself smile. I feel myself soften.

I wish I could let go because even in forgetting, I still find pieces of you I remember.

Often, you take me into your arms and dance with me, whisper about the scent of the seasons. Spring – honeysuckle. Summer – fresh vanilla. Fall – cinnamon and bon fires. Winter – impending snow storms. You say my scent is your favorite.

That I smell of autumn. I am a woman of cinnamon sticks and bon fires.

But I do not know why. I never wear perfume.

Yet you breathe me in as though I will save you. I begin to forget you.

One day, I struggle for breath. It’s hard to remember. These basic tasks. This remembering.

I gasp. The breath is fleeting. The memories are going, too. I want to say goodbye, good night, but I can’t even remember the breathing.

Eleven years is a long time. You’ll forgive me, won’t you, my love?

We watched the sun rise like a film strip from a movie, drinking Darjeeling tea, every morning. Every moment felt like magic. Her hair, like cinnamon and bon fires. Her skin left me breathless. Enchanted.

We whispered our secrets into the bottom of the kettle and into the shape of each other’s ears, like forming mists and watching them drift away. One morning, after telling my sins, I knotted her a dandelion ring, the only promise I ever knotted her. I asked forever.

Her eyes glittered with tears as she accepted.

It wasn’t marriage, but it was love. I thought when I said forever, I’d wake up with wrinkles etched in our faces. Eleven years is a long time.

She’s been gone, and graves are unyielding, unforgiving. The worst part is I’m starting to forget. I have to constantly make myself remember her.

Every day.

Yet she was the one with the forgetting disease.

My mind is slowing, wading through the molasses-pain of grief, yet the anguish is thick and blurs the details. I wish I could remember, but maybe forgetting is safer. Numbness is safe. There’s a reason surgeons anaesthetize.

But I pull out our photo books. I find the videos I made and listen to her voice. Her lilting accent like a song. Her eyes haunt me, begging me love, love, love, even in memories I scarcely remember.

Forgetting feels safer.

Was she always crying out for help? Was she always begging me for answers?

I wish I could let go because even in forgetting, I still find pieces of her I remember.

Isabelle Palerma

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

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

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

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

Dream

As you may or may not know, one novel I am currently revising is about a young woman whose dreams begin to interfere with reality, and another WIP (work-in-progress) is about a dystopian future where sleep is outlawed.

Here’s a dream I had a while ago. At the time, I thought it was more like a vision than a dream, and I had a professional dream interpreter interpret it for me. I thought some of you might be interested in reading the interpretation.

Life was a whirlwind: people deserting me, families I used to work with shaming me, friends leaving and spreading false rumors, etc. My family was angry with me because I owed them money.

Interpretation: This represents my anxiety, what I am feeling presently.

Everywhere I turned, people were mad. This part was semi-lucid because I kept thinking, “I’m in bed. I’m going to remember this and write it down. I’m going to learn from this. I’m in bed. I can feel the night breeze.”

I ran up the stairs through a class in a lecture hall.

Interpretation: The upward path I was on represents success.

At the top of the staircase, there was a figure I could not see. He apologized for putting me through trials. I told him that I nearly died. I told him that people rejected me and hurt me in many ways.

I told him that he was responsible for things being messed up.

Interpretation: This figure represents a scapegoat, a person who takes the blame for the uncertainty I have in letting others down.

The lecture hall represents the feeling of being “lectured” about morality.

Furthermore, my explanation to this figure about nearly dying and people rejecting me represents that I cannot handle the rejection he is placing on me.

This figure represents a lesson I must learn.

The figure smiled, emanating a powerful, white glow. It was so luminous that I could not see beyond him. I ran through the light and entered a cafeteria.

A girl I knew when I was younger stood in the doorway. She was a friend who later became an adversary. I told her what I told the unseen figure, “I withstood all my trials and found that I am my own hero. I did it all on my own, and I’m still standing. I discovered I can do it on my own.”

Interpretation: The cafeteria represents a place of nourishment and nurturing. I am trying to please this person who stands in the doorway, Judgment. She does not represent Good nor Bad. She is my Experiences. Because of her, I have taught myself to be cautious.

She tells me though I can do it on my own, I don’t have to, then hands me a stone.

She tells me I must polish the stone. She did not give me any further instructions on how to polish the stone, simply that I must polish it.

Interpretation: Her lesson is twofold. She is both advising me and giving me permission to reach out to others. Though she has failed me in the past, others will not necessarily follow suit.

The stone represents Truth. How does one polish a stone? By tumbling it and removing the dirt.

What remains is Truth.

She told me that I will know when my task is done. She told me, “You will know your destiny after you polish the stone.” She also told me, “You saved him from his own noose.”

I held the rock as she faded from sight. As she faded, I heard her say, “Put it under your tongue.”

Interpretation: I saved him by telling him he needed to heal himself. Holding the rock represents me holding my truth. She is telling me to keep my truth a secret.

I saw a beautiful man like no one I had ever seen before. He emanated a radiance, and I felt my heart swell.

“Not this one,” a voice said.

I kept walking and arrived at a staircase that sloped and curved beyond my line of vision.

I walked down the stairs to arrive at a landing. From the landing I could see, the stairs led to a hallway with a door.

I began to choke on the rock under my tongue. I nearly swallowed the stone (the Truth) that I held in my mouth.

Interpretation: The voice is that of Judgment. She has returned to warn me that the first man was not the right man. The sloping staircase represents an unclear path. It could lead to a great success or a terrible downfall. The hall leading to a door represents the unknown as well. The door could be an escape out or a prison within. I do not enter the doorway, so, whether it is an escape or a prison is unknown.

As the stone tumbled around my mouth, a man with dove-white skin, dimples, and an amazing jawline ran up the stairs to meet me. He watched me gag on the stone, wanting to assist me but unable to help.

I finally coughed and choked up the stone (the Truth). It had tumbled into a glimmering tiger’s eye. The man too transformed but became harder to see. He was still beautiful, just harder to see.

Interpretation: I walked down to meet him, yet he walked up to meet me, but we still met in the middle. By walking down to meet him, this represents I must lose something to meet him.

He held in his hands a noose, and around his neck, he wore a placard that said his name.

The voice said, “He is the one.”

Interpretation: He has removed the noose (a leash), and by doing so, the man is finally free. Judgment has again presented itself to say he is the one, but something has changed. He is free, and of his free accord, he ran up the stairs to meet me and underwent his own transformation.

The dream is saying I must hold my truth until it is polished and clean. When the time is right, I must choose between speaking it-freeing it from my mouth-or swallowing it.