Reddit Collection (Fresh-Short #9), DeYtH Banger [best novels to read for beginners TXT] 📗

corner of your eyes...

Or what your pet's staring at right now.

I guess we'll never know, will we?

 

 

We're Sorry Kiddo

 by  Exxile4000

 

 

 

I was twelve years old when my parents went on the trip to Texas and left me with my aunt. They were expected to be gone for three weeks and I had to deal with the boring house my aunt lived in. She had no video games, no dvds, and no TV! What did they expect me to do for three weeks while they were out living it up in Texas.

I remember how long those weeks dragged out. Every day seemed to last years as I waited for the three weeks to pass. Then on the third week my aunt told me that my parents wouldn't be coming back for another three weeks. She seemed upset when she said this and I figured it was because she was stuck watching me for an extra three weeks.

The next three weeks weren't as bad. I had met a friend down the street from my aunt's house and he had a PS2 that we would play all day. I was starting to enjoy myself. At the end of the next three weeks I was more than ready to see my parents. A month and a half without them was terrible and I missed my home.

My aunt walked outside as I headed out with my bags packed. I remember how upset I was when she told me that my parents had decided to go to New Mexico for three weeks now as well. I thought they had abandoned me and I started to get depressed.

The next three weeks were just as uneventful as the first three weeks. I had forgotten how my house looked and I had nearly forgotten the faces of my parents. I was ready to go home.

The night before my parents were supposed to be back I was woken up to a tap on my shoulder. I looked up and saw my mom and dad standing over the bed smiling at me. I was so happy to see them and I hopped out of my bed to hug them both.

"We can't stay for long buddy. We have somewhere else we need to go." I remember my dad saying to me.

We walked out to their car and they drove me around for a while. We didn't talk much but I was so happy to be with them even for a little while. When we finally arrived back at my aunt's house I was reluctant to let them leave. I ran into my room and came back with the camera my dad had bought me before they left and i asked them to take a picture with me so i wouldn't forget their faces. I sat the camera on the hood of the car and set the timer on it before hugging my parents and waiting for the flash. After that my dad wrote something on the back of the picture and handed it to me before he and my mom got in the car and drove off.

In the morning I woke up my aunt and told her that my mom and dad visited last night. She looked at me with so much sadness in her face that it worried me.

"You must have been dreaming." She said to me fighting back tears.

"Why?" I asked her.

She hesitated a moment before she answered me. Tears were now rolling down her cheeks. "Your parents died in a car crash on the way to Texas."

I laughed as she said this. There's no way it was a dream. Then I remembered the picture I had taken with my parents and I ran into my room to get it. I grabbed it without looking at it and ran into my aunt's room to show it to her.

"Look, this is proof they were here." I handed her the picture.

When she looked at the picture she screamed and dropped it. Her face turned as white as snow and she covered her mouth. I was confused so I picked up the picture and looked at it.

The picture showed me standing out front of my aunt's house hugging the mutilated figures of my parents. I couldn't believe what I was looking at. I dropped the picture on the floor as my hands went numb. The picture landed upside down and I read the words written on the back.

"We're sorry kiddo."

The Mask Shop

 by cutequeenpika

 

 

In every town is a mask shop. It is not on any map, nor is it listed in any address book. To find it, you must write your birth name and current address on a plain sheet of paper, put it in an envelope and leave it in your mailbox. It will be gone by the next morning, but do not worry – the envelope always finds its way back.

Exactly a week from the moment you mailed your name and address, you must open your mailbox. Inside will be the same envelope, perhaps a little worse for wear, but your paper will be gone. Instead, there will be another address inside, on a soft, powdery paper. This is where you will find the mask shop. You can go whenever you’d like, but you can only go once.

 

 

The shop itself is a nondescript building with darkened windows. Pedestrians walk by it without really noticing; in fact, you have probably passed it many times before. There is no ‘open’ sign: it is always open. When you enter, the first thing you will see will be the rows upon rows of lifelike masks. No two will be the same. Marvel over them, try them on if you would like. Take your time, but do not take any with you.

 

 

When you are ready to leave, walk back towards the door. An old man will be there to open it for you, holding a folded sheet of paper. If you do not have a mask, he will smile and hand you the paper, then open the door. If you do have a mask, he will keep the paper and perhaps smile a little wider than expected as he holds the door for you. No time will have passed while you were in the shop, and the door will be locked if you try to get back in.

Should you take a mask – which I do not recommend – an anonymous call will be placed to the police that night, giving your birth name and current address. They will find you on the floor of your house, your face sliced cleanly off.

 

 

And a new mask will be waiting on the shelves of the mask shop.

New: I did some investigating after seeing all of the responses.

My Grandfather Knew Why We Run from the Dark

 by  scheller

 

 

I always admired my grandfather’s courage. He had fought in the war on what we nowadays think of as the wrong side, but he had never been a believer in the cause. Sometimes a rifle is pressed in your hand and your choice is either to fire and worry about being shot from the front, or not to fire and be sure that you’ll be shot from behind.

He was young when he was drafted, barely 16. Before he left he gave his first kiss and a promise to a girl. She waited five years until the end of the war, surviving on just five or six letters that she kept as treasure.

The war ended but even the defeat was celebrated. Not openly, but in the hearts and eyes of the people. People never wage war, it is politicians that wage war. No soldier that ever stood in the line of a rifle believes that war is heroic, only those divorced from reality, those that sit in tidy offices, those dream of war.

Soldiers came home with thin bodies and bandaged limbs. They hugged their wives and women before they fell onto beds and relived the front in dreams that made them toss and turn and wake up from their own screams.

His girl watched with tears in her eyes while her sister and mother each welcomed their men home. She heard the men scream at night and each scream lodged a stone in her throat. She prayed that the man she had kissed did not have to scream and then she prayed that the man she had kissed was alive enough to scream. Then she prayed for forgiveness for her selfishness.

The other men, when they came, were often so thin that their women, when they welcomed them, were scared of hugging them too tightly for their spines or ribs might break. Especially those that came from the East were thin, the skin of their faces sunken into their cheeks.

Two years after the war a scarecrow knocked on her door. An old man, forty at least, the arms thin like bare bones, a hard and dirty beard that had long stopped growing for want of nutrition and his skin a gray with blue and black patches. His lips stretched into a black-toothed smile. She stepped back into the house. The door was closing fast.

“Wait,” he said. “It’s me.”

 

Even after hot meal and shower and shave she still recognized nothing except his eyes and the shape of his nose. It took two weeks before she thought that he was true and another two before she was sure.

Sometimes, on those days where she took him along to the market, the sellers called him her father. The man in the leather chair had to ask her twice and then demand another witness to make sure that he was the man he claimed to be and not his father or uncle or another older relative.

The war had stolen his youth.

 

When my grandfather spoke about the war he never spoke