Autumn Stew
Bio
Words for the ones who survived the fire and stayed to name the ashes.
Where grief becomes ritual and language becomes light.
Survival is just the beginning.
Achievements (15)
Stories (62)
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Through the Keyhole
The story begins, as all treacherously good disasters do, with procrastination. The challenge prompt is open on one screen: Write a story that begins with someone peering through a keyhole or modern equivalent. I've been staring at the prompt long enough that the words have utterly lost meaning. Keyhole. Key. Hole. Holey key. Holey moly. ... My brain is stuck in a buffering loop.
By Autumn Stew3 months ago in Fiction
Desperation. Content Warning.
His messages came just before midnight, when my apartment was a nest of blue light, and the kettle hissed in soft bursts like it could hear me think. I scrolled through his photos. He had two of the same photo in a row, one slightly more cropped than the other: a man half-wedged against his truck, with a smile that wanted to be easy. His bio seemed like it had been created in a haphazard plume of a joint. We messaged for a while. He said the right things quickly, and the wrong things even faster. I stared at the screen until the screen was staring back into me.
By Autumn Stew3 months ago in Fiction
Parallel Collision. Honorable Mention in Parallel Lives Challenge.
The morning was unremarkable. The morning welcomed me with the kiss of a thin fog coiling over the payment and just the whisper of slick frost and ice waiting for the sun to thaw it back into water. The streetlight on the corner flickered like it was getting ready to die out. I tightened my jacket around me and checked my watch while I rushed to the bus stop a block away. Seemingly reading my mind, the bus rounds the corner, headlights splitting the mist.
By Autumn Stew3 months ago in Fiction
The Wrong Address
The house had been settled for hours. The fridge hummed peacefully as I finished cleaning up the kitchen and preparing to settle in. The streetlight in the cul-de-sac made the living room floor glow softly in it's pale light. I brought my book to the living room, tucking myself in under a soft blanket. Inside the hush of rustling pages as I opened my book, the whole night felt careful, like a child holding a glass of water filled to the brim, trying not to spill a drop.
By Autumn Stew3 months ago in Fiction
The Envelopes. Winner in A Knock at the Door Challenge.
They gave me a watch before they gave me the keys. "No digital," the day attendant said, digging through the cluttered office drawer. "Here." She dropped a weight into my palm; a worn, old-fashioned wristwatch with a domed glass and a second hand that ticked like a heartbeat.
By Autumn Stew3 months ago in Fiction
