Eliza West
Bio
I love writing compelling stories with mysterious characters and cozy, soft friendships. When I'm not writing, I'm daydreaming or playing the piano and always with mug of bracing coffee in my hand.
Stories (9)
Filter by community
Elevator Shenanigans
It’s not news that when one is late for work, things don’t seem to move as fast as one wants them to: the car can’t race through traffic in a few minutes, the barista at Starbucks still takes 67 seconds to make the coffee, and the elevator moves as slow as a 150-year-old tortoise, except when it doesn’t. This morning, two men who work at the same company walk into work at the same time. George shows his work badge and insults the security guard. This numb-skull is an associate lawyer at Lawrence and Cole, the law firm. Right after him walks in a younger man in the IT department who is also good at his job. Jeffrey greets the guard, asks how he is, and hands him a coffee before going towards the elevator. Both George and Jeffrey are late. They press for the same floor. The elevator whirs as it lurches before it rises. Then. Bang! Zzzzt. It stops.
By Eliza West4 years ago in Fiction
One More Time
The world spins and sways, sparkling stain dresses and black suits. Champagne circles round. I grab a flute of the liquid gold and swing it back. The ballroom is a chessboard. My eyes follow the pieces sweep to and fro with the Russian Waltz rendition of Briteny Spears' “Baby, One More Time”. Desereè is one of the pawns. I spot the head of auburn hair and the pink rose dress. A breath escapes my lungs.
By Eliza West4 years ago in Fiction
Operation Frozen Yoghurt
The task was simple: go to the server room, steal company secrets, check them, and give them to my MI6 brother outside. But was it easy? I had meant for my cover to make me likeable, and it did. Everyone in the office liked me enough that I couldn’t pass anyone without receiving a hello and small talk. Brilliant. Imagine needing to smile all day and pretend you have a life. Abysmal.
By Eliza West4 years ago in Fiction
Don't Cry Over Spilled Coffee
The world is a library, each person a book; some are more difficult to read than others; some have locks on the cover, and some aren’t as interesting. Yet if you judge them by the cover, you might never know what they are really about. I made that mistake once, and I’m a literature professor. Though, I suppose that spending my days lecturing at Harvard and reading in the library doesn’t offer opportunities to get to know someone. One morning, the summer sun glowed against the leaves and cast a grasshopper green filter over my office. The bookcases stared at me as I held The Odyssey for the third time in a row with my brown Oxfords on the floor and my ankles crossed on the desk. A stack of graded papers and a stack of ungraded papers lie at my elbow. No lectures today, but I knew I’d stay up late grading the rest of the papers.
By Eliza West4 years ago in Fiction
Ice Cream by Firelight
The Victorian Mansion slumbered, and no other sound echoed except the birds in the attic and Ambrose’s soft snoring (Geoff, the butler, was in Scotland for the week with his niece Alex.) whilst down the corridor, Fitz tossed and turned in the silent throes of another bad dream.
By Eliza West4 years ago in Fiction
