Emma Swan

Joined February 2021

13 stories

Achievements (1)

Runner-Up in Unexpected Uncovering Challenge

Stories (13)

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Entwined
There was only one rule: don’t open the door. One rule. Kind of a funny way Shay phrased it, considering their lives were nothing but rules in this lockdown. When you can exercise, where and how long… even when you can leave to buy tampons. All dictated by the government. And now this, dictated by Shay’s Great Uncle… whateverhisnameis… owner of this house, where becoming stranded as another lockdown was called was once only a humorous possibility. A future romantic anecdote for a wedding speech.
By Emma Swanabout a year ago in Horror
Rabbits. Top Story - October 2024.
At night, rabbits fly in talons’ grasp; eyes reflect their kin in the moon
By Emma Swanabout a year ago in Poets
The Fledgling
Baby bird released Soars on healed wings. No glance down For earthbound mother
By Emma Swanabout a year ago in Poets
Snowfall
No one stopped or tried to intervene at the sound of my small screams. Not because the snow dampened the sounds of the struggle, although it did, but because such was the brutality of the city. People hustled by, wrapped in their coats, insulating themselves from the cold and from the chaos of their surroundings and from each other. They went on hurried feet, churning the crystalline snowfall in their path to grey slush, and each in the crowd more isolated than they could be alone in the wilderness of the tundra.
By Emma Swan2 years ago in Fiction
Gingerbread, Pies and Enterprise
Once a baker and his wife Ran a business of renown The most successful bakery For many miles around The quality of the baked goods
By Emma Swan2 years ago in Poets
The Call
It was like going back in time. A fact that Helena remarked upon on every visit home. It wasn’t only the house- the 1000 square foot beach-front time-capsule in which her mother had, until recently, been counted among the relics of the past; it was the whole landscape. The coast-line, unchanged save for the sandbags placed to stymie beach erosion. The nearby village, where the same faces, or their younger iterations in the form of sons and daughters, manned butcher, baker, fishing lure maker. How many places in 2023, population growth considered, could even still claim the title of village?
By Emma Swan3 years ago in Fiction
Why did I...?
Don’t think about it. Don’t dwell It really turned out just as well So why is my brain doomed to repeat The cringiest things I’ve said this week?
By Emma Swan3 years ago in Poets
Misty. Runner-Up in Unexpected Uncovering Challenge.
Marcus’ voice reached her garbled by the background noise of the party, seemingly already in full swing. “Adi? You can’t find who?”
By Emma Swan3 years ago in Fiction
On the First Time Since
Warm hand on my shoulder, ‘you’ve been sleeping since eight’ We’ve arrived. Squeaky trolley takes the luggage’s weight Find the fob, call the lift, ride cold light to ninth floor
By Emma Swan3 years ago in Poets
Nailed It
Browser History: Is it weird that Facebook knows we’re in pain? And how do they do it? Is there some sort of algorithm that correlates with an increase in mindless scrolling from the foetal position? Maybe the timing- increased Facebook use in those sleepless hours in the small of the morning? Or is it an improvement in facial recognition technology? Like the kind friend who notices that you look ‘tired’? Thanks- I’m in chronic pain.
By Emma Swan5 years ago in Lifehack
The Tawny Frogmouth is not an Owl
The first time was in my grandparents’ garden. On a somnolent late spring night my grandfather took me to see them, walking me by the hand along the red concrete path that I remember now for its tendency to tattoo the soles of bare feet with its colour; my grandmother scrubbing my feet in the bathtub, lest the carpet bear a permanent reminder of the day’s hunt for lizards or woodlice.
By Emma Swan5 years ago in Petlife
I am a Fish
I am a fish. I swim, and the pool I swim in is dark and warm. Waters rush, my mother heaves, and I am beached. Thrashing and bloodied they haul me to land. A violence so contrary to my nature. The fine filaments of my gills shrivel in the air, and I cry out for my watery home, but they don’t understand what I say.
By Emma Swan5 years ago in Futurism