Jess Sambuco
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@jess.sambuco.writes
Achievements (1)
Stories (7)
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You, Shadow Man, You
If walls could talk, they would tell me why I have seen you here, every night, in the corner of the room, at the base of the bed beneath his feet. His toes are covered by sweat-soaked sheets. If walls could talk, they would tell me why I see you there, after we fall asleep to the buzz of mosquitoes and the hum of the generator and the water tip-tapping into a sink somewhere behind layers of paint and, also, behind my head. This head that sees you. The walls would tell me why I gasp awake and find you, there, hovering, like the dark figure they say you are, looming like they say you do. You shadow man.
By Jess Sambuco3 years ago in Fiction
Spit & The River
He started by saying that the fastest way to die is to worry about things that have already happened. The old man spoke through wrinkled lips. I licked the rum off of my own and begged him to continue. He looked at me once and then sighed reluctantly. The story, he said, began small.
By Jess Sambuco5 years ago in Fiction
Not Safe For Work. Top Story - June 2021.
It is a Tuesday and on Tuesdays I feel strange. I once read an article of a man in Ireland who died “of a Tuesday”. He was in his eighties, old enough to die of old age but still too young to die without a more detailed explanation. Except the doctor gave no other reasoning, other than dying of a Tuesday, which still perturbs me to this day. Apparently, dying of a Tuesday is supposed to mean the man lived a full and peaceful life, an Irish expression... but James Joyce once wrote the actual words, “he died of a Tuesday” in a piece about hanging. Maybe it’s a quirky Irish saying I just don’t understand. Or, maybe, the fact that I notice it is some underlying sign that, I myself, will die of a Tuesday.
By Jess Sambuco5 years ago in Fiction
Stories I'll Tell When I See You Again
I swear I could see icicles on your eyelashes, a raindrop hanging off the tip of your nose. It was a cold morning when you flew into the bakery, the bells on the door chiming like leaves whispering of an approaching storm. Beneath your pale skin were bright eyes, the promise of warmth. Then you smiled that James Dean smile and my stomach fell to the floor. In the blur, you asked about the smell in the air and I replied chocolate croissants and almond torte. You walked closer and I blushed. It was a day I will never forget; Thursday, April 2, 1964.
By Jess Sambuco5 years ago in Humans
The Delicate Art of Counting to Three. First Place in Little Black Book Challenge. Top Story - April 2023.
It’s a remarkable balance, keeping oneself together in this brittle thing we call life. Honestly, it’s a miracle I hold myself together at all, but I try my best. It’s just that my best consists of exhausting, tireless repetition, repeated in threes, to simply, hopefully, make life alright.
By Jess Sambuco5 years ago in Families
