She still showed him #affection. A hand on his cheek in the dark. Fingers through his hair as he slept. He hadn't told anyone she was dead. After all, if he did, her touches might stop. #vss365

The Dome protects the village. The Maintainers take care of the Dome. But how the Dome works and why it is there is a mystery to everyone in Matt Flintoff's "Maintainer" (Sci-Fi). Continue reading at crypticfrogpublishing.wordpress.com/2026/05/01/i....

The #lunar tide pulled back further than anyone had seen. A mile of bare seabed, pale and glistening. The fishermen found footprints out there. Thousands of them, barefoot, all heading inland. Still fresh. Whatever came ashore during the night was already gone. #vss365

She used to say love was just #trickery. Just hormones dressed up and the glow of the candlelight. He'd laughed. Now he finds himself standing in the cereal aisle, unable to move, because someone nearby is wearing her shampoo. #vss365

The #investiture was held at midnight, which should have been a warning. The crown was warm like flesh when they placed it on his head. Now they said he hadn't removed it in forty years, that it had fused with the bone. That late at night you could hear a hiss from it, almost like breathing. #vss365

The well had been dry thirty years. Then the Macready boy went missing and the #water came back. Clear, cold, sweet. The whole village drank. No one mentioned the boy again. By September, only his mother remembered his name. She went door to door. Her neighbours smiled, offering her a glass. #vss365

The house started to #sink after the funeral. Slow, steady as grief. Nothing seemed wrong with the ground. The priest they finally called knelt, ear to the floor. He said it was feeding. The old man had kept it away for years. Now nothing stood between the house and what the ground was owed. #vss365

The #bank on Hillcrest Road closed in 1983. The roof caved in a decade later. The vault is still down there, open, flooded to the ankle. Teenagers go in on dares sometimes. They all say the same thing. If you stand in the water long enough you can hear a voice, counting quietly, on and on. #vss365

She found the letter in her grandmother's bureau, written in #ink so fresh it smeared when she touched it. Dated July 3rd, 1847. She left it to dry overnight. By morning the ink had crept onto the next page. The new line was addressed to her by name. #vss365

The oak on the village green had a branch that looked like an #arm. Crooked at the elbow, fingers splayed. The children dared each other to touch it. Most did. Tommy never could. Not since the morning he saw the fingers close around a resting sparrow. #vss365

He smiled. The #sand was on the kitchen floor, just like every morning. Always in the same spot. Small footprints, trailing from the back door to his daughter's room. She'd been gone six years. The prints were still her size. #vss365

From the window, I saw the same #man come to the park every morning. He sat on the bench, two coffees in his hands. After a while it was only Saturdays. Then just the anniversary. Last week he came with one coffee and he sat somewhere else. He looked lighter somehow. #vss365

They built the cairn to #exalt the harvest. Each autumn a stone was added. Each spring one was gone. The pile never grew, but the fields never failed. Old Maren saw what took them. Something pale, just before dawn, cradling each stone to its chest like a gift. No one spoke of the bargain. #vss365

Gran called it a #sprite and left milk on the doorstep each night. We laughed. Then she died and we stopped leaving milk. The scratching began on the third night. We never laughed about it again. #vss365

The millstone continued to #revolve long after the river dried up. Villagers left grain at the door each dawn. By dusk it was flour. No one asked what turned the stone. No one went inside. #vss365

It used to #fascinate her, the way the ivy crept further across the wall each night. Then she noticed it only grew toward the bedroom window. By morning the tendrils had reached the sill, and the leaves were warm to the touch. #vss365

She was a #tempest. That's what he'd told everyone. Now the garden she'd planted had overgrown the gate, and he couldn't bring himself to cut it back. Some evenings the wind moved through it and he'd swear he heard her laugh, tangled somewhere in the leaves. #vss365

It used to #frustrate him, how she'd leave rings of tea on every surface. He found one last week, a faded circle on the windowsill. The morning light caught it just right, and for a moment the room smelled of jasmine again. #vss365

She used to #endorse every goodbye with a kiss pressed to his collar. He found the shirt last Tuesday, folded beneath winter coats. A trace of lipstick still clung to the fabric, pink and fading, like a sunset no one else remembered. #vss365

They'd said it had no provenance. She bought it anyway. Winding it before bed, she listened in the dark. That tune. How? He'd hummed it while cooking, standing over the stove in a threadbare robe. Some objects carry a #soul, her grandmother once told her. She wound it again. And again. #vss365

A #thrum of brass and laughter filled the dance hall. Cigarette smoke hung blue beneath chandeliers. She stood by the far wall, turning a glass in her hand, deciding something. He crossed the floor not knowing why. Sixty years. He reached for her hand over starched sheets and shut his eyes. #vss365

Bold lines mapped their future, laying out walls and floorplans. On the final page, the pencil had barely pressed the paper. There were only faint, trembling marks like fox trails across snow. A cloud seemed to #obfuscate his mind, he wrote in the margin, letters buckling into one another. #vss365

Sometimes, late at night when sleep refused her, she'd press play. His laugh filled the empty apartment. "Hey, it's me. Just calling to say—" The recording would #quiver then, static bleeding through his voice, crackling into something softer. In three years, she'd never heard the rest. #vss365

Steam curled up, jasmine tea leaves unfurling slow in the clouded glass. Mei lifted the cup, breathing it in; honey and summer gardens and something else, not quite there. His chair sat empty across from her, as it had for eleven months now. Neon flickered to life as daylight began to #wane. #vss365