Category: Short Story Writing

Creature in the Forest

Alina H. Hansen Writer & Poet

Below the mist, I lay on wet soil among the rubble and ruin of past selves. Crisp outlines of shadows
dance with the fall leaves and cascade into the still lake beside me. A scuttle of creatures, the movement of stones, as they scurry to the water’s edge to drink or clean bloody claws.

I am waiting for the moon to rise, to peak out between the mountain scape so I can join the owls and other night animals in their hunt for fresh flesh. Once, I lived in a city, now I’m just another thing gnawing on bones. What am I?

“Bertha” (Part 3): A Short Story Series

Alina H. Hansen Writer & Poet

Here is the third and final part of my “Bertha” short story series. I’d love your feedback, leave a comment below!

Read PART 1 and PART 2

“Bertha” (Part 3)

Bertha is gone! Emilio rushes over to the edge of the bar. Her stool is empty and Bertha is on the floor motionless. A few other patrons stand up and look over. Someone is laughing a little bit, “Must’ve been one hell of a beer!”

Emilio runs back around the bar and calls for Peter the manager. Now that people see his reaction a few others come other quickly to see what’s going on.

Emilio is on his knees, he pulls her hair out of her face. Her eyes are open, the glass eye fixed on him. Emilio shudders.

“Call an ambulance! I think she’s had a stroke or something! I think she’s dying!”

Emilio hears Peter start to yell for everyone to get back. Peter barks orders to a server to call for an ambulance. Peter is trained in CPR and it’s not the first time Emilio sees him move the head of a patron and check for a pulse.

Time seems to slow down. It feels like forever before the EMT’s show up. But well before then, Peter has already given up on Bertha.

No pulse, no breathing, nothing. He tried CPR on her for a few minutes, then the silence spread throughout the bar.

Peter sighed, “She’s dead.”

THE END

Check out more of my short stories, poetry, and fiction writing today!

“Bertha” (Part 2): A Short Story Series

Alina H. Hansen Writer & Poet

Here is Part 2 of my “Bertha” short story series. I’d love any feedback you have, leave a comment below!

“Bertha” (Part 2)

Emilio imagines her as a pirate queen. Her eye plucked out of her head in a fight on some deserted island. Searching for treasure or maybe searching for another hit. He pours her beer and goes to clean the racks in the fridge under the bar. It is slow enough that there is not much to do and only a few people to wait on. Taking the bottles and cans out, he takes a clean rag and begins to wipe out the fridge all while speculating that Bertha was probably once a junkie and definitely not a pirate. Her hair is matted and loose, her face sagging, the skin a sickly pale color. Her hands calloused and claw-like hold her glass of beer possessively.

Suddenly Emilio thinks of her hands around his throat, her glass eye bulging out then popping out her head all together. A shiver goes through him and he stands up trying to shake it off.  Now he’s just creeping himself out.

He can feel her eyes or eye on him as he moves and out of instinct looks over at her. Her face is stone but she is staring directly at him. Her teeth-less mouth knitted into itself, her lips non-existent. Emilio doesn’t want her here, he wants her to go but he recognizes this feeling. He gets it every time she gets here, right after the first few minutes. By the end of the hour hopefully he’ll be too busy to notice her. A huge crash makes him jolt and Emilio looks at Bertha.

To be continued…

Enjoyed Part 2? Read Part 3 HERE!

Check out more of my short stories, poetry, and fiction writing today!

“Bertha” (Part 1): A Short Story Series

Alina H. Hansen Writer & Poet2 Comments

Summary: “Bertha” is a short story about a strange woman who frequents a local bar. The bartender has a habit of noticing peculiarities about this woman and creates little stories about her in his head each time she visits.

Hello ? This short story is broken up into multiple posts. I am working on this story and want to see where it can go; if I can expand or shorten it into a more final version. I’d really appreciate any feedback, leave a comment below!

Bertha (part 1)

Her body sways as she walks. Each step clumsy, her shoes slap the ground in a slow rhythmic dance to the door. Opening a brown purse that looks like a flat football she pulls out a few wads of ones and places them on the bar.

Emilio, the bartender, sighs. There is not much to do and this lady never tips. She just stares at him the entire time she drinks. At first it was unsettling but now he has grown accustom to her habits like all the other regulars.

He can hear her saddle up to the bar, the loud creak of the stool, her heavy muffled groan. She doesn’t talk anymore, the only words she ever said to him in the beginning were what beer she wanted. Now since he knows what she likes she just grunts and nods her head.

Emilio calls her Bertha, it seems fitting some days while others she appears more ragged, more like a swamp witch from old fairy tales. Today there is something strange about her, he notices that her left eye is transfixed in one position, lolling to the the left while her other eyes rapidly looks around. 

To be continued…

Enjoyed Part 1? Hit that LIKE button and read Part 2 HERE!

Check out more of my short stories, poetry, and fiction writing today!

Sun and Moon [a short story]

Alina H. Hansen Writer & Poet

Prose or Poetry or both? I am playing around with this short fiction piece that discusses celestial bodies which are ultimately consumed by darkness and timelessness: possibly the destiny for all of us. 

Sun and Moon

by

Alina Happy Hansen

The Sun battered down on the city below. The inhabitants wake and roll over, groaning or jumping up to live another day. Looking down below, the heart of the moon, forever lost to his lover runs across the sky. Each day as it progresses, the season’s changes, the year’s pass, the inhabitants are born, live, die, born, live die; generation after generation. The Sun does not care about the inhabitants of that blue little world that is quickly turning grey and sickly, quickly looking more and more like it did when it was born. The sun looks on trying to catch the moon who is left spinning around the little black globe, dead and dried up. Spinning away into a void, an abyss until the sun begins to dim and invert itself becoming a black hole finally sucking the sun into its darkness.

 

Thank you for reading my work! I hope you will return in the future! 

-Alina