Footsteps

       Around 11.00 O’clock p.m., in a dark evening, with no moon, no stars, I was coming back home after a long and exhaustive day of work, walking along a dark street and, apparently, desert. The silence was loud. It would be possible to hear pins dropping on the ground. But, suddenly, I heard some footsteps. Strong and hurried footsteps, as if they were trying to reach someone.

       I looked back, the noise paused and I saw nothing. I continued to walk, a little less slow by this time. And the noise of the footsteps restarted. What would that be? I was not even a bit curious to find out. I hurried. And the hidden footsteps followed my rhythm. I ran. I didn’t know from what I was running away, but something told me that I had to run as quickly as I was able to. The footsteps did the same thing. I shouted.

       I got to run even quicker. That street seemed to never end. No cars, no houses. Only the footsteps and me.

       I stopped for a second, breathed in and tried to hear the footsteps. I didn’t need to try that much, they kept firm and increasingly hurried. What would that be? I wondered once again. But the footsteps were getting closer. I wouldn’t be able to keep the rhythm any longer. I teetered, stumbled several times, but I knew that I couldn’t stop. The noise was louder and louder, stronger, closer. The footsteps had reached me. So, suddenly, I fell off my bed. And woke up!

Lianderson Ferreira

Memories

The living-room clock struck 3:00 p.m., she got up from the sofa and went to the window. It was a rainy Sunday afternoon. It was dark outside, but not as dark as her heart.

It had been exactly three years since her son had left to the war. In her boy’s bedroom, she insisted on keeping everything as he had left. The same bed sheet, the same messed-up desk which still had Robert Musil’s book open on page ninety-eight, she even insisted on keeping on it the cup of tea that he used to drink before sleeping.

Her husband had passed away a few months ago; she had never experienced that loneliness. She used to think she was too much old for morning walks or comings to Sunday masses and she was not able to see that much to pass her time at a sewing machine.

She closed the window and walked towards where the old piano was. She sat down, cleaned up some powder which had gathered over it and tried some notes. She remembered the time when her husband used to play some good jazz on Monday nights, when he came back from the government department while she followed him by drinking some French wine. She made herself be standing and started crying. She cried as much as she had never cried during those three years, because she realised that she wouldn’t have her husband back and her son would never come back home.

That was the moment when she made a decision. She left the living room without hurry and walked towards the bathroom, picked up a bottle of her medication which Adalberto, her private doctor, had prescribed to help her sleep. She passed by the kitchen and brought a glass of water with her to the bedroom. She took ten pills at once. She thought that taking away her own life would be a lot easier. She lied down on her bed and waited for the sleep to come up to her slowly, and, the next day, there were no memories anymore, no more tears, no more pain... there wasn’t anything else but the certainty of death...

This short story was written by one of my mates, 

Amanda Luna.