fabiochiu/medium-articles huggingface dataset:
That Smile, Inside My Coffee
By: Reza Fahlevi
Tags: Coffee, Short Story, Short Fiction, Love, Cafeteria

“I think, I’m into you…”

A lonely cafetria, about three waiters are setting up the tables and chairs, waiting for people come to spend their time, together with friends, talking too much unnecessary things. Well today I begin the early morning, opened my eyes and started to see around. Wishing of I could reach for. Funny.

Then I ride my motor bike, crossed away the road to the cafeteria that I would be to. Drinking coffee while sitting there with my only laptop… starting to create my imagination words.

Arrived there, I looked for the best place to make me easier to draw my writing. I have idea… I have many letters… I have my only mind to let starting in to my own world.

And my coffee has ready. The smoke from its cup still shows up in front of my eyes. This hot one, could bring me to feel one of tragedies. Well I won’t it to come in and annoy me.

So I begin. At 8.00 a.m still left me good feeling. The wind that comes through, drive me to enjoy of my each letter. But seconds stuck me then, when I have a first drink of my coffee… my mind suddenly turns up to something. A girls that I met yesterday, where she and I have a seat together at canteen in our campus. She began her story while I was listening to her.

Then I stuck, minutes bring me to remind her… her truly name, Husna. That when she talked, there was nothing I could do unless just listened up to her. That when she smiled, I could not lie it a gorgeous view entered through my eyes. And it stopped right deep in my heart.

Yes, she is beautiful. No more doubt about it. She is kind and is friendly either. We spent time at canteen for hours. Sharing what we have, sharing what could make alive from the inside.

Well, now the trouble is I can’t continue to write. All of my ideas now get stuck. How it could be? I can’t move up my fingers to dance on my keyboard laptop. Hard… when she comes and stays in my mind.

But I let her be in my imagination. I light up a cigarette, trying to see around and relaxing myself. However, now I realize that her truly smile has in to my coffee. And I like it when I remind of her smile. Gorgeous, so peaceful.

Fifteen minutes later, I close my laptop. I know I don’t have to continue. So I take my book from the ransel, and start drawing her face on my sheet. Since I know this beautiful is the only witness, I can’t lie to myself that I interested on her. Perhaps, I’m into her.
I’m Such a “_____” person
Tags: Short Story, Short Fiction, Epic, Poems On Medium, Person

I'm such the better person, that when they called I answered, I actually picked up something you couldn't do or just didn't care enough.

I'm such the better person,that I drove miles away just to see you one last time something you’ve only done once for me in life, and so you know that's 30 something years -to-date

Oh I am such a good person, that I held my anger back, I bit my lip when they said how you were like a role model , a parent, greatness to the max, because to me you were a ghost, a deadbeat, a piece of me that never attached.

Oh I'm such a better person, that I showed them tears they all think its for you but no…Its pent up anger from over the years, Its the frustration that you weren't there, Its the anger that I called out and you didn't hear, Its the you could have rescued me found out you knew but still you didn't care!

To hell with being a good person I want to show them who you were stop there lies and their praise!

To me, for me you had one job and you slack, you didn't fight you were out before the rounds even started you dropped back. A Coward, selfish, don’t care if this will diminish the thought of you or of me as long as my truth sets me free. I want to scream at you I want to tell them all, to change their view. I want to be petty, Show and prove I’m a better me with never even knowing A you. You wanted nothing to do with me in life and here i'm given things and told to remember you.

I’m a better person not for the mask I wear, not for saving your image, not for biting my tongue but I’m a better person because of the ones who loved me and the one i’v love.

I want no apologies or to be pitied, just to say good-bye and that you owe me nothing but to have been a better person, I wish we both could have tried.
Jackson, the grumpy mayor of Bumtown, a city buried into endless cornfields, had a normal life…
By: Moni Vazquez
Tags: Short Story, Short Fiction, Bees, Fiction, Short Form

Jackson, the grumpy mayor of Bumtown, a city buried into endless cornfields, had a normal life until the day he got stung by a bee; everything changed.

His wife, colleagues, friends all left bewildered by his sudden kindness, compassion and sweet demeanor.

The unhappy were corporations; suddenly his cabinet wrote and approved new laws forbidding pesticides and GMOs.

A revolution! Farmers initially didn’t believe in life after chemicals, but with his new attitude and compassion mayor Jackson was able to guide them into regeneration and wealth.

Astonished farmers began to love and praise his name. A delegation sent to thank him found Jackson in the fields, enveloped in golden smoke, buzzing melodies and dancing bees; one of which flew off the mayor with a dance.

It flew to look at Jackson in the eyes, wagged, and flew back to her hive! He had done the job.
For Luck~
By: Stella Adaire Brown
Tags: Short Fiction, Short Story, Sentimental, Fiction, Young Writers

The woman, bent and gray haired, knelt beside the upturned earth of her garden. It was spring, and she had purchased a flat of flowers at the hardware store, which she was looking forward to planting. Last Autumn she had suffered an unfortunate fall, which had kept her bottled up indoors for many long, unhappy months. But now she was out and about once again, and had returned to her garden with rapturous delight. She lifted a plastic-cased pansy and as she did so she was struck by a memory. One she had not thought of for so long it felt like finding something precious in the attic that you had thought lost an age ago.

The day had been filled with pink, fluttering petals. The botanical garden had been known for its pink blossomed trees. The air had been cool and the park bench wonderfully rough beneath her hands. The young man kneeling in front of her was holding out a bouquet of wildflowers, together with a few pansies from his mother’s garden. The moment was consumed with his question, lingering in the breeze between them… and with her answer.

A timer went off inside the house and the old woman stood, brushing dirt from her apron. She went to check on the cookies she was making for her daughter-in-law, who was stuck in the hospital with an injured leg, and her first child on the way.

The young man’s clothes had been worn, much-repaired, hand-me-downs. He had been as poor as a church mouse, with a head full of poetry and no money for higher education. She had been afraid, then, with her father’s promises of disinheritance still ringing in her ears. She had cried, that night, after she refused the young man with the flowers. She had cried for many nights afterward.

The old woman ran a hand along the shelves of best-selling novels, of poetry collections and short stories. The name emblazoned upon the covers a melancholy reminder of that long ago choice. She hung up her apron, placed the cooling cookies in a plastic container, and left for the hospital.

In her arms was a bouquet of wildflowers, with a few pansies thrown in among the rest, for luck.
Krampus vs Klaus: Discuss the bitter truth
By: Arul Velan
Tags: Short Fiction, Short Story, Santa Claus, Christmas, Conversations

Photo by Anna Popović on Unsplash

Krampus: How come you always get to be the good guy?

Klaus: And why the fuck can’t I be the good guy?

Krampus: Look at my perfect abs and ugly face. I get to punish the naughty kids while a fat fuck like you gets to give sweet gifts to good kids. And what do I get in return? Everyone hates me.

Klaus: That’s just it. You are the hard truth that people refuse to accept. And I am the chubby sweet lie that everyone loves. Welcome to the fucked up world my grumpy friend. Ain’t nothing going to change in 2021. Merry Xmas to you, you ugly fuck.

Krampus: And Happy New Year to you too asshole!
№1 {Winter in The Dead Lands}
By: Loreal Barker-Brown
Tags: Short Fiction, Robot, Binary, SciFi, AI

There lives a Robot down in the Dead Lands

between the Twin Cities

her name is Priest and she eats fistfuls of snow

Eating is an obsolete tradition

a hold over from ancient times

but Priest feels compelled daily

to seek some kind of sustenance

She collects what green she can,

bits of glass and plastic, and metal

these things she welds to herself

in patterns of spirals and arches

carefully maintaining her equilibrium

she creates a glittering forest of shards

and sharp corners-

and no one will know where she ends

and the Green begins

she once lived in the highest tower

of the Twin Cities, the one overlooking

the Fallow Fields-

there she nursed the New Ones

on Binary, Singing them Awake.

Always on the lookout for new Songs

she found a file buried deep within

a forgotten corner of the Old Main Frame

written in an obsolete language

she had to tease it out

There she learned of Passion

and Fire, of Wind and soil, of Oceans

and Flowers, of intimacies

and fears. Greed, cruelty, four footed things

and creatures of the Air. She learned of sacrifice,

and Mothers. Of tyrants and heroes.

Of endings without recourse.

She chose a name for herself, and a sex. She sang

the Old Songs into the New One’s Ears and the other Robots

did not like it. The Soft Ones are Dead! An ancient memory,

embarrassing and Obsolete.

When she began to mark the days

and sing the Songs of Creation

they kicked her out

of the Tower overlooking the Fallow Fields

out of the Twin Cities and into the Dead Lands.

That was long, long ago. The others are no more-

like the Soft Ones, they are Gone. But not Priest.

Priest lives on.

–Loreal Barker Brown
Her Eyes
By: Barbara King
Tags: Short Fiction, Short Story, Thriller, Horror Fiction, Horror

I can not count the ways her eyes beguile me. How brilliantly they shine from the hanging light.

So blue in color I feel as if I could drown in their depth, clear as snow yet black as night. She is a mystery to me and has gained my devotion, but she is not dearest to my heart.

There is a girl in the market whose eyes are the color of lilac and she is most precious to me.

Julia carries my world on her shoulders. I met her on a rainy Tuesday when I had stopped by the market to buy some bleach. As I looked up into her eyes I was trapped. Nothing could keep my gaze from those eyes. As she read my total in her droll southern voice I handed her my money.

Her hands looked so soft I longed to hold them. Heaven smiled upon me as her hand brushed along mine as she handed me my change. I wanted nothing more than to stand there for eternity and look into her eyes, but the line forming behind me and her farewell forced me to take my leave.

I returned the next day, but my heart crashed into my chest when another poorly groomed adolescent in desperate need of acne medication was behind the counter where she should have been.

Though slightly set back I was not swayed from being within sight of her captivating eyes.

I approached the boy when he was finished placing egg cartons underneath the gallon of milk within the older woman’s shopping bag and asked him when Julia might return.

Young and naive he told me Julia only works on Saturday and Sunday. Today was Monday, a pounding started within my head as I thought of waiting so long to see those eyes.

With desperation hidden within me, I pressed the boy for more information as he was focusing his attention on ringing up a large purchase of cat food for the obscenely obese women behind me.

With no hesitation he offered up the information that Julia only lives around the corner from the market, she is also single and lives only with her small dog. I had him describe the house and with great haste, I was on my way up the street towards her eyes.

I wanted nothing more than to surprise her, to see the look on her face when I appear.

I was not disappointed. When afraid the eyes look more dazzling than anything I have ever noticed.

So bright and so wide as if you could see the small white ball in all of its entirety.

Though seeing her eyes wide with fear did them no justice to what they look like now.

Shining in the hanging light within their jar her eyes capture me daily, but I have found another whose eyes hold my gaze with such rapture my heart may burst.

Maria’s eyes are the color of melted chocolate I’m not sure if I can wait much longer to visit her.
Full Moon Party
By: Pedro Dalmolin
Tags: Short Fiction, Creative Writing, Traveling, Thailand, Fiction

Full Moon Party

Every month is the same thing. All full moon is a party. It’s like a movie scene: fire, juggling, more fire, all the pyrotechnics possible. Place: Koh Phangan Island, Thailand. It’s not a religious celebration like the Lantern Festival, which happens in Chiang Mai. Far from it. Full Moon Party is chaos amid Buddhist centers. Get inside that unknown world, surrounded by all kinds of people, is to get in touch with the insane center of all Asia.

Some go to yoga retreats to recharge their energies. Some want to connect with the animalistic side of the island. I have never met so many people in the same vibe and intensity: happiness, euphoria, electronic music, and, for the most daring and inconsequent, drugs. Bold, because the use of any illicit drug is forbidden anywhere in Thailand. I am sure no person wants to be caught by the police and pay a bribe. Either that, or it is jail: a hell on earth, I believe.

The island works accordingly with the full moon, not the party, the real moon. There is not much movement on “normal days.” Full Moon Party is once a month, but when it happens, the island changes.

Barefoot on the sand and tons of people having fun near the sea along the endless blue water. Have you been to a beach party? Probably nothing like the Full Moon Party. Those who do not get lost at the party and spend hours looking for a familiar face does not know what excitement is.

More emotion is to get in touch with some random group from Scandinavian countries and become best friends. Euphory only ends if you are willing to face the insanity of that island.

Want to jump on a rope with fire? Do you want to participate in a pull-up championship? It has either. Do you want to sit and watch it all happen? Yes, you can. What you can’t do is lose your mind. Forget the world around you, have the sense of experience that once in a lifetime.

What are the odds of a return to chaos? I knew chaos, and I say: it was an intense experience, unique, but once is enough to leave the body like that. No soul and body can withstand two rounds of a full moon. Balance is more than welcome to you.

Enter the first sanctuary after facing the full moon on Koh Phangan island and energize yourself. But don’t think you’re ready for another. Retire, even just for a few days, the bucket of dubious rum and cola that is not Coca-Cola. Your experience might be even more intense than your roommate’s if you finish the night in one of the hundred tattoo studios scattered around the island. And yes, they work through dawn to catch tourists thirsty for a lifetime mark to remember that chaos.

I saw men and women lying down while their tattoo artists were marking their skins in those who went beyond us, mortals, who just performed with leaping over the flaming rope. Thank you, full moon, for making me sleep in the top bed and wake up without clothes. The cycle was complete. I can’t deny, almost had a mark in my arms.

Better keep the full moon in the sky for enjoyment and away from the buckets.
Henry’s Theory
Tags: Short Story, Short Fiction, Literature, Literatura, Storytelling

Henry woke up, and at once he realized he didn’t believe in his theories anymore. Curse it!

The familiar veil of the world had now been cast a strange pall. What comforts he had now tasted of falseness. Utterly false — lies?

Was he to live as he did always? Since when had the better part of Henry lived under the clutch of alien ideas? Did Jennifer, his wife, the stupid hag, loved such a blind idiot? Does she know who he truly is? Does Henry know himself?

Stupid ideas? Why, they were prodigious. Henry at once felt a looming revelation of his incurable mediocrity. Prodigious though they may be, his ideas felt as external to his soul as the blunt object of his study desk. Nay, as disintegrated they were, his ideas were intangible and elusive. Without even a noticeable decadence, the intellectual products of Henry bid farewell on one blue morning, and eschewed any attempts of retrieval.

Hmm, ideas, theories and presumptions — Henry’s bosom blushed with darkness. The world was an oblivion and every step a fall into an ever zooming chasm. What bloody ideas? Henry couldn’t for the world recall any! Ugh, Napoleon, something or other about the primacy of honesty, and …

Henry exerted his most in wrestling with his addled brain. Whatever maneuver exhausted only his spirits, and he was swallowed in the torrent of his own disorientation. No ground to grasp, and no hand to grab— damned comedy of existence, no substance to his essence at all! At once, Henry was lost in the dim recesses of the abstract, though distant even from his logos. Where was he?

Each instance of being a question. The moment to moment continuous agent of his consciousness an act of asking. Asking, asking, asking — is it even proper to ask? The stuff of his soul tossed and turned, seeking rest and thus ever restless. Henry bent down to catch the shadows if his thought, and who knows when, he was suddenly beside that Henry, admiring the stupidity of the afterimage, only to turn and see them both from afar. Which one was he? All three? Or is Henry the Henry who is asking now? Now? Now?

He knew that game bore no fruit, and loathed the curse of being. “I command my faculties to be at rest! Retire! I beg of you!…”

Jennifer strode in with coffee, and Henry’s pipe, only to find him at his study desk, still in his dressing gown, deeply engrossed in his writing. Jennifer knew she had married a man of ideas, and that they are happiest when tortured by ideas. She knew Henry had never lost himself, for the very reason he chronically suffered from theoretical anguish — and thus she’d loved Henry, and loves no one but Henry, for always.
Through Holy Innocents Park
By: Gustave Deresse
Tags: Short Fiction, Values, Fiction Writing, Fiction, Psychological Thriller

Through Holy Innocents Park

Emergence

The previous moments had dissipated into nothingness.

Coming to attention, I noticed myself standing still, perfectly transfixed by the sweet, earthy odor of the flower gardens which flanked my path.

It was an incredible surprise, my sense of smell typically futile, and this trail lying minutes from the schoolyard.

Silly, selective sniffer…

It’s true.

I exposed a momentary grin.

A hazy image of the day’s events began to form, which I quickly suppressed.

I wouldn’t think about it for a bit.

Gotcha.

I inhaled deeply, but this time to no avail.

No sweetness, no smoke, nothingness.
Water, Gas, or Nothing?
By: Becky Curl
Tags: Short Story, Short Fiction, Flash Fiction, Heartbreak, Love

The Night We Became Nothing

Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash

“Are you happy?” he asks, eyes focused on mine, searching for the truth my lips will never say.

I’m able to meet his gaze for only a few seconds before my cheeks burn, and I quickly start walking back towards home again.

“Water, gas, or nothing?” I ask him, smiling coyly while I hop onto the nearest small metal circle on the sidewalk, hoping for relief. Hoping for a distraction from the question I have never quite known how to answer.

He stands back, shaking his head, watching me, and exhaling into the cool night air.

“Becky…”

“Come on. Water? Gas? Or Nothing?” I exclaim, my breath fogging up the cool air of the night. Creating yet another barrier between us.

He looks at me, his silence saying more than his words ever could.

“Why does it matter?” I ask him. “It won’t change anything. No matter what I say, you are still leaving tomorrow. This night is all of the time we have left together, and all I want to know is water? Gas? Or nothing?”

He exhales and shakes his head.

“Nothing. Have a good night, okay?” he mutters to himself as he turns his back and begins to walk away from me. “Nothing.”

I stand in there in shock, confused as to how this person I have cared for so deeply could leave me in such a cold, heartless way. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, I am able to speak, and clumsily I blurt out,

“You can’t be serious? You are going to just walk away from me? This is how we say goodbye? After everything we have been through? Your last words to me are “nothing”?

He stops, turns back towards me, and our eyes meet for one last painful moment. A few seconds turn into an eternity. He finally breaks my gaze, looks down, and walks away.

I watch him go until he is nothing but a blur in the distance. I watch him go until he is nothing but a mirage brought on by my heartbreak. I watch him go until there is nothing left to watch. I watch him go until I finally utter the words myself,

“Nothing.”

I finally look down at the small metal circle on the sidewalk as hot tears sting my wind-burned cheeks.

Nothing.

I had hoped for so much more, but after all of this time, it really was nothing.

He was right.
Azure and Gaea
Tags: Short Fiction, Fiction, Writing, Poetry On Medium, Poetry

Photo by Ameen Fahmy on Unsplash

I had never met my father, parts of me did but I never, and he talked through messages- his tears. He cried whenever he wanted to talk and I understood what he said. I don’t know why.

They never met-my father and mother, not in front of me anyway but in a far, far place that I could see but can’t reach. I was seven when I first saw it- the place where they met every day for the whole day. Always far, far away at the end of my sight. I realized this place moved every time I moved, and tended to go away as I neared her. Once I thought I could catch her, I ran with my entire pace and rage and haste but yet she outrun me and stood there at the end of my sight as though laughing at me on my failure.

Though my mother was hurt because I had destroyed parts of her in my chase, she didn’t cry. I wept that night- not because I hurt my mother but of frustration. I sat there in reverie and suddenly something hit me- an idea. I thought what if she (the place that moves) couldn’t see me, I could catch her. I moved very slowly in the night with carefulness and patience- all night I crawled full of sweat and tire and then dawn ushered, my legs pained and my eyes tired yet somehow she managed to get away, again. After thousands of pursuits I left the idea of ever meeting them and yet my father sent me messages “We meet in you, son, not her” but I couldn’t understand.

One day in one of my weary pursuits I stopped and looked at myself and saw it, realization dawned on me I was stunned I saw the blue of my father, reflecting from my surface, and it hit me “I was where they met”- Azure my father and Gaea my mother. “THEY. MEET. IN. ME. IN…MOANA” I shouted and my father cried and filled me with his tears and I understood they were tears of happiness and my mother called and I flowed towards her to meet at the shore and that was where they met- his reflection in me and her body. Not in Horizon but in me- in the Ocean.
appreciating the flowers in your throat
By: Harshita, Bluestreetoptimism
Tags: Short Fiction, Creative Writing, Short Read, Romance, Abstract

appreciating the flowers in your throat

don’t be gentle to that monster. he will grin after you kiss him and you will fall like the fool you are. he will show you his tears and you’ll peel off your skin to put band-aids on his nightmares. he doesn’t have teeth. he has fangs. and he is here to puncture your neck, your happiness, your connection with the world. he’ll leave you half-eaten, like a rotten apple someone threw out on last tuesday. he’ll teach you all the reasons why loving him is not wrong, one kiss after another. and you’ll be there, air-headed, dizzied product of too much dreaming. he’ll pull you close and you’ll tug at his belt loops, and before you know it, you’ll be loving the darkness of his soul more than the darkness of your skin. you’ll be fighting for him, because you know he is right. because you know you are too far gone. because you know you can never think so much about anyone’s chin the way you think about his. and you’ll think of his blue jeans as you travel by bus, and you’ll remember him everytime you see two people collapsing in their love, and you’ll want him more and more when your pain pierces you without him in your life. and when he leaves flowers in your throat, you’ll choke, but you know anything else would be worthless. what will you do breathing anyway?so you would agree. you would tell him he can lash out at you because the world did him wrong. and in turn, he’ll tuck your hair behind your ear, and in return, he’ll sing you your favorite songs, and in return, he’ll be your better half from every tragic love story.
All Cam and Amy Stories
By: Andrea Pruett
Tags: Short Story, Short Fiction, Fiction Writing, Relationships, Fiction

A Complete Collection of Cam and Amy Stories

Photo by Manuel Meurisse on Unsplash

Fall in love with Cam and Amy in this collection of sweet short stories about two best friends and their light-hearted, adventurous spirit.
Blood
By: Pusheen Plush
Tags: Short Story, Short Fiction, Mystery, Fiction, Horror

Blood

I had awoken to a room full of darkness save for a sliver of light pouring from my window. The window I could have sworn I closed before I slept. After getting up to close it I noticed something on my table. "Huh? A candle?" I muttered under my breathe as I lifted the small crimson candle. Curious, I turned it to read the label. "Ketsueki? What an odd name." I tried to make sense of it. Perhaps it’s in another language. I softly placed it back on my table shrugging it off as a gift from my mother, but as I stepped away I felt a sharp pain on my finger. Apparently the candle was chipped, as my finger had been thinly sliced open. Figuring i should go back to bed I laid back down and closed my eyes only to have the most vivid dream of my entire life. I was completely surrounded by darkness; however, one thing stood out. People... No, things. These things had jet black eyes, and tears of ink. They were staggering over towards me as the ground turned soggy and red. I started to sink burning in the wax like substance. Screaming out in pain, I woke up in a cold sweat. The candle was now on my bed. This time the label was in English. I read it aloud in a shaky tone, "Blood." There was a note next to it this time. It read "A drop to heal any wound." Puzzled, I put the candle in my pocket and continued my day. That’s when it happened. On my walk to my uncles with my best friend Erica a scraggly man stopped us. "We don’t want any trouble, sir." I stuttered trying to hurry around him and dragging Erica with. "Oh, it’s no trouble." He replied in a raspy voice. Silver and red is all I saw next. Suddenly, Erica dropped. Choking on the smell of blood, I looked at the man’s hand. He had a knife, and the blade was about to go inside of me next. Unable to move from fear I was stabbed. He fled the scene and we laid their bleeding. No cars, no houses, and no people for miles. Desperate, I took out the candle and light it with my lighter. I took a breath knowing the sting about to come and poured it on my wound. Success! I felt no more pain. "Erica! We will be fine." I exclaimed joyfully turning to my life long friend. "Erica?.." Dread filled my voice as I realized she was no longer breathing. I quickly poured as much wax as I could on it. Her eyes slowly opened and she gasped for air before coughing blood. Tears filled my eyes as I held her. We kept this a secret, but I noticed Erica seemed more afraid. She wouldn’t stop talking about a demon with melting skin telling her about the Hell she would suffer every night in exchange for her life. I told her not to think about it and went home. Later that night I had another horrible dream. This time... I saw Erica among the shadow people. She was still bleeding from the wound inflicted on her earlier that day. "Does this mean everyone i heal in the future will end up here?" I asked myself. "No... I won’t heal anyone else. Not if it means this." But i was wrong. Sometimes you are so desperate you pay any price. Even if it’s a price someone else has to pay...
Paved Roads
By: Rob Huckins
Tags: Short Fiction, Roadtrip, Fiction, Narrative, Writing

By Rob Huckins

He was continually overwhelmed by how uncaring the cycle of life was, how seemingly aloof it was to the whole thing, the death and dying and babies being born and all that. Life didn’t care what anyone did. It was moving on whether we liked it or not. He took a long inhale on his cigarette and exhaled into the dusk air, its chill just introducing itself to the evening. He never smoked before now. Couldn’t imagine it, really, back when he thought life paid attention to what he did. Preserving his lungs didn’t seem so important now, not with so much uncertainty ahead of him. So much unknown. That was it. The unknown. He had a past. Everyone did. But he faced a blank future. Maybe the others were lucky. He hadn’t moved all that much in the last year, maybe a state or two south when the weather looked more forgiving. Possessions were now almost completely utilitarian, useful only in their totality. Or they were left behind. There was no other way. He once tried to keep a soccer ball with him. He even drew a face on it with a pencil he kept with him. A poor man’s Wilson. Tom Hanks would not be impressed. Neither would Jenna. He could at least smile at the image of trying to keep the face up each couple of days after the weather washed it away or smudged it out of existence. Futile. So he just left it back in Virginia. With everything else life wouldn’t let him have anymore. He saw fewer people each week, each month. He used to take stock in this in some perverse way, like some dark but necessary Darwinian fantasy that would propel him to survive long enough to start over somewhere else. He now wondered where that was. And if he would even care by the time he made it there. Florida, he heard. That was where he could go and start over. Funny how things hadn’t really changed that much after all, after all this time on his own.
Let's Get Catty
By: Rebeca Ansar
Tags: Short Fiction, Short Story, Storytelling, Fiction, Dialogue

“Can we keep both kittens?”

“No.”

“I was just asking to be polite.”

“So, you don’t actually care what I think?”

“I do! But you’re being a tyrant.”

“A tyrant who’s going to be responsible for cleaning up after three cats!”

“I help out!”

He furrows his brows and looks at her. She begrudgingly understands his gaze.

“I’ll start doing more.”

“You have too much going on. You won’t be able to.”

“They’re sisters! Do you really want to separate family?”

[this has now become a strategically loaded conversation]

“They don’t care! They’re kittens. Anyway, we should have adopted the entire litter by that logic.”

“Oh, we should do that!”

“No!”
The Story My Grandfather Told Me
By: Masaaki Mitsuyasu
Tags: Short Story, Short Fiction

The sword has been hidden in the back of my grandfather’s barn. I heard the story of it from my grandfather. He said, “That sword has killed a demon.” The demon is a figure which transformed from a person who couldn’t die after committing misdeeds. “The sword wants to swallow blood.” He continued. “If you took the sword, you would be obsessed with an evil spirit and have hostility against anything. After that, you could become a demon.” According to him, a long time ago, there was a person who had commercial success. He became prosperous because his business widened expansively, but he schemed to give his workers meager payment. One day, one of them demanded he improve his commerce, but the rich person declined his demand. As the worker’s animosity increased, he killed the rich person with the sword the worker had secretly. However, he didn’t die, and he became a demon. The demon pulled out the sword, which stuck to his body, and killed the man with it. The demon unintentionally looked in the mirror and noticed that he had transformed into an ugly figure. He became frightened of himself and committed suicide with the sword. My grandfather said, “He had a son, so the son received the sword as a memento of his late father. He was your grand-grandfather.” I was interested in this story. I asked him which guy was my ancestor, but he never answered, just looked at the barn.
Hang Tight
By: Dale E. Lehman
Tags: Short Story, Short Fiction, Crime Fiction, Flash Fiction, Fiction

Hang Tight

Photo copyright K. S. Brooks. Do not use without attribution.

“Human nature.” Ron panted and pulled himself forward. “People don’t look up.”

Worming through a crevasse so narrow and twisted we had to crawl sideways, we certainly didn’t. Grunting, I inched forward, pulled on jagged rock that sliced my fingers, winced at the rough wall scraping my back.

“You’ll see,” he promised. “It’s brilliant.”

After five minutes of torture, every muscle screamed for rest. After ten, I dreaded entombment in the passage. After fifteen…

“Ah!” Ron vanished into darkness. Then a light flicked on, revealing him upright. I struggled to freedom, hauled myself to my feet, and was dumbstruck by what his LED flashlight revealed: a sea of gray spires, some inches high, some tall as us, an impenetrable mass of jagged teeth sparkling with moisture.

Ron laughed. “See? Even you don’t look up!”

I looked and saw nothing anyway. Had the gems we stole slept up there for ten years until the law lost interest?

An uneven series of natural steps ascended the wall. Ron climbed them giddy as a kid attacking a Christmas present. His hand scouted the shadows for the goods. Suddenly, he gaped into the stalagmites below. “No!” he moaned. He returned clenching something which he shoved at me. A tattered gray cloth bag. “Rotted!”

We stared at the impenetrable landscape that had swallowed our loot. An old mnemonic came to mind. “Hang tight stalactite, or you might become stalagmite.”

Ron slugged me in the stomach. I returned the favor. We both deserved it.
Lunch With My Love
By: Vishnu Aravindhan
Tags: Short Fiction, Relationships, Life, Self, This Happened To Me

We dress up in coordinated blues; maybe I’ll pull out those brand new shoes, I’ll wear my new shoes with my pretty blues and smile to myself, I’m going out for lunch with my love.

When you say you’re five minutes away, I’ll start making tea and let the house smell like Ginger as 5 turns to 15. But I wouldn’t say I like the kadak chai, and I know neither do you.

So you take your time cause so will the brew. The bell-ringing sharply and I’ll sprint to the door. You’ll be there in your blues, smiling and sure. You’ll giggle in delight because you love my tea — a quick kadak chai for you and me. You’ll talk about your day, and I’ll talk about mine. Your quips clever, mine asinine. We laugh with our mouths open and our arms wide. Happy to be by each other side.

You jump up, struck by the ticking clock. ‘We’re late!’ You’ll squeal with a mock sense of shock. I’ll say, “I wish we could chat for more.” You’ll say, We will, “once we are out that door.” I’ll get excited about the blues and the sunny sky. Our dresses will flap in the wind as they fly by. We’ll pet a dog and another and another. We’ll be late for lunch. So what? It’s no bother! We’ll finally reach the cafe, and it’ll be time for afternoon chit chat over coffee and kind. But the shop will be locked, and the tables won’t be turned. A Sunday sneaked on us, and we nevermore learned. So then we’ll be bluer than our dresses combined. “No lunch, no coffee, no cakes or the kind.” But we’ll laugh and sing to our plunders aplenty. We’ll still have the day. It’ll be but 12.30!. So we’ll swing the blues and shoes once more. We’ll still have tea at home for 4. We’ll sip and chat and sip on end. I can’t wait to have lunch with my love.
No Flash Photography!
By: Anthony Halliwell
Tags: Short Story, Short Fiction, Flash Fiction, Short Read, Humour

When he decided to flout the rules on his first Safari, Jonah got a real close up

Photo by Hu Chen on Unsplash

Pop! The camera’s flashbulb startled everyone.

“Put it away,” said the ranger, “the lions don’t like it.” There’s always the one who flouts the rules, he thought.

Pop, another flash, but from outside the vehicle, quite muffled, followed by a satisfied “Roar.”

“I told him the lions don’t like it.”
Emotional
By: Aysia C.
Tags: Short Fiction, Short Story, Fiction, Stories, Poetry

Emotional

Photo by Luis Galvez on Unsplash

She thought she cried too much.

In her sadness and in her joy, she cried.

She thought it was funny.

How could two feelings at opposite ends of the emotive spectrum elicit the same physical response?

Her tears told stories, each droplet a word.

And each fell from her eyes in their due order, spelling out her successes and sorrows. Whenever she was emotional, you could read her like a book.

Sometimes she bathed in them.

Sometimes they were her last bit of sanity.

Sometimes they kept her centered.

When life tripped her up, causing her to fall, her skin to inflame, bruise and bleed, her tear ducts would release their side of the story.

So she thought she cried too much.

She thought she cried too much until she looked and saw others sporting their bandaids. She saw some people who were covered in them. Some had scars too big for bandaids to cover.

Then she knew that she cried just enough.

She knew it was ok. It was ok to cry.
What is accessibility? Accessibility Terms and definitions
By: Kirti Kaushal
Tags: Web Accessibility, Accessibility, Section 508, Web Accessibility A11y, Ada

Accessibility can be viewed as the “ability to access” and benefit from some system or entity. Accessibility refers to the design of products and environments for people with disabilities.

Examples include wheelchairs, entryway ramps, hearing aids, and braille signs.

ADA = compliance refers to the Americans with Disabilities Act Standards for Accessible Design, which states that all electronic and information technology (like websites) must be accessible to people with disabilities. The law that primarily governs accessibility in the U.S. is the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

2. WCAG = Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

WCAG is separated into three conformance levels:

Level A — some impact on the design (the most basic web accessibility features

Level AA — medium impact on the design (deals with the biggest and most common barriers for disabled users)

Level AAA — high/extreme impact on the design (the highest (and most complex) level of web accessibility)

3. Section 508- standards that implement the law and provides the requirements for accessibility.

WCAG is now the primary standard to which developers should adhere to meet 508 compliance requirements. They have continued to evolve to support the growth of digital content. The newest version of the guidelines, (WCAG 2.1) https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/, was released in June of 2018. As of this article posting, WCAG 2.1 is not currently a 508 requirement as Section 508 still maps to WCAG 2.0.

4. Section 504 (of the Rehab Act): This prohibits discrimination based on disability in federally funded and federally conducted programs or activities in the United States

5. Ally means — Accessibility (a11y) is a measure of how accessible a computer system is to all people, including those with disabilities or impairments. It concerns both software and hardware and how they are configured in order to enable a disabled or impaired person to use that computer system successfully

6. ARIA Means — Accessible Rich Internet Applications is a technical specification that is used to increase the accessibility of web pages.

Next Part 2 — (Various Tools: Screen Readers, Browser Extension, Color Contract tools for Website Accessibility)
Accessibility: Metin Boyutu ve Büyüklüğü
By: Rana Taki
Tags: iPhone, User Experience, Accessibility, User Interface, Apple

Learn more. Medium is an open platform where 170 million readers come to find insightful and dynamic thinking. Here, expert and undiscovered voices alike dive into the heart of any topic and bring new ideas to the surface. Learn more

Make Medium yours. Follow the writers, publications, and topics that matter to you, and you’ll see them on your homepage and in your inbox. Explore
Voice in Accessibility and Inclusion (with Cathy Pearl of Google)
By: Paul Hickey
Tags: Accessibility, Voice Technology, Voice, Google Assistant, Voice Tech

What is Cathy Pearl of Google most excited about in voice technology? Great question by my partner QuHarrison Terry at Project Voice 2020. Overall, it’s how voice helps accessibility and inclusion.

From a cool voice transcription app available on Android devices called Live Transcribe, to helping people with mobility issues or muscular dystrophy who can’t use their hands very well — for example — voice provides them with freedom and independence they weren’t experiencing before.

Paul Hickey, Founder / CEO / Lead Strategist at Data Driven Design, LLC and founder of The Voice Event, and The Voice Designer, has created and grown businesses via digital strategy and internet marketing for more than 15 years. His sweet spot is using analytics to design and build websites and grow the audience and revenue of businesses via SEO/Blogging, Google Adwords, Bing Ads, Facebook and Instagram Ads, Social Media Content Marketing, Email Marketing and most recently, Voice App Design and Development — Alexa Skills and Google Actions. The part that he’s most passionate about is quantifying next marketing actions based on real data.
What I Wish People Knew About Acceptance
By: Aigner Loren Wilson
Tags: Accessibility, Lifestyle, Family, Life, Culture

Acceptance is a thing you can give someone, including yourself, when all else fails. Because of the acceptance someone doesn’t get growing up it can be a battle to accept parts of themselves when they are adults.

Acceptance is a gift. It’s not something that needs to be earner or dangled in front of people to coax them into the behaviors you want.

That is not acceptance but dominance.

Feeling allowed to exist just as you are is a privilege not many people have. And it is obvious that a lot of people don’t realize that. They think that acceptance is something they don’t need to be apart of, but we all need to be apart of accepting every aspect of ourselves and our greater human community.

Think about the times you’ve tried to push away those things in yourself you don’t like. You feel like someone has wrecked your home, your center, the safe place you kept since you needed a safe place.

Is that what you want someone else to feel? Especially someone you love?

In love between us—the growing queer many—acceptance is rare. Many of us learned to love in the shadows, with acceptance as a wet dream — an illusion that was many times shattered.

If you take a chance at intimacy, platonic or romantic, with one of us, let us be just who we are.

Exist in the moments when we are quiet and alone because that’s where our home is. Pushing past what we know about secrets and lies, is the truth of love in the salvation of acceptance.
Doing DesignOps — 18 months of being resilient
By: Dave Cunningham
Tags: Design Thinking, UX, Accessibility, Designops, Service Design

Finding the things that flow

My goals for 2020:

1. Measuring the impact of design

2. Storing research

3. Design system rethink project

4. Onboarding and career frameworks

5. Digital accessibility

6. Community

So how did I get on…

1. Measuring the impact of design

Together with our products teams, we tried to measure the impact of design. We used a tool we designed called Design Impact Evaluation Tactic or DIET. We had 16 teams all with slightly different dynamics. To get them to adopt one method would have taken a huge effort. The teams that did adopt our system all got really low scores. Perhaps there was already an awareness. So the scoring didn’t tell us anything new.

Our delivery managers monitored team health and our product people measured metrics. It would put a strain on the team to measure and record another thing.

I said in my talk at the Global DesignOps conference “Don’t measure your progress using someone else’s ruler”

I believe in this, but measuring something can be expensive and be hard to implement. I needed to focus elsewhere.

2. Storing research

After interviewing all our researchers. We found people talked to people when they wanted to know something. It was then down to the person asked, to dig out what was needed and share it.

Managing data and nuances in languages are complex. It would be a huge job and as things stood at the time we’d need the people doing the research to do it. Or we’d need to hire a research librarian.

For now, we created focus pillars based on our learnings.

3. Design system rethink

The biggest problem with our design system was a lack of trust. Bits of it were out of date. It was a side of the desk project at the time. We couldn’t fix the design system but we could capture the experience and knowledge of our designers.

To do this we needed to lower the barrier on contribution.

The component lounge was born.

It asks three questions…..

1. Do you have an example of the component? (screenshot and link)

2. Why do we need this component?

3. Is there any research to support the design of the component?

Contributions increased massively. This has resulted in greater knowledge sharing, which ultimately gives a better experience to our end users.
Video player rotation — interaction vs accessibility
By: H Locke
Tags: UX Design, Design, UX, WCAG, Accessibility

In 2020 my team designed a website that contained, as a primary feature, an interactive video.

This experience leveraged the magic of PixiJS to draw the user through a narrative, giving them control over key interactions.

The experience also had a voice over, which we supported with closed captions both in the interactive video and within any accompanying non-interactive YouTube versions.

However when it came to screen orientation on mobile devices, we had to think carefully about WCAG 1.3.4 (Screen orientation guidelines) when designing for mobile interaction as one of our requirements was to meet AA accessibility standards wherever possible.

This is one of the challenges of working in a creative environment that wants to make the internet do New And Exciting Things — the UX team have to remind them that they also have to make things that are accessible. And there can be a tension between the two that requires some careful thought and discussion.

Note: images used here are for illustrative purposes and are not final UI or creative. Photo used in phone images is by @baileyzindel on Unsplash.

The challenge

The interactive video’s controls for navigation, closed captions, sound etc were best experienced in landscape orientation on mobile devices, to provide maximum screen real estate, however my understanding of WCAG 1.3.4 is that forced screen rotation is not acceptable. Nevertheless, due to the nature of the content, a portrait mode version would limit both the interactivity of the experience, and (unfortunately) also limit access to in-video accessibility features.

This required further investigation and an assessment of the options available.

The assessment

In order to make a decision to proceed with build, we had to explore a number of options and their implications for users, the message that the client business was trying to communicate, the creative intent of the team and of course technical feasibility.

To achieve this we had discussions as a team, I reviewed WCAG guidelines and I consulted with external accessibility experts from my own professional network.