Fiction Archives - MyUmbrella

Cinderella’s Handmaid

By : Grace Hasson February 17, 2022 Comments Off

We always tell on ourselves. I looked a little too long when she wore that tight silver dress that flowed down to the floor. I sounded a little too wistful when I said you look beautiful, no, I really mean it. And I didn’t tell her when he came to pick her up that I wished it was just us instead. He took her delicate hand and led her down the wooden stairs like a scene in Cinderella. Cinderella wanted a prince, not a handmaid. But I didn’t really mind watching them dance all night because her smile sparkled. And when she was happy, so was I. Never mind tears into the pillowcase and tightness in my chest. Never mind the shattering inside when she said I love you and

What Lies Ahead

By : E.M. Faine March 10, 2021 Comments Off

This was it. The final obstacle between the knight, Merek, and the kidnapped princess. The tallest tower in all the land and all he had to do was scale it. Up, up, up to the window, several stories above his head and he’d have gotten further than all the other knights. Save for one. Merek spied the other knight’s crossbow bolts in the cobbled stone. Makeshift footholds, the knight Merek assumed as he wedged the toes of his boots where the uneven wall left spaces. To come so far, only to turn back? Merek could not fathom it. This other knight had brought back no princess and no explanation. He reached the first crossbow bolt and looked back the way he’d come. Aster, his palomino mare no bigger than the

Lightning Strike

By : Grace Hasson February 14, 2021 Comments Off

“I’m gonna fall in love with you so fast,” she said, her eyes locked on mine. I could feel her heartbeat against my own. She was wrong, she never fell. I did. It didn’t come quick and sudden like the movies say. No lightning-strike-epiphany of love. It crept up on me like old age. One day you can see, the next day you’re squinting at road signs. One day you wake up and getting out of bed doesn’t feel as easy. The entire world feels off, but it’s not the world on a tilt, it’s you. A lighting strike did come. When she left. When she took everything that was hers except her mostly empty bottle of shampoo. The shampoo smelled like lavender. The kind that eases your weary thoughts.

Hateful Heart

By : Grace Hasson February 7, 2021 Comments Off

Some people love with hatred in their hearts. When we associate passion with fire, we forget that all flames burn. Pull your fingertips away quickly, but they’re already singed. Yes, she smiled with all her teeth, like a child. But I think she’s lived a thousand lives. And she’s spent every one with her heart turning more twisted. Her eyes glisten like an innocent, but she loves to make you as damned as her. She’ll laugh at you for praying, turn your mother against you, and drop your favorite Christmas ball. She won’t even try to pick up the shattered shards. Because that would risk cutting her fingertips. And she is so fragile to you. So you gather the shards yourself and find the pale blue ornament is nothing but

Autumn

By : Grace Hasson January 9, 2021 Comments Off

I met her when her hair was dyed red. She wore a long brown coat and a black scarf. She was autumn in a person, and yet I wondered why she chilled me to my bones. Her kiss was soft but burnt. She tasted like ashes and danced like a blooming phoenix. I still remember her firestorm on the dance floor, and yet I wondered why I still find sparks on the back of my tongue at night. She wouldn’t have known love even if it pleaded with her as much as I did. She told me she dreamed of escape. Escaping her mother. Escaping her boyfriend. Escaping the natural brown of her hair and escaping the way the season in her head wouldn’t change. And yet I wondered why

Yellow

By : Grace Hasson January 4, 2021 Comments Off

Mae’s wife loves yellow roses. In fact, she loves the color yellow in all forms. The sweet scent of honeysuckle blesses her with a yellow glow from strolling through the woods. Mae’s wife talks to herself in the woods. Soon, she’ll talk to herself in the house, too. Every morning she swallows a spoonful of honey. “It’s good for you,” she insists, then giggles like a little girl. Mae buys yellow roses for every vase in the house. Yellow petals fall on pill bottles lined up like a parade. “Flowers are a gift to the home,” Mae says, and paints over the spots in the walls, and puts down rugs to hide the knots in the wooden floors. The smell of roses hugs the home year-round and when yellow flames

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