Short Stories

"Did you know Alexandra’s marriage is falling apart?" Tímea asked her friend.

"Where’d you hear that?" Bea’s eyes widened with excitement.

"Mommy, can I get fake nails too?"

–"Absolutely not."

–"Oh, pleease..." the twelve-year-old girl pleaded sweetly.

"The glue would ruin your little nails," her mother replied, trying to reason with her.

"What if I just tried it once? Just this once? It’s summer anyway..."

A deep, disappointed sigh came from the back seat. The mother glanced in the rearview mirror and met her son’s eyes. The five-year-old’s face radiated a mix of sadness and irritation.

The sight of Magda with my bear spoon dangling carelessly from her mouth is burned into my retinas forever. She stood in the lounge with her hands on her hips, her short-cropped hair and round glasses giving her a vaguely militant air. The faded green tank top made her chest look even larger than it really was—Or maybe it was just the pose. I don’t know anymore.

“How long will it take to be ready?”

“Forty-five minutes.”

“Okay, I can hold on that long,” his wife nodded. “I’ll set the table and heat up the leftover meat from yesterday.”

"Oh no..." Delia whispered barely audibly to herself when she spotted the young, handsome pharmacist. "Where did the lady go who was standing at this window just a moment ago?"

There are four dents in each of my palms. Again.

How many more nights will I sleep with clenched fists?

Once again, I was formatting Excel sheets in my dreams while Tibor kept calling every five minutes.

Like every Saturday morning, I woke up to the sound of that lice-ridden bastard Szabolcs revving his motorbike under my window. That piece of crap does it every weekend, rattling away like he owns the street.

"I saw you on the bus yesterday," Barbi said as I sat down next to her at the desk. "You looked like a corpse. Just staring into nothing."

I felt a wave of shame hit me.

You know that moment when someone moves to a beautiful island, lives there for fifteen years, and suddenly forgets they were once new too?