Story EmbersStory Embers is run by a group of Christian writers and editors who are committed to glorifying God with excellent craftsmanship. We accept article, poetry, and short story submissions from a number of Christian storytellers around the world. You can peruse our latest posts from contributing audience members below.
I wake to the taste of saltwater on my tongue and throbbing behind my eyes. Heat sears my back as I bob in turquoise waves. Below and around me float crates imprinted with Japanese symbols, empty life vests, an object that looks like a severed pale arm…
The desert is no place for a guilty conscience. The silence eats at sinners until they’re small enough and broken enough to be swallowed whole. That’s why Erin Flores chose the Mojave as her new home. After her term in prison, disappearance felt like absolution. She paid cash for a structure that the ad loosely described as a house, the siding peeling off in white strips like dead skin, and settled in to wait for her ingestion.
Wine in hand, I stepped into the scalding shower without checking the temperature. The sensation offered a brief reprieve from the ache in my heart. I stumbled on a leftover sliver of a soap bar, sloshing half the wine into the drain. “What a waste,” I mumbled. I chugged the rest in two gulps and plunked the glass onto the floor, where it quickly overflowed with spray.
We stopped at the teashop on Madison Street. Abstract renditions of flowers hung from the walls. A case displayed little pastries, perfect and neat. The worker behind the counter gave us a smile. We returned the greeting and found a seat.
Recently I had a dream; creeping and stealthy, it quietly came. The pictures I saw were dull and blurred, but the air about me with voices stirred. Confused at first, but gradually clear, each one shouted, “I knew him here!” Then one spoke out, the voice of Flesh, soft and low amid the clamorous rush.
I walk the length of another road, but endless paths branch from it in every direction. The journey was arduous but rewarding in strengthening me so I can climb another mountain. I’ve learned from the steps I’ve taken and the hurdles I’ve leapt over, even when the rocks seemed too tall, too daunting for me to ever hope of overcoming.
Every moment in every story makes a promise: the conversation, decision, or setting that the author is focusing on holds significance, whether immediately or in a future chapter. As a reader, you’re conditioned to expect even the tiniest details to connect to and advance the plot.
The phenomenon first happened when I was seven years old. Mud caked my pants and the tip of my nose as I stirred an earthy concoction with a stick. “Leaves!” I commanded, my hand outstretched. My friend Lily scurried toward the bushes. Within seconds, she returned and placed the ingredients I’d requested in my palm. Careful not to break the surface of the murky water, I spread out the green embellishments and removed my makeshift utensil. “Soup’s done.”
When I was nine years old, I became the dictator of a sprawling, shape-shifting land called Fiction, and my political party consisted of myself, a few other students in our homeschool co-op writing class, and a table where we gathered during lunch breaks to scribble in our notebooks. We even passed a law banning nonfiction, and whenever our teacher gave us an assignment that didn’t involve mythical beings like unicorns and flying hippos, we’d threaten to revolt (and then, of course, we’d obey, because she was the adult).
You asked me if I believe. I’m not sure after all my sister and I have endured. What made You stay so far away from Your friend and us in our dismay? Yet one truth I know despite the pain: I know my brother will rise again.
