Twilight's Flash Fiction / Relatos cortos crepusculares

Candor A young boy ran naked down a deserted street. Tears blurred his vision, and he failed to notice that he was drawing dangerously close to his executioner. When he stood before him, he stopped and pleaded between sobs: “Please, bring my parents back to life. I want everything to be the way it was before.” “My mission is not to restore life, but to take it away,” the executioner replied. “And now I shall take yours as well.” The boy stopped crying. His eyes lit up with hope. “Does that mean I'll be reunited with them?” “Yes,” the executioner replied. “You are very fortunate. I am condemned to take lives, and I never even knew my parents.” The boy looked at him in surprise. Then, with a smile, he held out his hand. “Then come with me. You'll be part of our family, and you'll have parents too.” Unable to hold back his tears, the executioner took the boy's life. Then he cast off his garments, and together, naked, they walked away in search of another dawn. Candor Un ni...

The Scimitar Hidden at the bottom of an old trunk, it waited patiently to be discovered by its owner. It is the summer of 2193. A teenager, aware of the destiny he has awaited for a thousand years, frantically searches the trunk for the scimitar that someone had hidden in the attic long ago. Despite all the precautions taken by his family over the centuries, the prophecy is about to be fulfilled. Maulana Arshad al-Din, the Sufi mystic, predicted in 1360 that Saladin would return a thousand years after his death to resume the expansion of Islam until Allah became the only God worshipped on the face of the Earth. The prophecy, recorded in one of his hidden manuscripts, also foretold the death of Richard the Lionheart at Saladin's hands. A prophecy that tore through the veil of time: Saladin had died before Richard. Believing that Richard must be in Hell, the young man searched for him in vain. He scoured the places where they had fought: Acre, Arsuf, Jaffa... Finally, he found him in...

  Something It is still beyond naming. Yet Everything is there. Past, present, and future. Sins and miracles coexist in peace. The souls of travelers know this. They cross the threshold that leads them from Nothingness to Everything. All moments coexist as one, and every moment is an act of creation. And each of them is already there before arriving. Everything is yet to be fulfilled, and everything has already been fulfilled. Without Something, there is only Nothingness, and nothing takes place without It. Souls communicate through It, and justice and injustice embrace within Its being, beyond good and evil. Algo Todavía es innombrable. Pero allí está Todo. Pasado, presente y futuro. Pecados y milagros conviven en paz. Las almas de los viajeros lo saben. Cruzan el umbral que las lleva de la nada al Todo. Todos los instantes conviven en uno, y cada instante es un acto de creación. Y cada uno de ellos ya está allí antes de llegar. Todo está por cumplirse y todo ya se ha cumplido. Si...

  The Ghost at the Café Where visual storytelling meets artificial intelligence. A mysterious figure appears in a café. A solitary customer sits at a table. Is this a memory, a dream, or an encounter between two worlds? Every image can be the beginning of a story. The Ghost at the Café is my first digital product created around a reusable ComfyUI workflow using Stable Diffusion XL (SDXL). The downloadable package includes: A reusable ComfyUI workflow (JSON). A bilingual PDF guide (English and Spanish). Three example images (PNG). A README file with instructions. Designed for digital artists, writers, and anyone interested in exploring the relationship between artificial intelligence and visual storytelling. Available on Gumroad for €5: https://7paco7.gumroad.com/l/ghost-at-the-cafe-comfyui ComfyUI and the compatible SDXL Base 1.0 model are required and are not included in the download. El fantasma de la cafetería Cuando la narración visual se encuentra con la inteligencia artifici...

Writing He began to write, and became so lost, so very lost, that no one has been able to find him since. Escribir Empezó a escribir, y se perdió tanto, tanto, que ya no lo han podido encontrar.

When a Man Loves a Woman The Evolution of Love When a man loves a woman, there is no path to follow. Time ceases to exist. There are no arguments, no others. The lover is no longer aware of himself. There is only a sublime peace surrounding the lovers. But then, once you have settled into heaven, your mind begins to think. Thinking is the enemy of feeling, because thinking means measuring. To think and to measure are, in a sense, the same act. When thought invades that space, there is no room left for love. Finally, war breaks out between the soul and the mind. And heaven disappears. © 2016 Francisco Martínez Carreño Cuando un hombre ama a una mujer La evolución del amor Cuando un hombre ama a una mujer, no hay camino que seguir. El tiempo deja de existir. No hay discusiones, no existen los demás. El enamorado pierde incluso la conciencia de sí mismo. Solo queda una paz sublime que envuelve a los amantes. Pero entonces, una vez instalado en el cielo, la mente comienza a pensar. Pensar ...