Twilight's Flash Fiction / Relatos cortos crepusculares

The Door From above, I watch them wheel into the crematorium the coffin in which my body lies. Then twenty tongues of flame begin to caress it. My cells scream, begging for it all to stop. They do not know what is about to happen to them. Within seconds, the temperature rises above a thousand degrees. Outside, I see my loved ones: some are crying, others whispering, and one of them stares into space, trying to guess where I am. Then something extraordinary happens. From each of my cells, another identical cell detaches itself. One by one, they slowly become transparent until they vanish from mortal sight. Yet I can still see that they are alive. They move toward me and take their places until they form my new body. A body of light, free of every burden. When everything is over, someone places the ashes in an urn and hands it to my relatives. Wailing and emptiness. A door appears, and beyond it I see a brilliant light. I do not know what to do. I feel myself drawn toward it, and at the ...

Those Who Receive Me and Those Who See Me Off We are wave-beings, concentrations of waves moving through space. When we interact, it is our waves that interact. Over time, those waves change their characteristics, and perhaps that is what we call aging. There are unwritten laws that never fail. The wave-beings who received me when my collection of waves first became visible are the same wave-beings who will see me off when my waves oscillate at a frequency at which they can no longer be seen. Although the appearance of their waves may suggest otherwise, they are still the same wave-beings. Quienes me reciben y quienes me despiden Somos seres-onda, concentraciones de ondas que se mueven a través del espacio. Cuando interactuamos, son nuestras ondas las que interactúan. Con el paso del tiempo, esas ondas cambian sus características, y quizá a eso lo llamamos envejecimiento. Hay leyes no escritas que nunca fallan. Los seres-onda que me recibieron cuando mi conjunto de ondas se hizo visibl...

A Little Piece of Heaven The dung beetle went out for a walk, as he did every afternoon. His friend the firefly, as always, was waiting to accompany him and enjoy his surprising conversations and his endearing charm. They were joyful walks. The beetle cherished his friend's company, her discreet remarks and, above all, her extraordinary gift for bringing peace to his soul. No one knows this, but the souls of dung beetles carry a slight melancholy that only blue fireflies know how to soothe. By some strange mystery, during those unforgettable walks, time stood still for both of them, and a kind of magic filled their encounters. At the witching hour, on their way back, the firefly revealed her blue light. As on every other afternoon, he was unable to declare his love for her. And, as on every other afternoon, the firefly waited and waited for him to tell her that he loved her. READ · WATCH · REFLECT READ — Read A Little Piece of Heaven in English and Spanish. WATCH — Explore the...

VER   The Crimson Place In my dreams, I discovered a crimson place. At first, when it chose me, its image filled me with unease, yet I could not deny that I felt drawn to it. Slowly, I made my way toward it. The trees formed a dense canopy of green and blue and folded behind my steps, sealing off my return. As I moved toward the center, time flowed backward faster and faster. By the time I reached it, I had become a helpless little boy. Then I saw him.  And I knew he was me. The crimson grass grew and swayed beneath a gentle orange wind, while thoughts, transformed into great multicolored birds, soared above the transparent pearls that fell from the trees. Then, borne by those radiant birds, the pearls ascended toward infinity. READ · WATCH · REFLECT READ — Read The Crimson Place in English, Spanish and Japanese. WATCH — Watch The Crimson Place on YouTube in English and Spanish. REFLECT — Discover more stories, images and reflections.   El lugar carmesí En...

The Flight of the Butterfly — versión alternativa And reality began to reveal itself differently before my eyes, and I did not know how to adapt to it. That inability cost me my life, but before it did, it granted me the gift of touching things and breathing in the people around me. The immense transparent barrier that had always separated me from others slowly dissolved into grains of sand that fell to the ground, leaving me naked before them, as if I had just emerged from a broken cocoon. And in the moments before my death, everything was at peace and everything was peace. Then I walked slowly along the silken thread that led me toward the light, and at the end of it, I no longer felt fear. I opened myself to the radiance, like a butterfly opening its wings for the first and final time. And I merged with the light. I was light.  El vuelo de la mariposa   Y la realidad empezó a manifestarse de otra manera ante mis ojos, y yo no sabía cómo adaptarme a ella. Y esa ...

The Well Someone brought seawater and poured it into an ancient well. Since then, on full-moon nights, in the silence of the night, waves can be heard breaking softly against the walls of the well. The well is now their home. Yet they never stop longing for the sea breeze. So, whenever they can, some of them escape to spend a while at sea. But they love the well so deeply... that they always return. El pozo Alguien llevó agua del mar y la vertió en un pozo milenario. Desde entonces, en las noches de luna llena, en el silencio de la noche, se oyen las olas romper suavemente contra las paredes del pozo. El pozo es ahora su hogar. Pero nunca dejan de añorar la brisa del mar. Por eso, cuando pueden, algunas escapan para pasar un tiempo en el mar. Pero aman tanto el pozo... que siempre regresan.

The Room The dimly lit room had become his entire world. A living space, sometimes gentle, sometimes hostile, but always surprising. There he lived the most unlikely adventures, ever since his mind had stopped obeying him. Sometimes, the pale blue of the walls became the sky through which he flew as an aviator in the midst of a spectacular storm. At other times, the room became a battlefield where he confronted the armies of Genghis Khan. And sometimes it was the engine room of a submarine engaged in a fierce battle against the forces of evil. One summer morning, someone opened the window wide, and the penetrating light invited him to freedom. Without a second thought, he launched himself through that long-awaited opening, toward the future. The nurses at the psychiatric hospital saw him float out through the window, defying the laws of gravity and heading toward infinity, beyond the reach of everything and everyone. La estancia La estancia, poco iluminada, se había converti...