The Areson Stories

The Human I'm Friends With E. M. Areson I have never liked people.  Life is too short to spend with such petty creatures. They spent childhood in selfishness. Their adolescence with cruelness. Their adulthood with broken promises. And after all that, they die. Seriously, if I was going to choose my species I would have chosen to be an octopus.  They are smart, live about five years at most usually dying right after mating. Sure that doesn't leave great parent-child relationships but who needs those. I’ve gotten off topic. My point is about humans. I have never liked people. I didn’t think I could ever like them. That is until a loud mouth, know-it-all, gobemouche interfered in my life. It was almost a ten years ago. I’d just moved to a new school in the same town I’d always lived in and was sitting on a bench at my new bus stop. He had a medium skin color, brown hair, and average height. In other words, he was totally forgettable. In fact, the only thing unf...

Unofficial Valentine By E. M. Areson The wind whipped around tossing around the few remaining fall leaves as well as the usual litter. The air was smoggy, that's usual, at least I thought so. Back home that’s how air has always acted, but New Haven is a big city, so I’m not very sure. The sky was darkening overhead, and my feet crunched along the old concrete, and my short sleeves were not enough to keep me warm.  Already I was about seven blocks from the school, the city's ordinance about not using cars for intercity travel seemed a lot less environmentally friendly now that I had no clue where I was except that if I didn’t home be tomorrow I’d probably be in the morgue. Or just as likely never seen again by anyone except people I’d rather never meet. I turned another corner and came upon a ‘v’ in the road. I think I should go right... but that house… I can hear the music from here. And the lights are out from the streetlamp in front of it… I’d have to go pa...

Tiger Paw-prints By  E. M. Areson A little girl of four trots down a concrete hallway. Where is she? She’s in a broken world that so much has gone wrong in people don’t even remember what they’re trying to fix. When is she? In the future, we hope never happens or in the past, we never want to repeat. Her name? We'll call her Molly, but she could be any child anywhere. But we’re not anywhere, we’re in the Shadow Realm.         Molly put another foot in the fake tiger paw prints embedded in the concrete. There were no tigers in the wild anymore. There was nothing in the wild these days. Only germs and grass and icky things. Mommy said concrete was the best ground and Daddy would always agree. Daddy always had to agree with Mommy or people would think he was bad. Molly didn’t know why, but disagreeing was bad. “I like tigers. I never saw one, but I like them,” Molly said to the empty house. “Tigers are orange. I like my yellow dress...