The Novella Life of Illuscia Nester Himawari

To all my fellow Scorpios: Come celebrate being one of the Dark Ones of the Zodiac! A birthday party to celebrate all our birthdays! Where: At Sonja’s house When: November 16, 2013 7:00 p.m. A Slumber Party! The six invitations, each one for the girls Sonja knew who were Scorpios, did look pretty cool. Her mom had done a great job on them, on all the plans for her slumber party, in fact, but Sonja still wished she didn’t have to bother with a birthday party. Turning thirteen sucked enough without having to invite girls you knew didn’t really like you very much to a slumber party at your house. "You really should try harder to make friends", her social butterfly mother had insisted. "When I was your age, I was busy with my friends all the time. You just stay home and read—all that depressing poetry—can’t be good for you….you shouldn’t spend so much time by yourself, honey." Sonja was perfectly content by herself. But she took the invitations to school and gave them ...

I’ve always lived in his shadow. He was always faster than me, stronger than me, picked before me… everyone liked him more than me. We were born together, but we couldn’t have been further apart. He grew up to be successful. Loving wife and kids, dog, picket fence, the works. I grew up to be the opposite. I made it through my days fueled by jealousy and resentment. Each morning I awoke hoping it’d be through the eyes of my brother. Just one day, I told myself, one day in my life and he’d know just how hard I have it. Everything always worked out for him, he never struggled a day in his life, and then one day I killed him. You see, he never told his wife about me, his kids never knew of their uncle, his friends never knew of his brother; I simply didn’t exist. So now I make my way up to my new house, to be greeted by my new wife, and hugged by my new, loving kids. They won’t know the difference. We were twins, after all. — Credits to: ElizaberryLOL

My daughter’s small hands grab the farmhouse poster in the corner of the room. “Okay Sweetie, do you remember?” She points to the cow in the corner, “Moo!” "Great Sweetie! Keep going." She points to the dog, “Woof!” …the sheep, “Baaaahh!” …the pig, “Oink!” …the duck, “Quack!” …me, “Shhhhh!” I look at her confused. It takes me a few seconds to realize she isn’t pointing at me. — Credits to: IntoTheCosmo

It was his first time in Karachi. The coastal city seemed to sprawl on forever, and for a little while he was concerned about getting lost there. But, fortunately he had a lot of friends accompanying him. One look at his them as they stood gathered there outside the bus station and he felt neither alone, nor afraid. “Take one of these whistles with you!” said one of them, handing him a smooth silver whistle and moving on to the next person, handing him a whistle as well. “What are these for?” he called to him. “Well, since we’re dividing into small groups to explore, I thought it was a good idea for us to have a quick way to calling out to each other” He looked back down at the whistle and then to everyone else slowly forming groups of different sizes. He was the only one travelling alone; Since he had a few relatives he wanted to meet, and a few traders he had to discuss terms with. ‘I had best get going’ he thought. It was all a very boring affair. He wanted to finish his visits as ...

Mermaids are the still corpses of stupid little girls, hanging white and indistinct in the water. Merciful fantasies of fish tails and Atlantis might exist, but only in the drowning children that subsist along the jagged edges of the sea break, broken, blood like fins around them. Existing in the moment right before the oxygen deprivation turns the lights off. The song Katie claimed to hear, as we lay prone upon the beach, I learned, could only be heard by the stupid, the desperate, and the dying. For years she claimed mermaids lived on the rocks, half a mile out. If you found them they granted wishes. Perhaps all the wishes human have boil down to ‘I want to die on my own terms.’ In her moment of grief, when her world was shattering down upon her, Katie thought it was better to drown the body than the soul. All this she told me after, on the sandy shore that offered little comfort. I owe you nothing. I never asked you to help me. The memory is still very real. Heavy. It comes to me w...