Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

Katie

She didn't like to nap with the lights off, he remembers as he sprawls facedown in bed. Even when she seemed to be in the deepest of sleeps, the room's sudden darkening would trigger some subconscious alarm, and she would wake long enough to make him turn it back on. She didn't want to sleep for too long or too deeply, she would explain, before instantly falling back asleep.

It's Sunday evening and he's only a little bit sleepy, not really in dire need of a nap, but he can't think of anything better to do. Thoughts of Katie come unbidden as he slowly fades from the waking world. He sees her face lighting up as she watches a tiny baby jellyfish squirt its way through an aquarium. He sees her laughing at a picture she just took of the two of them, during which he involuntarily yawned. He feels her warmth beside him, snoring softly.

He rolls over to put an arm around her, but only finds a Katie-sized hole in his life where she should have been.

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