Lilia May

“Hula Hoop” by Lilia May

Submitted to Contest #105

I’m on my way down my last stop of the night. 2:45 am, Easton Boulevard. Last shift isn’t so bad as a bus driver, except in this part of town. This next stop goes past the red light district, and I hate driving through this late at night. It saddens me to see the girls, caked in makeup, soulless eyes, teetering at the edges of the sidewalks. As I drive through, my mind fairly empty, no patients on the bus, something catches my eye. I push the brakes, hard, and my whole body twists around. There she stands, on the corner of the street. Blond...

7 likes 0 comments 0

Read story

“Ruby Blue” by Lilia May

Submitted to Contest #104

The thing about nursing homes is that they’re essentially daycares with high school politics. Daycares have the troublesome toddlers, high schools have the mean kids, and we had Zora. Everyone knew Zora. There was no way you could miss her - the most vivacious, loud, chatty person at the Blue Island Care Facility. I’d been working at the facility for six months when they promoted me to Activities Manager. Up until then, I’d just been doing paperwork in the dusty back room, but their Activities Manager had gotten pregnant, and suddenly I was...

10 likes 0 comments 0

Read story

“Something Must Be Done” by Lilia May

Submitted to Contest #103

The floods had ravaged the cities, drowning the sparkling skyscrapers in dirty brown water. The heat waves had cracked the concrete, warped the glass, littered the parks with the crisp bodies of the unfortunate. The hurricanes had torn apart the suburbs and the farmlands, shedding cow carcasses amongst splintered piles of wood. The cold snaps had frozen the crops into brittle twigs, permeated the thin walls of the people’s homes until frost settled where air used to. The tsunamis had raged in and raged out, a frothing wall of doom laying was...

10 likes 0 comments 0

Read story

“What is Love? Baby Don't Hurt Me, Don't Hurt Me, No More” by Lilia May

Submitted to Contest #102

I get the call at seven pm, driving home from work. I pick it up on speaker, watching the gas stations clip by as the sun slowly sinks towards the top of the trees.“There’s a new girl at your brother’s apartment. Or at least, what used to be his apartment. We haven’t seen him since the weed incident last October.” The voice is detached. Liza was always very factual, very precise. I grip the steering wheel. “Come home, Maeve. Pull him out of his shell. And find out about this new girlfriend.”I really don't want to go. There are about a millio...

8 likes 1 comment 1

Read story

“The Longest Day” by Lilia May

Submitted to Contest #99

The date June 21, 2018 is tattooed into my mind forever. I sit at the big table in the dining room, years later, as the day breaks. The sun pushes through the thin kitchen blinds and I blink, remembering the exact scene years earlier. Connor, shaggy hair hiding his eyes, black t-shirt, way too loose as always. My husband walks downstairs at 7:15 am. Thump, thump, thump, as he always does. Predictable, if nothing else. Trustworthy. Safe. “How long have you been up?” he asks, but he can sense from my face that he won’t get an answer. “The ho...

13 likes 6 comments 6

Read story

“Vilagom” by Lilia May

Submitted to Contest #98

“The house-plant in the front room is dead. My plant, remember, the fern. I’m sorry, I know you helped nurture it for years, but it’s old and dry and, well you know, it was its time.” The letter, blue ink on thin paper, was matter of fact in its delivery. Csilla sat and stared, her hands trembling. House-plant was code for grandparent. Front room meant grandmother, the sitting room meant grandfather. My plant - it was her mother’s handwriting, which meant her mother’s mother was dead. It was ironic, somehow. Her mother had lost her mother an...

8 likes 0 comments 0

Read story

“Societal Supervision Squadron” by Lilia May

Submitted to Contest #97

TW: child killing The first thing Freya woke up to on Saturday night was the sound of the window being smashed in. She leapt out of bed, the adrenaline shooting through her veins instantly waking her up. “Get the kids,” she hissed loudly at her husband, who was already bolting out the door of their bedroom. She rushed out behind him, hot on his heels - then skidded to a stop. In front of her were the remains of her living room window, which was now just a jagged hole in the wall. In front of it stood two men, broad shouldered and shrouded in...

9 likes 0 comments 0

Read story

“Rubatosis” by Lilia May

Submitted to Contest #96

Trigger warning: Eating Disorder, Death The room itself is small but clean and beautiful. The fact that there’s two beds in it makes it noticeably more cramped, but there’s a homey coziness in the soft blankets and lace curtains. Ruby touches the plant hanging next to the window; the dry leaves crunch between her fingertips. “Breakfast is at 8am. Lunch is at 1pm, dinner at 6pm. Your roommate is Zoey, she’ll be here later this afternoon. Curfew is 11pm.” The woman giving instructions is plump, her face lined with concern. Ruby can’t remembe...

8 likes 0 comments 0

Read story

“Garden of Eden” by Lilia May

Submitted to Contest #96

Dear Eden,We used to be so close we could finish each other’s sentences. I’d look at your face and I knew what you were thinking already. It’s such a cliche, but it was so organic - the way you rearranged your limbs to fit perfectly into mine. I miss that. I miss having someone know me so deep to my core.Dear Eden,Do you remember how we met? I was new to the neighborhood, and you lived two doors down from me, and the hooker on the corner came and tried to talk to me. I was still a kid - I mean, not legally, but - I’d never met a hooker befor...

18 likes 4 comments 4

Read story

“The Things You Do For a Forearm” by Lilia May

Submitted to Contest #95

October 12, 2000 You walk into your university’s Deep Sea Conference - it’s a once yearly event that you are relieved to be let into, since it’s 1:59pm and the event starts at 2. It’s your last one, too, since you’re graduating this year. Your best friend, who is terribly sweet but perpetually late, trails at your side, checking her reflection in the big glass doors. She doesn’t particularly care about the ocean, or all the weird creatures living in it, but you joined her in Fro-Yoga (spoonfuls of cheap ice cream between lunges designed to ...

11 likes 2 comments 2

Read story

“Three Teenage Girls” by Lilia May

Submitted to Contest #94

Three teenage girls, sitting in a circle, laughing in various states of drunken undress. Three teenage girls, spinning bottles in their hands, pretending to be adults. Three teenage girls on the tip of a ledge, enjoying the view of the beach and the rocky freedom of a school break. “Truth or Dare,” says the one with the sly smile. “Truth,” the pink haired girl giggles. “Is it true that you kissed Duncan Carlisle at Lola’s birthday party last month?” Silence. The third girl, Duncan Carlisle’s girlfriend for the past seven months, gapes wo...

12 likes 2 comments 2

Read story

“Mother of the Mother” by Lilia May

Submitted to Contest #93

“Claire’s here!” My husband is holding a plate of appetizers in one hand and accepting Claire’s bottle of wine in the other, and I admire him from the top of the stairs, where I am clutching my phone in sweaty palms. “One minute,” I call down, marveling at the way Claire laughs a little too hard at my husband’s joke. Her separation has done her good, I think, looking at her freshly colored hair. A chirp redirects my attention to my phone, but it’s just an email from the bank. My six missed calls under my mother’s contact remain stubbornly s...

13 likes 0 comments 0

Read story

“Chiarobruno” by Lilia May

Submitted to Contest #92

TW: death The rules are simple: Every participant starts from the same line in New York City, New York and ends at the same location in San Francisco, California. Every participant must own their own motorcycle, have proper licensing and paperwork, and wear a helmet at all times. Participants must stick to competition-approved roads only. Participants may only ride their motorcycles during daylight hours.   New York Sometime around 2am the day of the competition, Bruno breaks up with Chiara because he wants to win the competition. “It...

5 likes 0 comments 0

Read story

“Blue for Beth” by Lilia May

I don’t like weekends. Weekends mean activity time, activity time means I have to bond with people. It means Dr. Thakkar pulls out his clipboard and brings us into the big cold room with the blue walls and gives us stale cookies and tells us to sit in a circle and talk about our feelings. It means that Saturday night I have to put on a scratchy suit and stand there while Radio Top 50 plays and middle aged women pumped full of antidepressants and steroids circle around me like sharks. Sundays I sit in Dr. Thakkar’s office, and he sits across ...

2 likes 0 comments 0

Read story

“Hidden” by Lilia May

Submitted to Contest #90

A tree, by itself, wasn’t an unusual sight. A tree, in the middle of the second story bedroom of a Los Angeles apartment, however, was a curiosity. The trunk of the tree wandered somewhere behind the building itself, but at a certain point it simply crossed into the bedroom, wholly unbothered by the apartment’s occupants. There were a lot of rumors about how the tree had become a part of the house, but the truth was that it had been built so long ago that nobody really remembered any kind of reasonable explanation. Paola Herrera, who was ol...

12 likes 3 comments 3

Read story