Risha Tevins

“Park Bench” by Risha Tevins

To a child’s eye, the park bench loomed.I was that child. I was told I was small for my age, and in turn, all I knew was how large the world was. Dust motes and specks. I remember the grass, the way it tickled my knees. The way it smelled, forest-y and sharp after a good rain. Needless to say, it rained a lot. Above my wide eyes would soar the horizon of dark trees, imposing and impossibly rooted, a tapestry of greens and ragged browns. The only light would often be the sun threading a gold lining in between the thicket of grey.There were th...

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“Crossroad Blues” by Risha Tevins

Submitted to Contest #95

He has to pick a door, has to pick, has to, has to-One over two. Fifty-fifty. He shakes, trembles, body juddering. The world narrows, darkens, brightens.(Wrong, wrong, wrong)***As always, it starts with a choice.It’s midday, and the sun is cast directly overhead. He can feel its searing gaze bite into the exposed flesh at the back of his neck, the touch is bristly and hoarse, and when he shivers, it has nothing to do with the presence of the cold - there’s none, whatsoever, in fact - but more with the fear properly mangling up with...

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“Lost and Found” by Risha Tevins

Submitted to Contest #93

The air is thick with movement. It’s saturated in noise, dripping with the rowdy cheers and cries of the multitude of people crushed together into a humid crowd, and there’s something vaguely claustrophobic about the whole experience. The need to hurl out the latest meal asserts itself in between his ribs, rather rudely shoving against his insides. Determined little bugger, that one. Everything honestly felt like scrambled goo, and his head was not feeling so hot either. Nasty thing, that headache. Jax squeezes his eyes shut instinctively,...

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“Torchlight” by Risha Tevins

Submitted to Contest #92

The darkness hides secrets, but sometimes, it also holds a small measure of comfort. The power goes out on Friday night, plunging the city into total darkness. It’s large shadow, seemingly cast by the footprints of a giant, overwhelming, and only eclipsed by the pale ring of the moon. (Sickly, ill light standing alone against the void; a single person standing tall, defying judgement before wrathful armies. There’s something fascinating about that that holds your attention, makes you breathless.)There’s barely a whisper of warning ...

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“In The Moonlight Hollow” by Risha Tevins

Submitted to Contest #91

Moonlight.It shone an icy-silver layer of velvet over absolutely everything, bleaching out all distinct shape and colour and light from life until it appeared effectively as a clinical, slumbering world. Morbidly surreal in its new flatness, illusions conjured out of the darkest depths of the unknown mind, flesh abandoned nature, turning to polished stone and gravel until they lost their viscosity, becoming pools of mirrors laid flat against the palm of emptiness.Silence descended upon the edge of abyss, ensconcing the guarded area insi...

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“Je Me Souviens” by Risha Tevins

Submitted to Contest #90

1. DespairThe soldier's hands shook. He trembled. He wept.Conscious thought eluded him at that moment, eclipsed by the paralysis that seemed to have seized control of his functions. He stood there, amidst the bruised soil and the shattered, red-rimmed skies. Tears wept down his face - a muddied river of rust and salted loss.The grit and grime of the past few years still clung onto him, coating him in a visceral reminder of his own sins. His feet ached, chest burned, and the fist around his heart a tight choke-hold that drained what little st...

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“Time Did Reverse” by Risha Tevins

Submitted to Contest #89

There’s darkness. The smoky flavour of ash crumples in his mouth, grit, grime, and tears and blood, and he thinks that there is more to this than sensation alone. There’s a soul-weary ache seared into the fibres and fragments of his bones that severs any conscious thoughts from coming into fruition. It feels frustratingly lonely. It’s bitter. It consumes all of him like a great, hungry beast.He does not know his name. Doesn’t remember.At that moment, he is weightless. He is nothing and everything all at once, existing and erased, and his min...

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“Creature of Fire and Flame” by Risha Tevins

Submitted to Contest #88

The hag was waiting for them at the gates. The stance portrayed none of the nerves of fear that might have been expected; it was instead tempered steel and ice-and-fire that lay side by side, bent but not broken, either. Wrinkled hands cupped over the darkened edge of the chalice, as the slight slish-slosh of liquid inside persisted, and all the while as the world trembled around them.Elara’s hands shook. On instinct, she pulled the cloak tighter around her. The raggedy thing scratched uncomfortably against the paper-thin sheen of her s...

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“Fool Me Twice, Shame on Me” by Risha Tevins

Submitted to Contest #87

It was paranoia that made him second-guess everything.The dark sense of dread that had been steadily building up in the pit of his gut for the past week or so finally burst forth into existence, as soon as the searing rays of sunlight first began to blister the skin of his cheeks. A puckering, bitter kiss of exaggerated proportions, but no less scathing for it.Routine had him shuffling along mechanically. His mood turned decidedly and viciously sour, already crafting the endless possibilities of the schemes that he might fall victim to. It w...

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“Streaks Of Red and Gold” by Risha Tevins

Submitted to Contest #84

Your hands shake. Like the rest of you, they are old and gnarled and worn. Rough lines and calluses bite deep into the sunken skin of your flesh, and you both despise and crave the scars in equal measure because the pain hurts, but it’s also the last real proof that you still have of a life lived oh so long ago.It helps to tether you to reality - through the haze of half-buried memories and the useless ramblings of an old woman. The itches continue to scratch away at the base of your skull.Madness, you think, has many forms. It’s j...

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“Sand and Stardust” by Risha Tevins

Submitted to Contest #83

The waves crested before him - a magnificent glittering crown of blues and greys, as well as all the colours that came in between. The sea made hardly a splash as, with a deliberate flick of the wrist spurred on by a stray thought crossing his mind, he directed the lapping, hungry water back into the sandy, grit-wrought shores of the alcove.A weary sigh stole the breath away from his lungs and for a moment, he indulged in simply letting himself be. The sun above was muffled, and the sharp cries of the parks and sea-birds were one of the few ...

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“Deus Ex Machina” by Risha Tevins

Submitted to Contest #82

With a single glance, they assess the man. Average height, average build and with a crown of greying salt-and-pepper hair. The sunlight streams through the showcase panels, and it highlights the narrowed features and creases of pale skin. Bleached, like fading metal. It’s in the first stages of decline, they know.It’s really too bad.He has beautiful eyes, they think longingly, and move on.He’s approaching forty years of age now, well past the prime of his youth and by all accounts and expectations, should have already settled down into the r...

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“Norang Narang” by Risha Tevins

Submitted to Contest #81

John Song, I thought about you today. I suppose that it was hard not to, especially with our encounter still so vividly seared into my mind. The circumstances of our meeting were not chance, nor was it dealt by the hand of fate, but I find that it makes the experience so much more better. It was a choice, mine and yours, a temporary contract entered by mutual agreement, and I do not find myself regretting it at all. I enjoyed it; both the food and your company. You are a quirky person, John Song. But then again, so am I. Perhaps that’s o...

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