Todd Beller

“The Locksmith” by Todd Beller

I didn't mean to spend my first date with Sarah breaking into houses, but that's exactly what happened. It started normally enough – coffee at a small café in San Francisco's Hayes Valley. She was a locksmith, she told me over her cappuccino. I thought she meant she worked at a hardware store making keys. Keys have always fascinated me, it's as if that piece of metal unlocks worlds that didn't exist before. "Not exactly," she said, studying me with sharp green eyes. "I'm more of a security consultant. I help people understand how vulnerable...

1 like 0 comments 0

Read story

“Running away From Myself” by Todd Beller

My high school yearbook quote reads: "I only run when chased." It was meant to be funny, but it was also absolutely true. For the first 32 years of my life, I was proudly, defiantly sedentary. The mere sight of joggers would trigger eye rolls and sarcastic comments about their "obvious mental illness." After all, who in their right mind would run if nothing was pursuing them? If you had told that version of me that I would one day become a dedicated marathon runner, I would have laughed until I needed my inhaler – which I frequently did, bec...

1 like 0 comments 0

Read story

“Heavy Metal Grandma” by Todd Beller

I never meant to keep Eleanor a secret. It just seemed easier than explaining to my hipster friends why I, a 28-year-old craft beer enthusiast with a carefully curated vinyl collection and an artisanal coffee habit, was spending my Saturday afternoons with an 82-year-old woman who loved Metallica and wore motorcycle boots. Our first meeting was pure chance. I was working late at the library, cataloging new arrivals in the music section, when I heard it – someone quietly but unmistakably humming "Enter Sandman." Following the sound, I found a...

1 like 0 comments 0

Read story

“The Prison Choir” by Todd Beller

I gripped my conductor's baton tightly as I walked through the first of five security checkpoints at San Quentin State Prison. The year was 2009, and I was there under protest. My university's outreach program had "volunteered" me – the newest member of the music faculty – to lead a twelve-week choral workshop with inmates. I had tried every excuse to get out of it, but my department chair was adamant. Community service was part of our mandate, and this was my assignment. The guard at the first checkpoint examined my credentials with exagger...

1 like 0 comments 0

Read story

“Man On The Mountain” by Todd Beller

Submitted to Contest #276

The first thing I noticed about Karma wasn't his maroon robes or weather-beaten face, but his laugh. It erupted from somewhere deep in his belly and echoed off the Himalayan peaks, causing a few snow-dusted ravens to take flight from a nearby prayer flag pole. I was hunched over my backpack outside a teahouse in Tengboche, Nepal, altitude 12,687 feet, trying to decide if my altitude sickness medication was making things better or worse. My path to this moment had begun six months earlier when, reeling from a messy divorce and the collapse of...

5 likes 3 comments 3

Read story

“The Time Merchant” by Todd Beller

Submitted to Contest #275

Dr. Eleanor Chen had exactly forty-three hours, twelve minutes, and seven seconds left to live. She knew this with scientific precision because she'd paid good money to find out. The Time Merchant's shop occupied a sliver of space between a laundromat and a defunct video rental store. Its window display consisted of a single antique hourglass, the sand frozen halfway through its journey. Eleanor had passed it a thousand times without really seeing it, until her diagnosis made time suddenly, painfully relevant. "Welcome," the Merchant had sai...

9 likes 4 comments 4

Read story

“The Things We Leave Behind” by Todd Beller

My sister's laughter started haunting me three days after I cleaned out her apartment. Not her ghost – I'm fairly certain Katie isn't dead. She's just gone, somewhere in Southeast Asia according to her last Instagram post, "finding herself" or whatever people call it when they abandon their lives without warning. The laughter comes at odd moments: when I'm washing dishes, riding the elevator, trying to sleep. It's not malevolent or mocking – it's her real laugh, the one that used to bubble up from deep in her chest when she found something g...

1 like 0 comments 0

Read story

“The Last Train Home” by Todd Beller

"Better late than never," my grandmother used to say, usually when I'd show up hours after I'd promised to visit, bearing apologetic takeout and excuses about traffic. She'd welcome me with the same warm smile regardless of time, as if my presence alone made up for any tardiness. I never thought those words would end up saving my life. The digital display at Carlyle Station read 11:57 PM as I sprinted down the stairs, messenger bag slapping against my hip. The last train home left at midnight – it always had, ever since the line opened in 19...

1 like 0 comments 0

Read story

“The Art of Being Dead” by Todd Beller

Submitted to Contest #275

Being dead isn't nearly as boring as you might think.  I discovered this on my third day of non-existence, when I finally stopped trying to open doors and learned to simply pass through them instead. The trick, I found, is to forget you were ever solid to begin with. Forget the weight of bones and blood, the constant pull of gravity, the way air once caught in your lungs. Remember instead that you are now made of the same stuff as moonlight and memory. My name was – is? – Thomas Webb, and I've been dead for approximately eight months, t...

9 likes 1 comment 1

Read story

“ The Cat's Labyrinth” by Todd Beller

Claire Chen hadn't believed in omens until the morning she found the black cat sitting on her welcome mat. It was Tuesday, exactly three years since her grandmother's funeral, and the cat's yellow eyes held an unsettling intelligence that made her coffee-deprived brain stutter to full alertness. "Shoo," she said halfheartedly, knowing even as she spoke that the cat wouldn't move. It didn't. Instead, it studied her with the kind of patience that suggested she was the one being unreasonable. The cat was sleek and well-groomed, definitely not a...

1 like 0 comments 0

Read story

“The Weight of Paper Cranes” by Todd Beller

Maya folded paper cranes when she was afraid, which meant there were exactly 1,847 of them in her apartment. She kept count, recording each one in a small notebook by her bed. The newest crane – number 1,848 – was taking shape beneath her fingers now, its wings slowly emerging from a square of midnight blue paper as she sat in the hospital waiting room. "Ms. Chen?" A nurse appeared in the doorway, clipboard in hand. "Your mother's asking for you." Maya's fingers stilled on the half-formed crane. "How is she?" "Stable. The surgery went well."...

1 like 1 comment 1

Read story

“The Inheritance of Empty Rooms” by Todd Beller

Submitted to Contest #274

Professor Helen Blackwood had always assumed that if fate wanted to change your life, it would use grand gestures – lottery wins, chance meetings, natural disasters. But as she stood in the foyer of her late aunt's Victorian mansion, holding a letter that seemed to mock her with its impossible demands, she realized the truth: fate is resourceful. Sometimes all it needs is an empty house and an old woman's peculiar will. The house loomed around her, its high ceilings disappearing into shadow despite the morning light streaming through tall wi...

4 likes 0 comments 0

Read story

“ The Space Between Streetlights” by Todd Beller

Even at thirty-four, Sarah Mitchell couldn't shake the urge to run between streetlights at night. The compulsion lived in her muscles, a childhood reflex as deeply ingrained as looking both ways before crossing the street. During the day, she was a successful architect with her own firm, known for her innovative designs and meticulous attention to detail. But after sunset, she became that scared eight-year-old again, counting the pools of light that would guide her home. Her therapist called it a residual anxiety response. "Many adults retai...

1 like 0 comments 0

Read story

“The Maintenance Request” by Todd Beller

Morgan Chen had worked maintenance at Evergreen Apartments for twelve years, and in all that time, she'd never received a work order quite like this one. The digital ticket simply read: "Strange sounds + smell from pipes under kitchen sink. NOT regular blockage. Please investigate ASAP." The request came from unit 437, occupied by old Mrs. Whitaker, who'd lived in the building even longer than Morgan had worked there. Mrs. Whitaker wasn't one for hyperbole or unnecessary maintenance calls. If anything, she was known for trying to fix things ...

1 like 0 comments 0

Read story

“The Thirteenth Step” by Todd Beller

Submitted to Contest #274

My grandmother haunts the church basement on Tuesday nights. I've seen her there between the metal folding chairs and ancient coffee urns, her silhouette flickering under fluorescent lights that buzz like dying insects. She wears the same powder blue cardigan she was buried in, the one with mother-of-pearl buttons that catch the light like tiny moons. The others can't see her, of course. They just feel a sudden chill when they walk through the spot where she stands, or catch the phantom scent of her Shalimar perfume mixing with the burnt cof...

15 likes 6 comments 6

Read story