Half-Awake and Half-Alive


Published
2 years, 5 months ago
Updated
2 years, 4 months ago
Stats
5 1500 2

Entry 1
Published 2 years, 4 months ago
300

A collection of short stories of exactly 300 words each, diving into the heads of Apricot Bay's residents on those especially cold, stressful nights...

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Colton was half-asleep by about mid-reel. They were Riley's old reels; sitting out on the lake with the old man, listening to him ramble about the magic of film, got the raccoon boy curious as ever.

Retrieving the reels proved messy. Riley had a habit of stacking bins and furniture to the ceiling; thankfully, Colton was a good climber. Riley's smirk grew to a proper smile seeing Colton take the film in his fingers, inspecting it like alien paper--before choking on the slight smell of vinegar it gave off.

But that was earlier in the day. Colton lay on the couch in one of the display rooms with the projector's odd yellow glow over him. The film wasn't anything too special (a western Riley intended as inspiration for a painting), but the stilted movement and old-timey title cards fixed him.

Until he noticed the film was fixed likewise. A wide shot of a tavern had lingered on the wall for several seconds now. The jackrabbit bartender off to the far left of the shot looked towards the camera, and Colton narrowed his eyes, sitting up. He could've sworn the gentlemen idly cleaning a mug was staring back at him.

To experiment, Colton pointed a finger at himself.

The bartender raised his eyebrows and nodded.

Colton shot up in disbelief. He opened his mouth, almost to ask the film what, how, why--until a loud snap in the room stirred him from his actual rest.

He'd nodded off, and the film had snapped in the projector. Colton was frozen for a moment, realizing Riley was at that moment on the other side of the building, with several dark hallways between.

Colton reached for the floor lamp and turned over, hugging a throw pillow. He could sleep with the lights on that night...

Author's Notes

It's like I'm actively trying to turn Colton into Benny-boy, first with the lo-fi cassette music, now with silent film... Fittingly, I was up last night watching the Archive Halloween 2017 special (on telecine) when this came to me.

If I'm capable of reordering these shorts, this one would probably come first. Him waking up is a good start to the weirder shit within.