Death. Love. Grief. Misery.
Discover 13 tales of Misery that will make you happy you aren't living these people's lives.
A woman who knows that her life will end at midnight because the devil told her. Two co-workers trapped on an endless road with something lurking in the back seat, and a woman who meets a lonely giant made of sand who will change her life forever.
Are you ready to fall into a world of absolute Misery?
The bends and grooves of her beauty imprinted itself on the grains as she rose from the sand. It glittered as it fell from her hair, the hair that sat so delicately upon her naked shoulder. Her eyes were drawn to the sun that fell just below the horizon, the red and yellow hues lighting up her eyes and tracing flames upon the ocean’s face. “So beautiful,” she mumbled under her breath, she outstretched an arm, and splayed her hand out before her, trying to touch the sun’s last beams of light. Those beams which she so desperately clung to then fell away and died, leaving in their absence just the blackness of night, which was only broken by a streetlight that sat alone on the street up from the beach.
She stretched her feet out which dug deep into the sand and rolled her head along her shoulders, which was when she clocked it. Clocked the figure that was standing in the distance. Her head tilted to the right, as if that would make the figure more visible. It didn’t. She crawled along the sand towards the figure, just a few paces, just to get a better look. “Is it a man?” she asked herself. It couldn’t be a man though; a man isn’t as tall as that. The figure’s head was in line with the top of the streetlight, the streetlight that was up a flight of stairs and on the pavement next to the wall that lined the beachfront. The figure’s head, well what she assumed was its head, was facing towards the ocean. She went back to the blanket which she had crawled away from, there was sat a small rucksack and a sort of silk gown, she did only live in a flat on the beach front. When she had thoroughly rummaged through her bag, she finally came across what she was looking for, her mobile phone. She slipped into her silk gown and instead of just walking away from the curiosity that quite literally stood before her, she walked towards it, phone in hand.
She stopped a couple of metres away from it took a photo, and marvelled at its size, her neck craned so she could see the top of the figure. Now that she was this close to it, she could see what it truly was. The figure was no man, nothing even close to a thing of flesh and blood. The figure was made of sand. “Is it a sculpture?” she asked herself. “It looks so alive, I, just wow!”
The sand giant moved its head towards her.
She fell onto her back, shaking her head, she tried to crawl back but just dug herself deeper into the sand. “You can’t be, you just can’t be…” her words drifted. Her heart was thumping, banging in her head, her breaths had become panicked, but still, she couldn’t stop looking.
Looking at it.
She raised an arm, and pointed at the monstrosity, “How are you, how are you alive?” she shouted at the sand giant, although she didn’t expect an answer from it. The sand giant’s face was void of features, no eyes or mouth, just a flat surface, an empty canvas, the only way she could distinguish that it was the giant’s face was the neck which it was attached to. As the giant turned to face her, sand fell from its being, trickling down it’s body leaving trails down his figure like a nervous system. “I,” the sand giant’s voice was shaky, raspy, and more akin to that of just a low rumbling noise. She continued to shake her head, eyes wide in disbelief. Where did he speak from? She thought to herself. “I am,” it said, it put its head down and then seemed to roll its shoulders which sent a flurry of sand into the air. “How can you even speak?” she said, exacerbated, one of her hands rose to point at it, as if that would discover some hidden secret.
“I am alive!” The sand giant groaned.
She took a few paces towards the giant, not thinking, curiosity pulling her feet towards it. “Alive?” she asked, no-longer scared, it’s hard to be scared and curious at the same time. “Alive,” the giant repeated. She tilted her head slightly, crouched and peered through the sand giant’s open legs, checking to see if there was a person hiding behind it. She ran swiftly to see better from the right, but there was no one there. “Is this some kind of joke,” she glanced around the beach, “Is someone playing a joke?” The beach, however, was empty. Empty bar her and the sand giant of course. “No, no, no,” she shook her head, “this can’t be, you can’t be,” she fell to her knees, unable to process what was before her. “I am alive!” The sand giant repeated, turning its head in one swift movement towards the sea, sand trailing down its body. She watched as the sand giant settled into its new position, how the sand which it had lost in its moving, seemed to retract back and resettle into place. He always remained perfect it seemed.
“Okay,” she took a breath, looked away from the sand giant, pressed her index finger and middle finger against her forehead. “Assuming you are alive,” she said as she turned back to face it, “Can you only say,” she paused, “I am alive!”
“No,” it snapped, a tone which hadn’t been present before filling the word, a tone of anger. “Okay,” she took another breath, “What else can you say?” it stayed silent, “go on then, say more if you can?” she gestured towards it with a waving hand. “I say more,” it grunted back. She smiled, not a smile that was prompted by the giant, no this was a smile that was full of something else. A smile from a memory, a memory from long ago. “My brother would’ve love this!”
“Would’ve?” the sand giant posed the word as if it were a question, as it tilted its head to the left, sand fell to the ground into a small clump. But as the giant settled on this position, as before, the sand returned to its body. “Yes, he would’ve loved it,” a tear trickling down her cheek much the same as the sand that had trickled down the giant’s body. “But he’s long gone now,” she wiped away the tear, drying her hand on her gown. “Now gone?” the sand giant asked, keeping its head tilted, evidently curious. “Yep, gone, if there was somehow, I could get him back I would, believe you me,” she laughed, a quiet laugh, a nervous laugh.
“How?”
“Huh?” she said.
“How is brother gone?” the sand giant lifted its head to be upright again. She stayed silent as she watched the sand that fell when he tilted his head somehow climb up his body to go back to where it was before, back to make him look perfect. “Erm… it’s a long story really and, well I don’t really like talking about it, anyway I’m more interested about you. Where do you come from, or did come from?” She asked, tilting her head much like the sand giant had. “Brother gone where?” It took one lumbering step towards her, sand flying everywhere. It forced her to take a step back too, as not to get sand in her eyes. It was evidently very keen on getting his question answered. “Okay, okay, I’ll answer your question, for goodness’ sake, please don’t move again.”
“Good!” replied the sand giant.
“So, he died,” she said bluntly, looking away from the giant to yet again wipe away another tear. “Died how?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it, plus it’s a long story, we don’t have time.” She looked back at him, her eyes stern, trying to make it so the giant wouldn’t try to pry anymore, but it didn’t stop the giant, why would it? “Die how?”
“I don’t have to tell you!”
“Do it!” the giant shouted, which sounded like a lion roaring. “Or what?” she asked.
“Or I die you!” that statement made her gasp and take a minute to think. “Okay, I’ll tell you. So, it happened when I was six and he was about five.”
“We were playing in my room, we always played in my room, it was bigger, but that was only cos’ well I was born first. Think we were playing knights and dragons, but can’t really remember, probably was though, was his favourite. Think he wanted a snack, or maybe I did, and instead of like, asking Dad or Mum we decided that we could just go get one ourselves, why couldn’t we? Wasn’t like we were learning to walk; we definitely could walk as we ran around the house like maniacs most of the time. So, we just did it, we went from my room to the top of the stairs, and we decided to run, race each other down them. But…but he tripped, and fell, and before I knew it, he was dead. Mum came first, tried to help, but think he hit his head hard, or something like that. I remember staying in the house that night with Dad, Mum went in the ambulance. Then later that night, Dad got a call from Mum, he rushed us to get our coats and into the car. Yep, so he’s gone.”
“That is sad.” The sand giant said, sincerity in its voice, “But it is not the truth.”
“What?” she asked, eyes wide.
“Your story is not the truth!”
“Yes, it is! I lived it, how would you know?” She screamed running up to the sand giant, trying to make herself seem bigger than it. The sand giant, calmly started to speak, “You and your brother did decide to go get snacks, but he didn’t trip, you pushed him, when trying to get past him to win the race, you killed him.” They stood in silence, letting those last few words sink in, let the air set around them. “No, no, no, that didn’t happen,” she furiously put her hand through her hair, pulling on it, twisting it around her index finger, and gently tugging down. She pointed an angry finger at the giant, an accusing finger, “How would you even know, huh?” It didn’t reply, “Answer me!” It still didn’t reply to her. “I said answer me!” spit flew out her mouth with the last syllable, as she fell to her knees before the sand giant. “How do you know?” she sobbed into her hands.
“I know because you killed me,” the sand giant finally said. She looked up at him, in shock, in horror and somehow deep inside, with relief. “Danny?”
“Stacey.” The sand giant replied, her name felt like it made the air go cold around them. “Oh my God, it really is you?” She went forward to touch the giant, but as she put a hand out the sand dropped, the giant just fell, became a clump of sand on the beach, as if it were never there in the first place. “No, no, I can’t lose you again!” She quickly sifted through the sand, dug into the pile trying to find something, anything to get her little brother back with her, to speak with her, but there was nothing.
*
“You alright love? Haven’t touched a bit of your dinner,” her mother looked over at her from the other side of the table, fork and knife in hand. “Yes, I’m just not hungry,” Stacy replied. Her mother stared at her for a moment, trying to figure out whether or not to try and get any more out her daughter. “Okay, well do you want me to put some tin foil round it and you can heat it up in the microwave later?” Stacy shook her head. “Mum?”
“Yes dear?”
“You know, you know about how Danny died.” Her mother didn’t say anything, just looked at her, tears obviously forming, but she didn’t dare let her daughter see them. “And, you know how you think that he just tripped?”
“What are you saying?” her mother placed down her cutlery, and stood up from her chair, hanging on each and every one of her daughter’s words, clambering for the next. “What are you saying God dammit?” Her mother screamed, slamming a fist against the table. “He didn’t trip,” she let a tear fall down her cheek, “I pushed him.” Her mother didn’t say anything, she opened her mouth, and then shut it again, the cogs of her brain trying to contemplate what her daughter had just said to her. “Mum?”
“No, it’s been twenty years, twenty years!”
“Mum?”
“No, No,” she turned away from Stacy, “No, you, you’re lying this is some sick joke,” she turned back to face Stacy, “Isn’t it?”
“No,” replied Stacy.
“Get out,” her mother said plainly,
“What?”
“I said get out.”
“No, I live here too!” Stacy screamed back at her.
“Not anymore, get out of my fucking house!” she moved towards Stacy which forced Stacy to take a few steps back. “I said get out!” She took Stacy by the arms and pushed and shoved her towards the door. Stacy didn’t even try to fight back, “Get off me! I’ll go,” her mum let go of her and she immediately turned away and left.
She walked down to the beach front and gazed into the horizon. She watched as waves crashed into one another, forcing the tide to come in. Stood, not far away from her, just out of her line of sight, was a sand giant. Alone, on the beach.