Short story: Dismantled Eyes The office smelled of cold coffee and disinfectant, a mixture trying to order the chaotic. Outside, the city pulsed with notifications: shop windows vibrating, hands swiping, faces lit by screens. Inside, the light was warm and still. Three bodies occupied the room: a calm-eyed psychologist, a mother clutching her coat close, and an adolescent who kept rubbing the fabric of his pants with his fingertips, seeking in that gesture the same security…
Top 5 musical - December, 2025 We return with our monthly list that shows the 5 most listened artists/bands, which in this case is the month of December, the last month of the year 2025 that has just concluded. And for this month several bands that have made their appearance before are coming back. Now, without further ado, let's see who are those who are present. First of all, it should be remembered that this list is part of my profile on LastFM, a social network that has…
Short story: The Second Chance for Luna The animal protection volunteers had spent weeks going through shelters and refuges looking for dogs and cats that, for various reasons, no one had claimed. That morning, the sun barely peeked through gray clouds as Marta and Javier entered a hall of cages where the light seemed to bounce off sadness. There were several animals, but one in particular caught their attention: a small dog with grayish-brown fur, thinner than usual, who…
Short story: The Silent Failure: Recovering Deep Knowledge in the Face of Technical Training Professor Andrés cleared his throat before entering the classroom and set down a stack of yellowing papers: academic articles, philosophy notes, history essays and texts he believed formed the backbone of an education oriented toward deep knowledge. Outside, the corridor buzzed with the usual hurry; inside, six students murmured to one another; one of them, Martina, scrolled through…
Performing maintenance on a PlayStation controller These days I was performing a maintenance to a PlayStation controller (first generation), a control that was given by a friend to carry out this work. And for this we proceeded in this way: the housings were removed and then cleaned with soap and water (in addition to other parts) in order to remove the dust, grease, and other types of attached dirt. As for the plate, it was cleaned with cotton wool and alcohol carefully so…
Short story: Doña Eulalia and the Hundred Secrets Beer Doña Eulalia turned 105 with a smile that seemed to defy the calendar. The neighborhood square was her kingdom: a favorite bench under the shade of a plane tree, the seat worn by years of stories, and the smell of freshly baked bread drifting from the corner bakery. That afternoon, as on so many others, she held a beer in her hand—not out of showiness, but as a beloved habit—and her gaze said it all: she had lived a long…
Short story: The Semester Printed: Lucas and His 3D Printer Odyssey Lucas was about to drop out of college. It sounded more like a defeated mantra than a remote possibility: bills piled up like unfinished homework, free hours were tokens someone kept, and weekend waiter shifts neither covered tuition nor left time to study. Every time he waited tables he felt he was selling not just plates but minutes of his academic life. He began to believe that university and he were…
Short story: The Great Sleepecation of Neo-Sanford In the year 2147, museums displayed banners reading "Vacations, 20th century B.C." alongside black-and-white photos of beaches packed with people trying to capture moments. Travel agencies had been repurposed as pillow curators. Ideal vacations, for nearly half of the modern workforce, no longer required passports or selfies: there were three indispensable ingredients — pajamas, blackout curtains, and absolute silence. A…
Short story: The House of Silent Screams Mariana placed the key on the table with the same delicacy she always used to arrange the plates: a meticulous gesture that seemed to try to stop time. The key flashed for a second under the hallway light and then lay still, as if it were a mute witness to repeated habits. The apartment walls were covered with memories: framed photos, diplomas, newspaper clippings from a safer past. In one, a portrait of Mariana and her daughter…
Short story: The Smoke’s Refrain Reborn The coast seemed to have lost its memory. Mornings in Emerald Port no longer brought the smell of salt and seaweed but a thin layer of ash settling on piers and nets. The fire, born far away in the hills and arriving like a rumor, became a sentence: the main wildfire in the province had already consumed some 3,500 hectares. What had been a seaside resort of lazy summers and long sunsets was soon encircled by flames and a wind that…
Short story: Rebirth Among Lights Alma walked through the city like someone crossing a stage lit by demands: the lights were promises and the rushes, curses. Every morning she rose with a list lodged in her throat: consultations, pills, calls. She tended bodies, names, and emergencies while her own life unraveled into silences that no one claimed. Her family loved her; her friends sent messages; her phone piled up “likes” like hollow medals. And yet, when night closed her…
Short story: The Sanctuary of Figures Eduardo woke up on a Sunday to an alarm emulating an 8-bit effect and, without an ounce of shame, answered with a vocalization that sounded more like a forgotten video-game hero. He was thirty-two, and his apartment was not conventional: it was an emotional sanctuary where every shelf, box, and poster told a small geography of his life. Action figures posed dramatically on ledges, comics were organized by color as if for chromotherapy,…
Short story: The Aeon Board The Meridian Tower rose above the city like a colossus of glass and steel that seemed to devour the light of dawn. At its heart, the main conference chamber was designed to impress: soundproof walls, embedded touch panels, and, in the center, a circular pedestal where a hologram of the world floated. The map’s lines pulsed with data: trade routes, deposits, ports, factories. A tense silence filled the room; every breath felt measured, as if the…
Short story: The Blue Ribbon's Hand In the small neighborhood of Lirë, where narrow streets smelled of freshly baked bread and the evenings filled with the lazy smoke of chimneys, lived Ana Leka. She was eleven years old, her brown hair always adorned with a blue ribbon her grandmother had knitted, and a clear laugh that lit up any corner. Ana had Down syndrome: she sometimes walked slowly, tenderly repeated the songs she liked, and, above all, had a way of looking that…
Short story: The Like That Unleashed the Plaza Once upon a time in the town of Valdelío —the kind of place that only appears on maps if you look for where rumors spread fastest— there was an afternoon that promised to be as ordinary as any other: people buying arepas, children running around, and the fruit seller hawking her prices. But as often happens in neighborhood tales, a single misinterpreted message and a phone too eager to react were enough to turn calm into…
Short story: The Fog on the Lake In Sombreira, a village where the gray sky seemed to mimic the souls of its neighbors, the lake was the secret heartbeat of the community. Its waves whispered confidences and the seagulls raised their chicks on the shores. But in recent weeks a denser shadow had settled over everything, a reflection of Samuel’s dimmed spirits—his once-easy laugh now barely remembered. Samuel’s Sadness One afternoon, when the sun spread pale behind the clouds,…
Short story: The Boy with the Frozen Hair The morning in the village of Shānshuǐ dawned unlike most: a compact, dense silence with the sky washing the mountain outlines in a pale gray. The cold was not a suggestion but a law: the thermometer read -9 °C and the frost had turned the fields into broken glass. In a small mud house, beside a hearth that no longer warmed as it once did, Grandma Lín watched her grandson with rough hands and careful eyes as he prepared to leave.…
Short story: Lola’s Big Adventure in Hope Neighborhood It was a Sunday that smelled of fresh dough and a lazy afternoon sky in Hope Neighborhood. The neighborhood moved to its own rhythms that day: the bakery opened later than promised, the dogs seemed to have rehearsed a choreography, and the cats watched from the roofs with the attitude of toll collectors for crossing the street. In a peach-colored stucco house, fifteen-year-old Lola prepared a small mission that in her…
Short story: The Selfie That Wanted to Be a Polaroid Luis found the camera in a box among lonely socks and a note from Don Álvaro that read: “If it doesn’t come out, blame the film.” It was a discovery that smelled like a garage and long Sundays. He had learned to measure the world by the glow of screens: life came in notifications, in photos that were seen and disappeared with the same swipe. But that camera, heavy and noisy, demanded another kind of attention. Holding it…
Short story: The Great Emotional Hook Once upon a time — in the era of filters, viral challenges, and bios with more emojis than real information — there was a young man named Lucas who discovered the age-old art of sadfishing. He lived in a small apartment with plants that survived on notifications and a window that, according to his stories, always had the perfect light for melancholy. Lucas had learned to manage the staging: the exact position of the couch, a barely…
Short story: California at the Summit: The State That Redefined the World California woke up one morning like any other, but the face of the world had changed: headlines flashed on screens and shop windows, and the city’s voice rang with a new confidence. In 2024, the Golden State had reached a historic peak: with a GDP of **$4.1 trillion**, California had surpassed Japan and was crowned the fourth-largest economy on the planet. That figure, repeated again and again on news…
Short story: The Banana in First Class The boarding announcement still echoed through the cabin as Diego settled into his business-class seat: the wide reclining backrest, the neatly folded blanket, and that tiny amenity kit promising comfort and discretion. He was a frequent traveler, one of those who know the sounds of every airplane, the variations of the curtain that separates classes, and the ritual of the welcome. Beside him, Marcos, a guy with a camera in hand and an…
Short story:: The Silent Storm In a Chile that seemed to be rounding the corner of the twenty-first century with the same confidence with which corporate emblems are swapped on office buildings, a new force spread with the calm and certainty of a tide: the Artificial Intelligence called Aurora. It was not a machine in a dark workshop nor some distant sci‑fi concept; it was a distributed architecture, a web of code and models trained on human voices, habits, and texts. It…
Short story: Friends 5,000 Miles Apart Night had fallen over Mexico City and Riverside, California, though the clocks in each place marked different hours and the windows framed similar skies. Mateo, a sixteen-year-old boy, had logged into his computer as he did many nights to play with his online squad. His room smelled of clean sweatshirts and cold pizza; the screen lit his face with a blue glow that seemed to belong to another hour of the world. Between jokes and…
Short story: The Five-Kilometre Distance The house at number 14 cut against the grey sky like an incomplete sentence. Semi-detached to others, its paint peeling and gate bent, it harboured a secret inside that no one, apparently, could or would see. From the outside the façade suggested an ordinary life; inside, an existence contained, silent and strictly administered by childish hands. 1. The boy and the routine that protected him Théo was nine years old. His body was small…
Short story: Remain in the Firmament —We are sorry, but you must remain in the firmament: the state that sent you no longer exists. —Remain… where? —asked Yuri Solov, running a hand through his hair while a small water-and-coffee bubble spun slowly in front of his face—. In the orbital café? The touchscreen in the Asteria module blinked with an unexpected envelope icon. Outside, Earth turned like a gleaming coin; inside, four humans and a cactus found themselves, for the…
Short story: The Camera and the Mirror Sweat ran down Martín's temple as he adjusted the tripod with clumsy hands that had repeated the gesture until it became routine. The attic room-gym had bare walls, a long mirror with smudges around the frame, and a threadbare rug where dumbbells rested. The blinds let in a strip of golden light that cut across the morning shadows. Martín placed the phone on the mount, chose a filter to soften the highlights, and looked at his…
Short story: The Club of Borrowed Dreams María had always been the sort of person who turned an anecdote into an epic. That afternoon, returning from the library with a volume that seemed to contain more imagination than words, she planted herself in the living room with bright eyes and the book under her arm. She had read about the viral theory that claimed "the human brain cannot create new faces in dreams" and presented it to her companions with the solemnity of someone…
Short story: The Light of Mei Mei Lian was twenty-three when the doctor told her, in a measured voice and tired eyes, that the tumor had consumed a large part of her femur. The sentence hung in the air like a heavy object no one wanted to pick up. She had spent years with architecture notes and afternoons shared with her family in a worn apartment; now the promises of blueprints and trips were replaced by consultations, surgeries, and a painful decision: amputation of her…
Short story: 127 Years of Screens and Sofas It was the afternoon of January 28 and the small plaza in front of the House of Cinema buzzed with murmurs and contained laughter. Despite the breeze carrying the smell of popcorn from a nearby stand, there was a certain melancholy in the air: the recent figures spoke for themselves. Cinema attendance had shown a sustained decline, with notable drops of 8% and 8.8% in 2024 and 2025 compared to the previous year, consolidating a…
Short story: Roots in Silence In the city of Lirena, where the night lights drew nets over the river and the facades stepped like pages of an old book, Marta lived. A neuroscience researcher by day and an avid reader by night, Marta had learned to live with a chosen solitude: not the isolation imposed by circumstance, but the one consciously chosen to feed deep thought. Her colleagues described her as brilliant and reserved; her friends, as someone who smiled little but…
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