Short story: Chronicles of Marazul: Escapes, Choices, and Broken Stars The rain in Marazul always felt like an old friend who wouldn’t leave: persistent, musical, able to turn a terrace into a darkroom where thoughts develop like negatives. It was under that rain that Laura and Mateo first met. She arrived late and soaked, a camera hanging from her neck and the face of someone who had found perfect light; he was sheltering at the table by the window with a notebook full of…
Top 5 musical - March, 2026 Welcome to a new monthly musical count, me that we will see a list that presents several rock bands of various styles, ranging from punk to alternative; different eras and contents among their lyrics. And first of all, it should be remembered that this list is part of my profile on LastFM, a social network that has my statistics on music plays, and which, in turn, is linked to my Spotify account. And without further ado let's get started. **Most…
Short story: Hearts in Kobe The municipal school in Kobe woke each morning to a murmur: backpacks bumping down the stairs, high-pitched laughter echoing in the corridors, and the bell, punctual, inviting the day to begin. The yellow walls bore marks of years: children's drawings taped up, science projects that looked like little works of art, and a blackboard that always held a pending phrase of encouragement. Haru Takeda, thirty-four, was a man with a calm gaze and measured…
Short story: The Breaking Point Ana had a habit of saying she could smell social change; those who knew her were no longer surprised when she pointed to a news item and announced, “this will hurt, but it will help.” That afternoon the terrace of the building she shared with Mateo had once again become a debate headquarters: a table with cups, two open laptops like antennas, a plant pretending to listen, and a box of cookies acting as a silent moderator. Ana, a 25‑year‑old…
Short story: The Light That Does Not Soothe Elena had learned to move around the house with the stealth of someone who fears disturbing a foreign territory. That afternoon, when she opened Marcos’s bedroom door, she froze for a second as if two times that no longer shared a language had met at the threshold. The computer screen flooded the boy’s face with a bluish glow; his breathing was steady, hypnotic, and the headphones sealed his attention to the world. On the desk, a…
Short story: The Secret of Sundays The church bell rang with a sweet, lingering sound as Marta closed the door to her apartment. The air smelled of fresh bread and cold; the blinds still let through slivers of light that cut the dust into glittering specks. She was thirty-eight and had a routine she had come to consider safe: wake up, make coffee, work from home, and spend the rest of the day between calls and the silent company of Calcetín, her black cat with a white patch…
Short story: The crisis of hope I. Rain struck the apartment balcony like a litany that blurred outlines. The building had the gray façade of exposed concrete, with brown streaks from leaks that marked the years and windows fogged by steam escaping from interiors too small for so many lives. Valeria’s kitchen was a narrow refuge: a wooden table with chipped varnish, an arm lamp that cast yellow light, and a shelf of books bent from being read again and again. From the window…
Short story: The Day the Autonomous Forgot How to Read María held the sheet with the same disbelief one feels when looking at a restaurant bill after ordering only a salad. The paper crinkled slightly between her fingers as she ran her eyes over the lines again: categorical statements, figures, generational comparisons. According to the report, Generation Z was performing worse than their parents in literacy, attention span, and certain indicators of IQ. She left it on the…
Short story: City of Prayers The sharp rain struck the stained-glass windows of the old Church of Saint Matthew as if trying to beat out the colors that once hosted hymns and promises. Inside, the nave smelled of wax, damp wood, and memories that creaked under the feet of those who still dared to enter. The pews, worn by generations of knees and silences, held the shape of bodies that no longer returned. On the choir stand, a hymnal with yellowed pages rested; only a few…
Short story: The Flag in the Classroom The hallway smelled of chalk and freshly printed papers; the silence seemed to hold the memory of all the conversations it had ever heard. It was the last hours of the school day and the oblique rays of the sun passed through the blinds, drawing luminous bands across the closed doors. In classroom 3‑B, a new flag hung pinned to the wall with two thumbtacks. Around it, cramped, crooked letters, written with markers, proclaimed slogans…
Short story: The Home Guardian The house on Jasmine Street seemed to live in another era: varnished furniture worn by time, curtains that had learned to filter the afternoon light, and the persistent smell of freshly brewed coffee mixed with the stale incense Marta lit when she needed to think. In the living room, on a wall that had known more hands than paintings, hung a religious image in a gilded frame. The gold, now slightly dulled, cast a long shadow that, to Marta, had…
Short story: The Report The news of the World Happiness Report 2026, backed by the UN, fell over the city like a cold, unexpected rain: for the first time in decades, youth ceased to be the most fulfilling stage of life. Headlines repeated figures and charts; university cafés and administrative corridors filled with conversations that smelled of alarm and shared guilt. For Luisa, Marcos, Ana and Valeria, it wasn’t just a statistic: it was the description of a desolation they…
Short story: Digital Fatigue The holographic rain stained Neoterra in liquid colors, as if the entire sky had been replaced by a test screen. The ads suspended above the buildings did more than show images: they induced micro-emotions in two-second cycles, sending tiny dopamine jolts through public interfaces that measured passersby’s pulse and pupil dilation. In the underground cafés people connected to a thousand narratives at once; the collective murmur was an interface…
Short story: The Revenge Pizza Gracie was a sixteen-year-old who split her time between classrooms and the oven of a small neighborhood pizzeria. That afternoon the shop smelled of roasted tomato, basil, and melted cheese; the counter had the soft sheen of late light and the bell above the door chimed on cue. Doña Rosa, the shop’s longtime owner, swept with the practiced motions of someone who had kept a family business running for years and watched the register with the…
Short story: Friction Neon‑Amber never slept; it only changed its glow. Stacked towers projected ads that breathed promises over the sidewalks, and delivery drones threaded the avenues like insects with neon eyes. On the forty‑second floor of Block K, behind a window blurred by acid rain, Mara lived surrounded by papers and notebooks. Her small apartment smelled of old coffee and ink; on the table, a notebook with stained pages and crossed‑out lines seemed to hold the pulse…
Short story: The Hum That Fell Asleep The Crystal neighborhood rose over the bay like a city of mirrors and wiring, a luminous seam that cut the night into strips of neon. From its terraces to the corridors between skyscrapers, screens set the pace: recipes in fifteen seconds, romances in twenty, news that was swallowed and returned to the air as easily as someone exhaled. Facades were attention showcases; speaking ads modulated passersby’s moods and apps whispered routines…
Short story: A Gesture That Saved The rain hammered the roof of the old warehouse that served as the shelter when Mateo pushed the door and felt the cold, damp air that always accompanies places where second chances wait. The buzz of fluorescent lights mixed with the smell of disinfectant and hay gave the place an atmosphere both clinical and moving: lined cages, worn blankets, posters with photos of lost animals. In one corner of the place, a mother dog curled around her…
Short story: Bridges of Paper and Fiber In the corner café —a dimly lit spot where the espresso machine sounded like an old locomotive— three friends met who, though born within a few years of each other between 1992 and 1999, seemed to carry two different libraries inside them. Valeria, Martín, and Leo had grown up with afternoons without notifications and with adolescences when high‑speed internet changed the rules of the game. That mixture often made them half nostalgic…
Short story: The Network of Silence The rain had a metallic edge that afternoon over Puerto Arenal; it fell in straight lines that seemed to cut the air and turn the streets into mirrors. When Detective Mara León opened the message on her phone, the screen’s glow made a small slit of light across the rain: “Urgent operation. Possible virtual extortion ring. Report to Headquarters.” At the Forensic and Judicial Investigation Agency (AIFJ) nerves were taut; reports spoke of a…
Short story: The Silence of the Classrooms The letter arrived on a warm rainy afternoon, when the cherry trees were beginning to shed their petals as if surrendering to the passing season. Min-jun held it with hands that trembled not only from the sudden chill of the paper but from a mix of disbelief and shame that knotted in his chest. The printed lines, mechanical and final, confirmed what had already circulated in whispers: for the first time, the country’s leading…
Short story: The Night of the Net The big top smelled of dust, burnt sugar, and old electricity; a mixture that stuck in the throat and made the lights seem dimmer than they were. The crowd pressed into the stands, low voices hoping to laugh at routine rather than fear. Marta moved with the determination of someone who needed a single image to justify months of unpaid bills: she adjusted the camera at her neck, tested the lens, and sat in a middle row from which the ring was…
Short story: The Great Loo Harem It was a gray, damp morning in Minato-Aurea. The streets smelled of recent rain and fuel; the neon lights still flickered as if they were sleepy. Kenji Arakawa gripped the broom handle with his gnarled hands and looked down the avenue from the back window of Hotel Amapola. His apron, once white, now bore maps of soap streaks and small constellations of dust. He brushed a hand over the ponytail that kept losing strands every time life or time…
Short story: The Lighthouse’s Pupil The rain beat against Mina Kuroi’s apartment windows with the persistence of a tireless drum. Outside, Aoyama dissolved into a watercolor of lights; inside, the small living room smelled of cold tea and fresh strings. Mina ran through the lyrics of a song that kept slipping from her grasp. On the coffee table, her phone vibrated every few seconds: a photo she’d posted that morning was collecting hearts and comments like small waves kissing…
Short story: Equilibrium 1. At eight in the morning the house breathed in sync. The lamps dimmed according to the mother's heart rate, the coffee maker dispensed a blend calibrated to her flavor profile, and the smart window evaluated the air quality before deciding whether to open. On the table, a translucent screen showed news summaries, reminders, and the day's affective itinerary; in a corner, Milo's cloth doll rested next to the charger for his sensory implant, a…
Short story: The Great Family Combo Heist It was a warm, unremarkable afternoon at “Pollo Pío,” the fast‑food restaurant that doubled as the neighborhood meeting place. The menu lights blinked in familiar sequences, the fryer sang its routine, and the smell of fries marked the passing minutes. Tomás, an 18‑year‑old with his cap tilted and the nervous determination of someone who’d watched too many movies, pushed the door with the solemnity of an actor hitting his mark. He…
Short story: The House of Returns On the third floor of the building called “Sustainable Progress,” where the elevator made more stops than political promises, there was an apartment with a door that was always open and a doorbell worn by many hands. A multigenerational family lived there with its own logic: Doña Amalia, the matriarch; Carmen, her eldest daughter; Raúl, the practical son-in-law; Leo, a 28-year-old who had made coming and going a habit; Sofía, the 22-year-old…
Short story: The House That Stayed in the Air She woke with light stabbed into her eyelids like a knife. At first she thought she was still dreaming: contours were blurred, sounds filtered through a distance that hurt. A clock on the wall marked minutes that did not belong to her; voices around spoke with the tempered calm of those who have waited for the unpredictable. Three weeks, they told her. Three weeks that for her had been seven years. "Where am I?" she murmured, her…
Short story: Ledge Night had fallen like a velvet curtain over Midtown. The offices, like horizontal constellations, gleamed in rectangular blocks while the city murmured below: a heartbeat of cars, distant sirens, conversations dissolving in the damp of the asphalt. On the 42nd floor of the Hawthorne Tower, a silhouette moved with the precision of an acrobat: a black cat, thin, walking along the exterior edge of a window as if the cornice were a tightrope. Mateo Ríos held…
Short story: The Perfect Sister (According to the Internet) Chapter 1 — The Post Aiko swiped her thumb across the screen while her heart fluttered between pride and embarrassment. The post she had made minutes after getting off work had gone viral with absurd speed: screenshots, comments, direct messages ranging from serious proposals to ridiculous offers. Some accounts proposed “serious dates,” others sent memes. At the top, still visible, was the headline she had typed on…
Short story: The Unexpected Piñata The house where the party was going to be held looked calm from the outside: dim lights in the yard, the front door ajar and a small sign that read “Welcome” hanging from the knob. Marco thought at first glance that he had found the perfect opportunity. He had checked streets, corners, and times; that night, by his imperfect calculation, the house should have been empty. With a misaligned moral compass and a ragged sack full of questionable…
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