All I Could See (And All I Couldn't)

by Susan L. Lin

In real life, lights were flickering all over the house. Outside, businessmen in sharp suits fainted in succession, until all I could see were the soles of their dress shoes. A detective bearing a shovel rang my doorbell, hoping to dig up whatever I knew.

Nothing, I knew nothing.

“What do you think happened out there?” I asked, innocently. He left without giving me an answer, slowly sinking into the muddy ground instead of unlatching my front gate. Soon enough, I couldn’t even see the top of his head.

The lights still flicker here sometimes, but those men all made a full recovery. No one knows where that detective has disappeared off to. I never saw him resurface on the other side.

Susan L. Lin is a Taiwanese American storyteller who hails from southeast Texas but currently lives elsewhere. She can frequently be found dancing, obsessing, cloudgazing, eating potatoes, and/or dreaming of a weirder future. Find more at susanllin.com.