r/AmazingStories

A friend of mine, let's call him Jim, is pretty out there. He works as an audio engineer, builds big fat soundsystem speakers, and regularly bumps festival stages in and out. An English guy living in Australia for the last 20 years.

I met him around 2000. At the time him and his girlfriend were squatting a place. Was pretty sweet, had running water and electricity. Couple of bedrooms upstairs and a decent bathroom. Downstairs tho, it was a morgue. With drainage and everything. Pretty creepy at night.

There used to be this massive share house that put on multi-day parties in what used to be the Portuguese Embassy in Melbourne. Beautiful, grand, kinda crumbling. Him and his girlfriend got kicked out of one of these parties for fornicating on the stairs. 9 months later Jim Jnr. was born. Legend has it that he was conceived on those stairs.

I've seen Junior grow up over the years, super sweet kid. Then I moved away and saw him less, but still kept in touch. Last year they came over to Europe to visit and he's a full blown man now in his early twenties. Such a great guy. Jim might be a lose unit, but he's a genuinely caring, nice bloke that brought up an amazing kid.

Back in Australia, Jim gave me the same news he'd given his son the previous night when they'd gone out for dinner. That his current girlfriend found out she was pregnant. He told Junior that it was unexpected, but that they were both really happy. Then, with a straight face he tells him 'I really think this time it's mine'

Funny bastard, Jim.

Has anyone else run into a story where the writing style shifts partway through and it completely changes how you experience it? I was reading something recently that had a really engaging flow for most of it, but around the final stretch the author started breaking everything into very short sentences with big paragraph gaps between them.

It went from reading like fiction to reading almost like a technical manual. Every action got its own line. "He looks up. Cigarette between his lips. Inhale. Exhale." That kind of thing. The emotional beats were still there, but the rhythm made them feel mechanical instead of felt.

What's strange is that I can see the argument for it. Short staccato sentences can create tension, urgency, a kind of breathless quality. Done deliberately, that style can hit hard in the right moment. But when it takes over entire chapters, it stops feeling like a choice and starts feeling like the author lost the thread of their own pacing.

The smoother version, where actions flow together and sentences carry some weight, lets the reader sink in. You're inside the scene instead of watching it get assembled piece by piece in front of you.

I'm curious whether people here lean toward one style or the other when they write, or if you've noticed a story that pulled you in or pushed you out because of how the sentences were structured.

They were taking it down. I didn't care. I sat in my old bow back chair on the balcony, watching the men removing all the interior parts of the lighthouse. The old lighthouse had stood in that spot for more than a hundred years , watching the shoreline. I sat as his replacement, a brand new lighthouse, only up for just over two years now. I wasn’t the first watchman, a man had taken the job before me to guide the sailors, operate the light, those sorts of duties. I had only manned the station for about a month before I was informed of the plan to remove the remnants of the first one. I had grown quite fond of the view, the bleak horizon just above the sea seemed a little more peaceful with the large statuesque building filling the corner of my view. I had noticed in that short month the bricks beginning to crack and fall into the sea, how the larger waves made it shudder more and more with each impact. I came to the balcony every day now for the past year, enjoying my glass of hot tea, flipping through my novel, and every once in a while, glancing up to see my acquaintance. In my time operating the lighthouse I had never seen a man working in the abandoned lighthouse, but I’ve been told of a time when a man stood guard in there, apparently he was a man of legend. He never took days off, he guided three ships away from the shore before crashing, even helping the USS Titan avoid a major crash when their radar and navigation system crashed unexpectedly. The town treated it as a monument, as a guardian to protect our home. I never saw that. It was just a lighthouse to me.

I had awoken in the night, a large crackling sound shattered my ears and rang throughout the hollow chasm below me. Getting up, I saw it. The tower no longer encroached on my view. Its lean had increased, now tilting maybe fifteen degrees to the side, but he stood standing. I descended down my lighthouse steps to reach the small cabin nearby, shoved under the door was a note. The construction company had left me a message saying the old lighthouse was unsafe, and that they would have to take it down in a controlled manner but on a much quicker schedule. They had been making slow progress, and were just now beginning to rush the project, in the cold darkness of December. It seemed odd to me. My sleet covered feet trudged back into my lighthouse under heavy remorse. I had not wanted to go back inside, maybe I wanted to watch the old lighthouse. In my mind, it deserved to stay, how could it not. I’ve seen how people look to the old lighthouse. Maybe I had felt something of it too. It was not my nature to be full of such sentiment and yet, something, had me.

That same night I awoke again, but this time it was not of a shock but a petal. I felt the peony petal slide off my nose. As I stood up I was not cold, despite my thin garments. The window was dark other than a faint glow. As I opened the door to the balcony, once more I saw it shine. The light of the Old Lighthouse rang out into the night. I wasn’t shivering, I wasn't even cold. The light illuminated the whole shore, even the town several miles from here. It wasn’t a beam like a regular lighthouse too, it was a glow irradiating from the crest of the house. It began to shrink, the light slowly fading from within it. As the light faded from my lighthouse the cold began to bite once more. I rushed inside to return to my slumber. The next day at dusk I set off. I took the overgrown trail up to the top of the large hill, the biggest hill on the shore. There, the Old Lighthouse stood. Standing there now, I had realized that my lighthouse stood quite a bit taller on my hill than the old one. I had always assumed the Old Lighthouse stood on the highest hill on the shore. A hole had emerged among its base not larger than a meter long and had caused the recent tilt. The brick around it was worn and tired. My boots pressed against the soil beneath me as I stood under him. My fingers wrapped around the cavity and I hoisted with all my might, trying to see the building stand tall once more. As I heaved, a single drop fell upon my shoulder. I froze. The rain began to pour as I ran back to my lighthouse. The tower had wept for me, as did I for him. The coming weeks had passed without much notice. I sat upon my balcony sipping my bittersweet coffee, watching as the construction crew began tearing down the highest bricks. The Old Lighthouse was now half of what it once was. My view was clear, the orangish pink horizon before me was clear, and yet what I once viewed with such bright brilliance felt desolate in my eyes. That weekend, I set my heart to resurrect the Old Lighthouse. I sat in my cot for hours, listening to the men at work and setting machinery up for its destruction. I had my jerrycan waiting. When the construction men left, I set out, around 2:00 in the morning. I splashed the gasoline over their equipment, making sure to ward off any further plans they made. I was proud of myself, standing before the flames, watching them dance beneath the Old Lighthouse, no, my Old Lighthouse. The flames played before me, a kindling of warmth I had once felt before. My journey back was arduous, but the journey I had endured had not bothered me, as I knew what I held in my hands was safe again. I was in bliss, I was in denial.

Two weeks had passed since I had burned their equipment. The tower stood wilted in my view, and the sky remained bleak. I did not care, my Old Lighthouse stood, and I could not need anything else. My Saturday had come down to an end, I sat in my chair, sipping my drink. My novel had come to a close, the good men won, as had I. I set the book down on my glass table, watching the sky move over the horizon. Then, as the clouds faded, the crash began. The thunderous crash swept over the sky and enveloped the silent night. My eyes flashed open to see the Old Lighthouse come crashing down upon itself. The smoke and debris filled the sky and drowned the forest below it. I saw it fall, my porcelain cup spattering onto the floor as it rolled towards the edge. I could not save my Old Lighthouse. As I dragged myself to the balcony edge I struggled to face its falling. My feet balanced shakily atop the guardrail and I stood tall on it to see everything before me. The horrible screaming and aching of my Old Lighthouse had dissipated, but replayed in my heart. I could not move my feet, for I had not the strength. I could only lean into the abyss. The wind blew by my ears like kisses, kisses I had not known the origin of but felt a familiar touch. My body trembled through the air, tracing a stream into the shoreline. Before I could land, a gust of dust-ridden air had caught my hands, bringing me to the shoreline. I fell to my knees in agony, I could not open my eyes. I felt a warmth in front of me I had felt that night I saw it. When my eyes flickered open the lantern sat in front of me. The burning flame was indistinguishable.

I sat in my old bow back chair once more. The horizon remained cold and gray for the remainder of my time as the new lighthouse keeper, but the warmth of the lantern behind me on the wall kept me safe from the coldest of blizzards. I did not know the Old Lighthouse, I never knew of what the townspeople saw in that Old Lighthouse, a guardian of the shore. I had nothing of those old legends to see, but now I held the Old Lantern that gave the lighthouse power. I could see what it had created today. I will see the power it gives that now barren shore, I will see if its light can extend beyond the wave crests before me. The Old Lighthouse speaks to me at night. Its warmth pressed against my flush cheeks during my winter nights. Its soft brilliant light would always shine upon my skin. Though I was not protected by its blaring gaze in its time, I had felt it, I had seen the Old Lighthouse protect me, as my guardian.

As a surgeon working in Cambodia I see all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff. Many of these are injuries resulting from accidents. For example, it is not uncommon to find home-made arrows being used for hunting rats, frequently fired from some sort of crossbow (also home-made) and two people are usually involved – one to flush the rats out and the other to shoot them. The added incentive is that the rats are subsequently cooked and eaten and yes, they do taste a bit like chicken! On one particular occasion a couple of lads were hunting in a section of concrete drain and, unfortunately, the one doing the flushing from the far end of the drain did not move out of the way quickly enough when his friend shot the arrow which missed the rat, ricocheted off the concrete and lodged itself firmly in his face.

 He arrived at the hospital with the arrow sticking out of his face between his nose and his left eye, having lodged in one of his sinuses. There is also a nasty barb on the end of the arrow which makes it a little tricky to remove without creating further damage so you cannot just pull it out. He was fully conscious and had no other injuries and, after an operation to remove it, I am pleased to say that he made a rapid and uncomplicated recovery. I am sure he did not feel lucky at the time, but had the arrow hit a centimetre or so to the side, he would have lost his eye.

I have seen several other similar examples with the arrows ending up in all sorts of places, some more unpleasant than others, but fortunately none of them have resulted in the death of the recipient. To read other examples please see either my book "Random Musings of a Disorderly Mind" available as an ebook on Amazon or my blog surgeonsstories@blogspot.com but please note that some of these are NSFW as they include graphic content of some of the injuries.

I thought I was just trying to grow up. Decades later, I realized the whole world had been changing around me at the same time…

I was watching the beginning of Miracle tonight.

Before the hockey starts, the movie takes you back to 1980.

Not the 1980 I remembered.

The other one.

Inflation. Gas lines. The Iran hostage crisis. The Soviet Union invading Afghanistan. The Cold War. Political division. An economy that had people genuinely worried about what came next.

One image after another.

And I sat there thinking:

I was alive for all of this.

I was about fifteen years old.

I just don’t remember 1980 that way.

I remember trying to figure out who I was.

I cared about school. Sports. Friends. Girls. Being cool—or at least trying to look like I knew what cool was.

I wanted to be successful, although I’m not sure I could have told you what that meant yet.

I was learning how to lead. Learning how other people saw me. Learning that some things came naturally and others required work.

I was beginning to imagine the person I might become.

I remember Mom getting frustrated because I couldn’t balance my checkbook.

I remember Dad telling me I’d never own my own business.

Then there were the coaches.

Coach Hunt, my football coach, told me as a freshman that he saw great things ahead for me.

Coach Andrews—the same man who would later spend a summer teaching me to drive—once told me I played basketball like Truck Robinson.

I had no idea who Truck Robinson was.

Coach Andrews assured me it was a compliment.

So I took it as one.

That’s funny to me now, because those little comments mattered.

At fifteen, I didn’t have enough history of my own to know who I was yet. So some of the evidence came from other people.

Mom saw a kid who couldn’t balance a checkbook.

Dad saw a kid he didn’t think would ever own a business.

Coach Hunt saw something bigger ahead.

Coach Andrews apparently saw Truck Robinson.

And I was standing somewhere in the middle of all of them, collecting these little pieces of information and trying to figure out which ones were true.

Meanwhile, inflation was raging, Americans were being held hostage in Iran, the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan and adults were wondering what was happening to the country.

I had my own problems.

I was trying to figure out me.

I wasn’t completely unaware of what was happening in the world. I knew who the president was. I knew about the hostages. I knew the Soviet Union was the enemy in the strange, frightening way kids of my generation understood the Cold War.

But those things existed somewhere outside the boundaries of my everyday life.

My world was smaller.

And tonight, more than forty-five years later, I realized something.

Maybe that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be.

I think about our kids.

Look at what has happened while they’ve been growing up.

A pandemic shut down schools, businesses and much of the world. Political division became something they could watch unfold every minute on their phones. Wars appeared on screens in their hands. Social media changed friendships, popularity and even what it meant to grow up. Artificial intelligence suddenly began changing school and work before they had even decided what their careers might be.

We’ve worried about all of it.

They probably have too.

But I wonder what they’ll actually remember.

Maybe not the headlines.

Maybe they’ll remember the first person who broke their heart.

The teacher who believed in them.

The friend they thought they’d have forever.

Getting their driver’s license.

Making the team.

Not making the team.

Their first job.

A stupid argument with us that seemed incredibly important at the time.

The song they played a hundred times because somehow it understood them better than anyone else did.

Trying to fit in.

Trying to stand out.

Trying to figure out who they were supposed to become.

Exactly the things I was doing in 1980.

There’s a tendency as we get older to look at younger generations and wonder if they’re paying attention.

Maybe that’s the wrong question.

Maybe they’re paying attention to exactly what they’re supposed to be paying attention to.

Because when you’re fifteen, history isn’t something happening on the evening news.

History is third period.

It’s Friday night.

It’s the person sitting beside you.

It’s whether you’re invited.

It’s whether you belong.

It’s discovering you’re good at something.

It’s discovering you’re terrible at something else.

It’s hearing someone tell you that you’ll never do something.

And it’s having someone else tell you they see something in you that you can’t see yet yourself.

The Iran hostages eventually came home.

Inflation eventually came down.

The Soviet Union eventually disappeared.

Those things belong to history now.

But I still remember Mom and that checkbook.

I still remember what Dad told me.

I still remember Coach Hunt telling a freshman that he saw great things ahead.

And somehow, I still remember being compared to a basketball player I had never heard of.

Those things never made the news.

But they helped make me.

And maybe that’s something history books can’t really capture.

They tell us what happened to the world.

Our stories tell us what happened to us while the world was busy happening.

Someday our kids will watch a movie about this time.

There will probably be a montage at the beginning.

A pandemic.

Elections.

Wars.

Protests.

Artificial intelligence.

Economic uncertainty.

All the things we watched and worried about while they were growing up.

And one of them may sit there, forty years older, staring at the screen and thinking:

I was alive for all of this.

Then they’ll remember what they were actually doing.

Trying to figure out who they were.

Just like we were.

Credit: John Hardy, creator of Reddit whyareyousadcom

Emmet McKinzy is a 10-year old boy with a big family. He's the middle sibling of 11 siblings, including 17-year old Hannah, a bossy yet kind fashion blogger, 16-year old Diana, a kind-hearted ditz, 14-year old Carrie, an aspiring actor, 13-year old Sally, a nature lover, 12-year old Loretta, a technology junkie, 8-year old Kathryn, an aspiring model, 7-year old triplets Maggie, Clara, and Samantha, a snob, a dirt lover, and a comedian respectively, and 6-month old Molly. Emmet has a hard time living his life at home with them, but he still manages it. However, despite them making his life difficult, they all still care for him very much, and are willing to help him out in anyway possible, whether it's dealing with bullies, or getting the final copies of video games.

He and his family live in the town of Voorhees Hills, and Emmet is in the fourth grade. His best and only friend is his neighbor, 10-year old Marty Crusoe. At school, he has to deal with bully Tina Van Douglas, cruel gym teacher Charlie Hartman, and nerd Timmy Dyke. In public, he has to deal with the street gang the Pit Vipers, and cranky 80-year old Wilhelm Burgdorf. Emmet has an interest in comics, movies, and video games. He's especially fond of giant monster movies.

He's always there for his family and Marty, despite the chaos of his life. He likes to spend time with his sisters whenever he can, but he more often likes to spend time alone. Because of his sisters' 10 different personalities, he always knows how to handle any problem. He definitely wouldn't trade his life for the world....

When I wake up in the morning, I drag my bare white feet on the vinyl flooring of my bedroom floor. The textures of the carpet inside these 4 walls are all too familiar. I could close my eyes for centuries and navigate every crack, bump, and knick of this very house. I reach for the doorknob; I don’t need to turn it for the hidden passage to come into my gaze. The doorknob has been broken for 5 years. I step on the older wooden flooring of my kitchen and make my way down a quiet hall. As I pass the stove, it flashes “6:14 am” in a light, almost neon green hue- it's comforting, in a way nobody but me and my sister would understand. I don't care that the front right burner has perpetually burnt food on it; neither does she. My bare feet are cold as the textures change my senses still calm its the bathroom floor- I turn on the light switch and look in the mirror- a white girl looks back at me- i’ve known her my whole life, she is pale, she is skinny, she is me, and i am her, i know everything she knows, and nothing she doesn't. I know true fear because her mind created it. I know everything she has ever cried about. I know her dad is illegal, but that is something the world would never guess- because she is me, and I am just another skinny white girl whose bare white feet are sitting atop the tile, wood, and vinyl her own father laid, after coming from the fields in which he labored all day.

There are bugs in the shower

They cling to the liner
And come out the drain
Momma said it’s cause of the rain

They squirm and dart to the cracks in the walls
Where the mold it grows
I yell at dad from down the hall

Normally dad would kill them but now he’s stalled

But it’s night time now
I want to bathe
But there are bugs in the shower
So I shall not be haste

I quickly shake the curtain
I flinch because I am uncertain
Is that a roach or just the mold growin

I step into the shower
Unlike most I know I’m not alone
With each step the floor beneath me groans

Louder and louder each waking step
I am worried they are in the corners watching
Waiting for me to slip up and forget

About the bugs in the shower

But I never do
They crawl on the walls
Even if I was blind
I would know
every
position
of them
all