Top Stories
Stories in Psyche that you’ll love, handpicked by our team.
Jake
I'm never sure what to expect when my partner and I arrive for these exchanges. Most of the time, the people we meet don't know, either. This was clearly no exception. When our little sedan pulled up to the curb, the young woman looked petrified. I stepped out of the vehicle and opened the back door. Jake bounded from the back seat and I released the breath I'd been holding. He was home!
By Dana Crandellabout a year ago in Psyche
The Exchange. Runner-up in Small Kindness Challenge. Content Warning.
Misty’s car made a gut-wrenching grinding noise as she pulled into the parking lot, pulling into a shaded spot near the back. The grinding, which happened just about every time she turned the wheel now, had become so loud and anxiety-provoking recently that it eclipsed the fact that her AC had conked out before summer even started. But now, sitting in the muggy shade, beads of sweat appeared almost instantly and unbidden on her top lip. Her muscles groaned, and her bowels cramped as if someone was tightening a vice. Her phone lit up with a text message, predictably from Cole:
By Elle Marieabout a year ago in Psyche
Bookworm
Dawson followed the boy and his teacher up the museum steps. He hoped the boy wouldn’t get in too much trouble. He liked him. They were the same age and they both had to deal with bullies. But things weren’t looking good. The math teacher was a total weirdo. There was no way this didn’t end badly for the boy.
By D.K. Shepardabout a year ago in Psyche
The Woman in the Cafe
The bell jingles against the door as yet another person walks into the cramped cafe. Unlike some of the others coming in on their lunch break, she comes in with a genuine smile, brightening up the space and I'm sure the barista's day. Poor girl has had a line of sour people today.
By Alexandria Stanwyckabout a year ago in Psyche
A Minor Inconvenience
Destinations and the reasons for them differ immeasurably. But plans of how people arrive to them are mostly made because of financial means. But not always. Sometimes it can be for convenience, time restraint, or even aerophobia/ fear of flying. For whatever the reason, Janie found herself travelling on the same Greyhound bus ride that night as the two elderly women she watched from the seat she had taken behind theirs. They looked to both be grandmothers.
By Shirley Belkabout a year ago in Psyche
The Empty Nest. Runner-up in Small Kindness Challenge.
I like it here. Big trees. There’s the wood, I like it there as well, but I like it here. Gaps between the trees. Grass and soil and the bird bath. I like it best when they’re not here. The people. The dog. There’s a cat, sometimes, on his way elsewhere. I like him least of all. And squirrels. Bothersome squirrels.
By Hannah Mooreabout a year ago in Psyche
Hope in the Darkness
I trudged through the supermarket aisles, my three children holding together. Jake, my eldest at 10, was trying his best to keep his younger siblings, Emma (7) and Liam (4), from creating chaos. I should have been grateful for his help, but all I felt was a deep, gnawing emptiness. I wanted to feel love for my kids, but instead there was void, which was sucking me into it, slowly, feeling a pressure and a loss of breath at the same time.
By Gabriela Trofin-Tatárabout a year ago in Psyche
Portrait of a Finder of Lost Things. First Place in Small Kindness Challenge.
During a youth basketball game in the early 1980’s, according to some physics I do not understand, my Rolex watch slipped from my wrist and fell beneath the bleachers. I didn’t even notice until after the game, when the announcer alerted the departing crowd to the lost watch. Cursing my lack of attention, I rushed to the scorer’s table to retrieve my precious timepiece. A five year old boy, exploring beneath the crowd’s feet, had found it, but I would never know this. Grateful for its return, but far too busy and important to actually offer thanks, I snatched the proffered watch from the scorekeeper without a word, or so much as a glance at the child, and departed. The boy’s mother commented on the rudeness of the exchange and assured him that such impoliteness was an exception to the norm.
By J. Otis Haasabout a year ago in Psyche
Faith in Humanity
Sharon nervously tapped on her knee as she waited for one of the employees to call her name. She tried to keep herself calm, to tell herself that it wouldn’t be that bad, that she just needed to be patient. But as the minutes passed, and other names were called instead of hers, Sharon was finding it harder and harder to do that.
By Rebecca Pattonabout a year ago in Psyche
Though I Do Not Know You
You could never know how much of a difference you made, how could you? Not until I made it clear, anyway. Two strangers. We never met, you don’t even know what I look like, or even my name. All I know of you is from your words and the picture you included. That is all.
By Elizabeth Butler2 years ago in Psyche
Heaven in the Voice Room
This will not be an official report. I will be keeping this in my private files. And I will remain anonymous. Mr. Defoe was one of the newer staff members, but he had already proven himself to be a very valuable asset at the school, covering for other absent teachers, finding lost files (actually discovered one behind a filing cabinet that was so old it was in one of the colours I had not seen in almost a decade), and creating his own lesson plans. With all of that work, the decision to put him in charge of our Voice Room seemed easy enough (the other teachers simply did not want the job, and he was too polite to say no).
By Kendall Defoe 2 years ago in Psyche
