Challenge Accepted: My piece about a mime in a spaceship who has to warn Earth about an impending alien invasion. @AndyBetz

The ship slid silently through the black, a sliver of glass against the endless dark. Inside it, a single human sat in white paint and stripes, the last person on Earth who still made a living from silence.

A mime.

He hadn’t volunteered. He had been taken. One moment he was in Paris, his face painted white, pretending to press against an invisible wall while tourists laughed. The next, the sky cracked, and he was swallowed by light.

The aliens never spoke. Not in words. They pulsed in colors, hummed in waves, their meaning pressing into his skull without sound. Somehow, they believed he could understand them. And he did, just enough. He saw what they showed him: worlds burning, fleets descending like storms, Earth in their path.

They had given him a task. Not mercy, not salvation. A task: warn his world.

And now the ship descended, Earth swelling blue and bright in the window. He placed his gloved hands against the glass and imagined the performance he would give. The only one that mattered.

When he appeared on the runway, soldiers surrounded him. Politicians, translators, cameras, they all waited for words.

But he had no words.

He began. He shaped Earth with his hands, rolling it gently between his palms. He traced fire over its surface, the sweep of wings, the fall of ships blotting out the sun. His eyes widened, face painted with terror, arms raised against invisible fire. He showed oceans boiling, cities breaking, shadows falling. And then he collapsed to his knees, clutching nothing, shaking with silent sobs.

They stared. Some laughed nervously. Some cursed. The world’s last warning had arrived in greasepaint and pantomime.

The broadcast went global. It was replayed as comedy, as scandal, as art. Nobody believed.

And when the skies broke, when the real swarm appeared exactly as he had shown them, it was too late. No defense grid, no fleet, no resistance. Just fire and silence.

In the end, the mime stood among the crowds as the sky fell open, pressing his palms against the invisible wall of air, as if he could hold it closed. His painted face cracked, streaked with ash, his silent cry swallowed by the roar of the end.

The wall never held.

Earth burned.

And the mime, like everyone else, was erased.

© 2025 A.M. Roberts. All rights reserved.

Choose a genre.

Whisper your favorite twist.

Watch me weave it into words.

XoXo,

AMR.

Front-end development is chaos disguised as control.

Buttons jump, text rebels, animations stumble.

You curse, you tweak, you beg the browser to behave.

And then it works.

That hover feels alive, the layout hums, colors calm.

Tiny, ridiculous magic, pixel by pixel.

No one notices.

But you do.

And for a heartbeat, the world is exactly as it should be.

XoXo,

AMR

The old clockmaker had fixed every timepiece in town, except one.

A watch without hands, sealed shut with black wax, rumored to hold a curse.

On a night thick with fog, a man cloaked in shadows entered silently, carrying that very watch.

“It stopped the moment you were born,” he said, voice like cracking ice. “Fix it, or lose more than time.”

The clockmaker’s fingers trembled as he pried the case open.

Inside, the gears spun backward. Slow and deliberate, like a heartbeat reversing.

He worked as whispers crawled up the walls, the air growing heavy with cold.

Tick… tock… tick… tock. Each sound a distant scream trapped in the silence.

When the watch finally ticked forward, the man smiled, revealing teeth sharper than shadows.

The clockmaker gasped as an icy hand gripped his heart.

His breath froze, eyes wide. Time wasn’t just caught up; it was tearing him apart.

Outside, the fog swallowed the town whole,

And inside, the clockmaker’s last tick echoed in the void.

© 2025 A.M. Roberts. All rights reserved.

I had two socks, a happy pair,

Both snug and warm beyond compare.

But laundry day, the tragic plot,

One stayed home… the other.....not.

I searched the dryer, checked the floor,

Even looked inside the fridge door.

Now it’s gone, its fate unknown,

Living life in the Sock Alone.

So if you see it, let it know,

Its twin is here and misses so.

Until they meet, I’ll wear one blue,

And pray my shoe won’t notice too.

© 2025 A.M. Roberts. All rights reserved.

No one knew his name, not really. To most, he was just that man; thin, weathered, always standing at the corner of Lavender Street and Daisy Lane, holding a broken umbrella with one good spoke left. Gray coat, scuffed shoes, and a quiet kind of smile that looked borrowed from better days.

He stood there every morning. Same spot. Same time. Rain or shine.

People passed him like clockwork. Some scoffed, some ignored. Children tugged on their mothers’ hands asking, “Why doesn’t he move?” Mothers would hush them. “Don’t stare.”

He never asked for anything. Never spoke first. Just stood.

But if it rained, he’d step out slowly, then gently tilt that mangled umbrella over someone else. Never himself.

A woman balancing groceries and a crying baby.

An old man trembling in the cold.

A boy with bruises, looking like he needed more than just shelter.

He didn’t say a word. Just offered shade, a smile, and walked back to his post soaked.

In the summer, he’d buy two bottles of water and hand one to the street sweeper. In winter, he once gave his scarf to a stray dog.

People noticed, but only in passing.

“He’s strange.”

“Maybe he’s lonely.”

“Why waste kindness on strangers?”

No one ever asked why he did it.

Until one day, he wasn’t there.

Not Monday.

Not Tuesday.

Not even Friday.

By the following week, a child placed a flower where he used to stand. Her mother tried to stop her, but the girl said, “He helped me when I was scared once.”

Another day passed. Then another.

On Sunday morning, a letter appeared on the post behind his usual spot. Folded, yellowed, taped neatly.

“To the people who passed me, I was once rushing too. Until I lost everything in the span of a year — my wife, my son, and then myself. I stood here because I needed to feel the world again. Not the whole thing, just a corner. Every smile given back, every small thank you, made me feel real. I didn't have much left, but I could still give. That was enough. If you ever feel invisible,

Be the umbrella. Even if it's broken.” Li

That winter, people began to slow down.

They started holding umbrellas for strangers.

Leaving warm bread on the bench.

Talking to the man who cleaned the gutters.

Smiling at the tired, the quiet, the lonely.

The corner stayed empty, but it changed everything.

And when it rained, sometimes… someone still stood there

umbrella tilted, soaking wet,

smiling.

A Note from Me to You!

I wrote this story because I saw something that moved me. A man who had almost nothing, but still gave everything he could. No words, no praise. Just quiet, consistent kindness. He gave the little he had while others watched as he was doing something stupid. in the end, those small acts made a big impact in others lives.

It made me cry.

It made me think about how many people like him pass through our lives without us ever really seeing them.

Maybe you’ve felt invisible too. Maybe you’ve given parts of yourself away and wondered if it even mattered.

It did. It does. More than you know.

This story is for the givers. The quiet healers. The ones who show up even when no one’s watching.

If that’s you, thank you!

If you’re still finding your strength, keep going!

And if all you have is a broken umbrella...

that might be exactly what someone needs.

— A.M. Roberts

© 2025 A.M. Roberts. All rights reserved.

I stand on cracked glass,

bleeding silence beneath my feet.

This year

a savage beast,

tearing flesh from my bones

while the world watches, blind.

Voices spit venom,

calling me lesser,

a ghost trapped in their toxic fog.

Eight to five

a cage with invisible bars.

Chores, cooking, kids

time devoured,

my soul starved.

My girls

the fragile sparks flickering in the void,

my only light in this unholy night.

I swallow the lies,

bear the weight of incompetence,

all for them

but inside, I’m fracturing,

shattering like forgotten glass.

No shoulder to collapse on,

no rock to steady my fall,

no voice loud enough

to shatter this suffocating silence.

I cry alone in the shower,

water washing away the truth I hide

then smile to the world,

a mask forged in survival.

Thoughts rage,

dark storms behind my eyes,

while I choke on the truth

I’m just trying.

Trying to be their fortress,

their world

a pillar carved from cracked stone,

holding back a flood

that threatens to drown me whole.

But inside

I’m sinking,

deep into the shadows,

silent and unseen,

fighting a war no one knows.

Alone

with only my breath and shattered hope,

I clutch at whispers of mercy,

hoping God’s plan

is a light in this endless dark,

praying with every broken heartbeat

that I survive this night,

that I live to see the dawn again.

© 2025 A.M. Roberts. All rights reserved.

On the highest peak of a snow-silenced mountain stood an observatory, abandoned by time and nearly everyone except the wind—and her. Dr. Elira , once heralded as the world’s foremost astronomer, now lived among frostbitten domes and quiet telescopes, wrapped in wool and silence.

The stars had stopped coming.

One by one, over the course of years, they had dimmed and disappeared, like candles snuffed by an invisible hand. No scientific explanation had ever been found. They simply… ceased. And in their absence, the world stopped looking up. Telescopes gathered dust. Skylines dimmed with apathy.

But Elira stayed.

Each night, she climbed the spiral staircase to the dome, lit the small brass lamp by her desk, and wrote letters—not to people, but to constellations. Cassiopeia. Orion. Lyra. She wrote them like old friends. She told them about the silence. About the ache. About how small the world felt without their gaze.

She signed each letter the same way:

“Still watching, Elira.”

And then, one night, it returned.

Not a star as she knew them. Not white or gold or blue. This one pulsed red, a soft throb like a heartbeat in the cold black sky. It wasn’t in any known coordinate. It didn’t belong.

Elira’s heart surged.

She logged the location. Recalibrated the lens. Watched.

The star blinked. Long. Short. Short. Long. A rhythm. Repeating.

It was Morse code.

She hadn’t used it since her academy days. But slowly, carefully, she translated the pattern. The first word took her breath:

“Forgive.”

Then:

“You don’t know me.”

More stars appeared over the following nights—just a few, flickering like the last sparks in a dying fire. Each one blinking in that same slow code. And each one telling fragments of stories:

“She wore yellow the day we met.”

“He never knew I saw him cry.”

“I was afraid to say goodbye.”

Memories. Not hers.

The sky had become a letter. A long, slow eulogy whispered across the firmament. Someone, somewhere, was using the heavens to remember.

Elira transcribed everything. Her notebooks swelled with unknown grief, unlived moments. Her hands trembled from cold and wonder.

Then, one message changed everything.

“You held me once. In a storm.”

She stopped breathing.

“Your lullabies tasted like lilacs.”

Her pen slipped.

“You never knew my name.”

She had no children. She had never held a baby in a storm. She didn’t sing.

And yet… the scent of lilacs bloomed in her memory. Faint. Unplaceable. Real.

The messages grew more intimate. They spoke of a voice like hers. A presence that had meant everything to someone unnamed, unseen. A ghost anchored to the sky.

She asked, aloud, “Who are you?”

The next night, only one word blinked across the dark:

“Yours.”

Elira did not write letters after that. She read instead; back through every memory in her notebooks. Stories not hers, yet now etched into her bones.

And finally, she understood.

The stars weren’t returning. They were being used. Each one a vessel for a goodbye left unsaid. Someone, or something, had cracked open the seam between sky and soul. And through it, love was being released like light.

The final message came weeks later, just before dawn:

“You mattered.”

She wept then. Not for loss, but for the quiet beauty of being known, even by a mystery. Even in the dark.

That morning, for the first time in a decade, Elira descended the mountain.

She left the telescope behind, but took the sky with her.

And above, where emptiness once ruled, a single star burned red.

Still watching.

© 2025 A.M. Roberts. All rights reserved.

In a forgotten lighthouse that leaned toward the sea like a tired sigh, there lived a man who mapped places that no longer were. His name was Luke, and his world was parchment and silence, shelves bowed beneath scrolls of lands erased by time, and a table where he traced lost borders with trembling hands.

No one came here unless they had nowhere else to go.

The air inside was laced with dust and salt, and the scent of old ink clung to the stones. His maps were not made with ink and compass alone. No—Luke mixed pigments from ash, from soil gathered where cities had once stood, and from crushed flowers left behind in places no longer found on any map. A drop of seawater to bind them. A whisper, to awaken the memory.

And the maps shimmered faintly. Not with light, but with recognition—as if the paper remembered being earth once.

He worked alone. Until one night, as twilight spilled like oil across the horizon, there was a knock at the lighthouse door. Soft. Almost afraid to be heard.

She was no older than eight, her boots soaked from the marsh below, eyes too large for her face. In her hands: a wrinkled piece of paper. A map drawn in crayon and charcoal.

“I’m looking for my home,” she said, holding it out like a fragile truth. “But it’s not on any map.”

Luke did not speak at first. He took the paper with careful fingers and studied it. The lines were crude. A crooked hill. A crescent-shaped lake. Four houses and a willow tree with blue leaves.

“This place,” he murmured, “does not exist.”

She looked at him then—not with anger, but with an ache older than her years.

“It did,” she whispered. “It did.”

He should have sent her away.

Instead, he lit a lantern and cleared the table. He laid her map beside his own. Then, from a tall, narrow drawer, he drew out an empty sheet—fine as moth wings, stitched with veins of gold. And he began.

She watched him for hours. Told him the shape of the hills. The sound the wind made near the water. How the tree whistled at night. He listened. Drew. Adjusted. Not with disbelief, but reverence.

As the days passed, the lines grew sharper. The village took shape.

And with each stroke of his pen, something stirred inside him. A name he had forgotten surfaced on his tongue. The curve of the lake—he had seen that before. The willow tree—he had once sat beneath its branches.

He didn’t ask her name. And she never asked his. But they worked in quiet togetherness, and the lighthouse began to feel less empty.

Until one morning, he awoke to find her gone. Her boots no longer by the door. Her paper left on the table, weighed down by a smooth stone.

Only one thing had changed.

The map they had drawn together was glowing.

He touched the lake—his hand trembled. Not with fear, but with memory. He had lived there. That village with the crooked roofs and blue-leaved trees. He had left as a boy during a flood that no one remembered. It had been erased. From the world. From his own mind.

Now it was back.

Luke stood in the lighthouse doorway, staring at the horizon. And for the first time in a lifetime of maps, he didn’t want to chart it. He wanted to walk it.

But he knew the cost. To map a vanished place fully was to release it. To let it live again, and in doing so, forget it once more. He had brought back so many towns, so many islands, but had always remained the keeper of their ghosts.

He looked down at the glowing map. The lines now pulsed gently, like a heartbeat. The child had given him more than memory.

She had given him home.

So he made his choice.

Luke did not archive the map. He did not seal it away.

He rolled it gently, tied it with twine, and carried it to the tallest window of the lighthouse. There, as the first stars blinked above the sea, he held the map to the wind.

It caught like a bird set free, unraveling as it flew, its glowing trails scattering into the night.

And somewhere, far from the lighthouse, a village with a crescent lake and a blue-leaved willow tree began to return to the earth.

Luke felt the forgetting begin, soft and painless. Like mist. Like sleep.

He smiled.

And sat down to draw once more.

© 2025 A.M. Roberts. All rights reserved.

As the year comes to an end, we find ourselves at a moment that feels heavy with meaning. The past months were filled with experiences that challenged us, changed us, and carried us to this point. Now, with the last few days slipping through our fingers, we take a moment to look back and ahead at the same time.

Think about the moments that shaped this year for you. The ones that brought laughter bubbling to the surface, the ones that tested your resolve, and the ones that quietly reminded you of what truly matters. Each experience, whether joyful or difficult, left its mark, nudging you closer to the person you’re meant to become.

And now, the future stretches out like an open road. What lies ahead is unknown, but it’s alive with possibilities. What risks will you take? What goals will you chase? The next chapter is waiting to be written, and it’s yours to shape however you choose.

So, here’s to this year; a collection of moments that taught us, strengthened us, and inspired us. And here’s to the one on the horizon, ready to greet us with opportunities we’ve only begun to imagine.

The story is far from over. In fact, the best is yet to come.

© 2024 A.M. Roberts. All rights reserved.