“Block” a free short story by Syd 🌧️
The new year brings new short stories for free in the library. My goal for this year is to add six new stories from other authors. Submissions are open at the moment, so if you want to submit a piece click here to learn more about guidelines and such.
Today’s short story comes from author Syd and brings a bit of humor with light existential dread.
And if you’re new to the newsletter or site, you can read the story in this post or download it as an ebook. Both options are below.
Meet Syd.
Syd.
I met Syd online through Threads and an indie horror publisher who accepted one of my short stories for an anthology before it went sideways. Syd, like many of the people working behind the scenes at that publisher, is good people and she is now working with a new indie publishing company that recently launched called Dead Fox Publishing. Syd is currently doing a lot of the website and social media work for Dead Fox. Seriously, check out their website, because it’s pretty cool looking, she’s done a great job with it.
If you like her story today, be sure to check out her Threads and Instagram accounts and give her a follow.
Sitting on a metal park bench. Stuck. Unable to move. No will to move. The clouds roll in.
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Rated PG: A mild dreadful feeling.
What you get: An epub file that is DRM free and should work on most PCs, eReaders, and mobile devices.
After you've finished reading, please come back and leave a review or comment below.
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Copyright © 2026 by Syd Tomac.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted by Artificial Intelligence (AI) or used in the training of AI, for either commercial or non-commercial purposes. For permission requests, write to Nat Weaver, with subject “Block by Syd” at the following email address: nat@weaver.wtf. Weaver will forward your requests to Syd.
BLOCK
a short story by syd
Please just let this nightmare end.
The thought is sharp within my brain, an ever-growing splinter of abject dread. Time has entirely faded from my grasp, and I am left with an incessant cramping in my legs and a stiffness of my spine as my only tells of possibly how long it has been. Perhaps if this inaction was of my own choosing, I would be more okay with this. If I had sat myself down here on this dingy metal bench to sit for an immeasurable amount of time while the world around me stayed as still and silent as the grave, then maybe, maybe I would be okay with this. At least it would have been my will.
Instead, I have been brought here by the whims of another, the invisible threads that plague my life and willed my legs to walk a casual and aimless stroll over to sit here. It isn’t that I’m some puppet on a string, moving and shaking however my master deems… or is it? Perhaps that’s exactly what I am, a discarded and forgotten doll resigned to a shelf. Or, in this case, a shitty metal bench.
The moments when I get stuck in places like this, time bleeding away but only enough to pool stagnant around me, I start to doubt everything. It starts as a trickle of dread that slides down the back of my neck and stands every hair on edge along its path, like a rollercoaster save where the end is supposed to be, it is just another burst of speed.
Are any of my actions of my own will, or is every single thing I’ve done preordained, completely at the whim of the higher power that drags me along now? Such thinking causes a wave of nauseous panic so strong it makes me forget the stiffness and discomfort of inactivity for a moment. My chest feels tight, but I can’t even heave, even that is stripped from me.
The sky rumbles above me, a noise that I cannot even tip my head upward to so much as acknowledge. My spiral is ripped away by the ache it settles in my bones and my spirit. For it isn’t thunder rolling above. No, it is the displeased snarl of the very heavens, and it quakes me to my frozen bones.
It is the signal of the start of this current cycle, the grand opening of my most desperate moments in this joke of an existence. Just as I expect, it begins. My head tips to the sky, my arms stretch out, and I can finally arch my back to relieve some of the aching. It cracks and pops like bubble wrap all the way up to my neck. The moment of respite lasts only a moment before it’s pulled back, wrenched from my grip as I’m yanked right back to how’d I’d been. It takes but a minute for the ache to settle back in.
Then all at once, I get to my feet, my legs shooting both relief and pain straight up my body in equal measure. Only this motion is quicker to be ripped right back from this world, shunting me right back into sitting, hunched, once more. The sky rolls and roars all the more violently. I want to cry, to weep or lash out and scream back at it, but everything catches in my throat long before I can even try.
Perhaps if I could just talk to whatever this being is then maybe I could help… maybe I could understand what it is it wants from me. Instead, what comes from my lips is not a plea for reason or explanation, but a sigh expelling out of my lungs and up my throat without any consent on my part. I lean back once more on the bench, head tipped skyward. Grey clouds swirl above as tumultuous as the storm inside me. The first raindrop hits my cheek, cold and almost mournful in the way it slides down my skin.
Just like that, the sky opens up, soaking me through. Perhaps it weeps for me, I think for one aching moment. At least it’s something there and real and happening in this world. Something I can cling to.
I finally get to close my eyes.
Sadly, it too doesn’t last. I feel each raindrop pulling back from the place it seeped into my being, retreating back into the sky. My eyes are wrenched back open to watch in dismay as they get sucked back up into those dark clouds above. With their retreat they steal the chill that has been trying to coil its way into my being and my hope along with it. The first drop slides back up my cheeks, and I watch it lift back up into the air with hopeless despair.
The sky cries anew.
It will be so much longer before I am allowed to move from this spot.
Of that, I am very sure.
***
“Dammit, I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong, Carol. Yes, I’ve tried just writing whatever came to me, but I just keep deleting it. None of it feels… right. I don’t know… maybe I should just start the whole thing over. I hate writer’s block.”
THE END.
Please sound off in the comments to let Syd know what you thought of her short story. And as always, keep it respectful.
