Up the Last Hill // by special guest John Adams

a story about a keeper of tales and secrets, and two siblings who went up the hill to fetch a pail of water

She waits above my sickbed, face shadowed.

“Jillian!” My voice is a raspy squawk.

“Hello... ‘Mother.’” She dangles a familiar, leather-bound tome. “Missing something?” My archive.

“Please... give it back...”

“Your original recounts. Not that sanitized mass-market drivel.” She thumbs through crackling pages. “Deathbed confession or not, did you really think I’d let you publish these? Let you expose my naughtiest secret?”

“You... killed him...”

“He fell down,” she chants delightedly, “and broke his crown.”

“You... pushed him...”

“Tsk-tsk. That hardly rhymes. You silly goose.”

She hoists my book of nursery rhymes high before smashing it onto my frail beak.

John Adams (he/him) is the runner-up in the microfiction contest that The Shortest Story co-hosted with The Story Engine. John Adams is an author who primarily writes the genre he’s coined “inclusive absurdist speculative melodrama” – meaning “monsters, aliens, and unexpectedly engaging emotions.” Learn more about his work at johnamusesnoone.com.

Short story written by John Adams

Story prompt taken from a photo by Jake Charles