Knock Knock
written by: Miya Yamanouchi
Wind blew the door open and Death came waltzing in.
He looked her up and down.
“So. Did you do everything you wanted to? Achieve all your dreams, use all your talents? Say all you could’ve said, been all you could’ve been?”
He examined her more closely, with narrowed eyes. “And those natural gifts nobody has but you. Did you use them?”
She shook her head. “I was too shy—I didn’t want to force things—I knew I’d have a long time to try.”
“Mm.” Death lit a cigarette and nodded. “And now? Now do you have time?”
“Give me another decade. I’ll do everything I’m supposed to—I’ll fulfill my purpose.”
Death scoffed. “A decade?” He puffed smoke into her face. “Nah. I’ll give you a year.”
“What can I possibly do in a year?”
“Make it count. I rarely grant extensions.”
Miya Yamanouchi is a writer in South Eastern Europe whose words appear in magazines, books, textbooks, news outlets and literary journals across the globe including Europe, North America, the Middle East and Africa. She holds a Bachelor of Counselling and is a Master of Communication student with a 90 plus average. Her journalistic work can be found at Balkan Insight and The Sarajevo Times where she has reported on post-conflict issues including landmines, mine victims, transitional justice, genocide denial and ethnic tensions. In August 2020, Miya took her first ever creative writing class at university where she discovered a love for writing fiction and poetry. Since then her poetic work has been published in Poets and War, SpillWords Press and Poetry Atlas, while her flash fiction stories can be found at Friday Flash Fiction, 50-Word Stories and 101 Words. Her first ever short story, ‘A Tale From The Black Ink Sea’ was published in Drunken Pen Writing followed by SpillWords Press, where it was shortlisted for Publication of the Month. Miya has lived on three different continents and an island in the South Sea, and is currently learning her third language. Her writing reflects her multifaceted personality and unique, diverse life experiences.
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