byChrisWhite – 2025

Flash Fiction Prompt: The Stranger: May 27, 2025; 500 Words Or Less. Flash Fiction has become an increasingly important part of my development as a writer. There are essentially hundreds of different sites that offer these “prompts” either daily or weekly. Some of which offer prizes for the authors. In this case, the prompt given was, “The Stranger,” and writers begin with that simple phrase and invent everything beyond, the subject of which can be about literally anything, as long as you can finish the story in 500 words or less. This one is like 497 words. Y’all know I lean toward the gothic’s. Hope you enjoy.

THE STRANGER APPEARED just past midnight, stepping from the trees as if he had been waiting for the moon to pull him forward. At first, no one saw him. The town had long since tucked itself into quietude, windows shuttered, porch lights flickering against the damp mist. Only the wind stirred, shifting loose leaves in the empty street in scores of tiny vortices.

Miriam Pitner was the first to notice. She had woken suddenly, without knowing why, and gone to the window as though summoned by some unknown force. Below, the figure stood beneath the lamplight, still as the post itself, head tilted slightly, as if listening to the town breathe. He wore no coat despite the chill, his clothes dark, utilitarian, indistinct.

She should have looked away. Should have let him be. But there was something in the way he stood, patient, expectant, that held her gaze.

By morning, the stranger was gone. But a silence had settled over the town, an unease that slithered beneath the ordinary. Doors opened slower, conversations trailed off mid-sentence. Miriam watched as Mrs. Hulan’s hands trembled at the grocer’s till. Sheriff Elliott sat outside his weathered board and batten office, eyes scanning the street, boots tapping in restless rhythm.

By dusk, a whisper ran through town like a chill up the spine.

“Did you see him?”

“Said he was looking for someone.”

“No one comes here looking.”

And yet, the stranger did.

By the next night, he was there again. Same spot. Same silence. Miriam’s pulse quickened as she peered from behind the lace curtain. This time, others watched too. A lamp flickered in the Holloway window. The sheriff stood half-shadowed in the jail’s doorway. No one spoke. No one moved.

Then, as if he could hear their unspoken questions, the stranger turned.

Miriam’s breath caught.

His face was familiar. Not in the way of a neighbor or an old classmate, but in the way of something long buried, a half-remembered song, a scent carried on the wind that snatches you back years before you can name what it is.

He was gone.

The next morning, Mr. Farrar packed his bags and left without a word. Mrs. Holloway, who had not stepped beyond her porch in years, was seen walking past the post office; her eyes glazed over, fixed on something distant. The sheriff spent the day scouring old files, muttering to himself.

And Miriam? She sat at the window, waiting.

Because she understood now. The stranger had come for someone. Not with chains or force, but with knowing. With a recognition of truths long buried.

The past had become restless.

And it had finally found its way home.