Tag: short story

The Lake of Honey

Chris KhatschLeave a comment

Lara was aware she was doomscrolling. Part of her wanted to throw her phone away, but she couldn’t stop watching those short videos that were made to grab her attention and keep her wanting more. Her eyes were stuck to the screen, and her thumb was programmed to ceaselessly swipe up. “I don’t want to do this anymore,” she wanted to cry. “Why can’t I do anything about it?”

It was 1:04 AM. She was in her spacious, fashionably furnished bedroom, sunk in a plush velvet sofa by the window. The sheer alabaster linen curtains were open, allowing the moonlight to invade her bedroom unimpeded. Everything in the bedroom seemed to be in its rightful place, except her. She was lying on the sofa when she should have been in bed, sleeping, dreaming, resting.

The more she scrolled, the angrier she became at herself, but every video postponed that anger another minute. Every last video she planned to watch was followed by another video, each more unfulfilling than the last. She kept wanting to watch one more, and she did. She scrolled.

Then, in the split second between the video she had just watched and the video she was about to watch, she imagined herself drowning in a lake of honey. The new video started playing, but her attention had now turned inward, and she saw herself sinking deeper into honey, and she wondered whether she could swim in honey if she were ever thrown in such a lake. She then thought, “Are the videos I’m watching supposed to be the honey I’m drowning in? I’m more like a fly stuck to a sticky flypaper.” But that thought was short-lived. She started imagining pulling herself out of the lake thanks to a rope that a good-looking stranger threw her way. The stranger looked like he was in his mid-twenties, five or so years younger than her. He was a muscular man with broad shoulders, wearing only swimming shorts. Thick veins ran down from his biceps and forearms and disappeared only when they reached his wrists. His whole body shone in the moonlight. And in that darkness, he was like the light a dying person saw at the end of the tunnel. Lara held on to the rope he threw and pulled herself out of the lake. When she reached the lakeshore, the sun replaced the moon in the sky. The moon seamlessly faded out as a hot Mediterranean summer sun faded in. The good-looking stranger extended his hand to help her stand up. “Thanks,” she said. “Welcome,” he said. She gazed into his ice-blue eyes. His face… she did not know what face to give him yet. But standing there in front of him, she felt the honey trickle down her body, and she realized she was naked, and she was naked because at that moment she desired to be… She made the man with the ice-blue eyes fulfill her wish. Her lust was the puppet master. She made him pull her towards him, made him lick all of the honey off her, and then she made him… Her phone rang, and she was pulled back into the real world where she was lying on the sofa by the window with her phone, which was now vibrating, in her right hand. Her left hand was in her underwear. The call was from an unknown number, and it was 1:09 AM, which meant it was either someone calling a wrong number or a call she did not want to answer. She wanted to return to the arms of the stranger with ice-blue eyes. She longed to go back. Before declining the call, she wondered whom it could be. She waited a minute to see if the same number would call again, but no call came. So, she allowed herself to drift back into her fantasies, and this time she gave the young man a face, the face of the bartender with the nice smile and ice-blue eyes who served her drinks two nights ago.

What Killed Art

Chris KhatschLeave a comment

In a forgotten pub, a Gen Z and a Millennial sat at the bar side by side on bar stools. The Gen Z’s bar stool squeaked every time he moved; the one the Millennial sat on didn’t. There was no electricity, but the night sky was clear, stars shone, and the moon was full, so, although minimal, enough moonlight entered the pub through the broken window behind them. The bartender was a skeleton wrapped in spider webs, but he still served them drinks somehow. The Gen Z was having his fifth Cognac and Coke, but the Millennial’s first pint of beer remained untouched.

“I was born to be an artist,” the Gen Z said. “But now it looks like art died before my time.”

“Don’t take it too hard,” the Millennial said, smiling. “Art died before my time, too. Much before my time, in fact. And it’s not just art that died. They also said that God is dead, philosophy is dead, and they even claimed that love is dead.”

“So, you’re saying that, basically, everything that once made us human is either dead or dying.”

“Unfortunately.”

“But who killed art? Who killed God? Who killed philosophy? Who killed love?”

“You want me to give you the names of the murderers, but I can only give you the names of those who wrote the obituaries. I’ll name them: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, for instance, announced the death of art; Friedrich Nietzsche announced the death of God; Stephen Hawking announced the death of philosophy; Byung-Chul Han announced the death of love. And I’m sure there are others who made the same or similar announcements. Journalists outnumber newsworthy events. But does it really matter who found the corpses? I have a feeling you don’t really care. I can see it in your eyes.”

“You’re right. I don’t care,” the Gen Z said. “What I want to know is the cause of death of art. What killed it? Can’t you tell me, please, who killed it?”

“Hm, well, the answer is more depressing than art’s funeral,” said the Millennial. “Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“Then, let me tell it to you as it is. There are no murderers. No killers except time. After a long battle with history and technological progress, art passed away in her sleep of natural causes.”

The Gen Z let out a long sigh and said, “If what you are saying is true, then how come there’s still so much art, religion, philosophy, and love in the world?”

“Ah! That’s an excellent question,” the Millennial said. “But it’s the wrong question.”

“What?” the Gen Z was surprised. “Why?”

“I really wish I could spend more time with you in this forgotten place,” the Millennial suddenly rose from his place. “You may be onto something here, so I encourage you to keep looking. But I must now disappear.”

This piece was first published on my Substack on July 6, 2026.

The Perfumery

Chris KhatschLeave a comment

There was once a perfumery on Hamra Street called Reeha.

Every morning, the owner of the perfumery, a middle-aged man with broad shoulders named Mahmoud El Rashed, and his employee, a middle-aged woman who had long lost her femininity named Tania Boutros, drank coffee in paper cups and smoked cigarettes on the sidewalk in front of the shop.

Other shop owners and salespeople occasionally joined them for small talk; most of the time, however, there would be just the two of them, Mahmoud and Tania, enjoying a form of silence disguised as a conversation.

If a passerby ever chose to listen in, he would think that the two were dynamically engaged in the conversation they were having. What wouldn’t cross his mind, however, is this: Mahmoud and Tania had the exact same conversation every morning for over twenty years. They spoke without thinking and with little awareness of what really came out of their mouths. They were like two actors rehearsing a boring dialogue after a night of heavy drinking. They performed it quite well, but the meaning of their dialogue was overworked and long exhausted. It meant absolutely nothing to them. Their words had become nothing but sound, mantras that were part of the noise of the city, no different than the chirping of the birds and the begging of the beggars. As they spoke mechanically, they traveled freely in their own minds. They were there, but they weren’t there.

“The weather’s not so bad today,” one of them would always say.

“Yes,” the other would agree, “and let’s hope it will get even better tomorrow.”

“Did you see the news last night?” Tania would always ask when she was halfway through her coffee.

“Why would I watch the news?” Mahmoud would answer. “The news has been the same since 1991. Only the reporters have changed.”

Lighting his third and last cigarette before the start of his workday, Mahmoud would ask, “Remind me, Tania, how many perfume bottles did we sell yesterday?”

And Tania would smile and say something like, “Ya Mahmoud. Wallah, the number’s so small that it’s not worth mentioning.”

But this morning was a little different than all preceding mornings. Just a little different. Before they went in, Tania delivered – or, rather, tried her best to deliver –  several jokes she had come across online the night before. This was new. But unfortunately for her, none of the jokes made Mahmoud laugh. In fact, it was so out of their morning routine script that Mahmoud did not know how to react.

“Hamra is dying,” Mahmoud said after a pause. “It has been dying for more than a decade now.”

“Da,” Tania responded.

“What’s that?” Mahmoud asked.

“Da means yes in Russian,” Tania said.

“Do you speak Russian now?” Mahmoud asked.

“No, I only know this word,” Tania said. “Da.”