Reinforcement

by DoctorMikeReddy 29 days ago

Giving in wasn't an option. The first time Ted died he didn't really notice, being in a full on berserk. One of his incisors was embedded in the top of his shield. He only felt its loss after he lay beside the gnawed wood, head split by a centurion's short sword. Like most warrior souls, he didn't leave it there...   Read more

pieces of

by markbaldridge 18 days ago

The thing about gold is: it lies inert. I mean, it shines, but...
Dubloons, you've heard the pirates speak of them. 490 years lie, ocean floor notwithstanding, and not a bit of tarnish, no rust.
Just try that with your silver, your iron, brass, your copper plate!
Gold. It runs, blurs, but -cool- it does not interact.
For this reason we think of it as pure, as spiritual:
Gold knows only its own soul.
Like a frigid bride it bides its time, growing not older, but alone

99 Problems and a Woodpecker Is One

by ericjkrause 27 days ago

The storm had blown over, but not before it had blown over his ship, along with all of his crew. The captain always went down with the ship, but by the time he woke up from a plank smacking him upside the head, he found himself drifting alone on a plank of wood in the middle of the ocean, no one else in sight....   Read more

text

by ganymeder 12 days ago

The words hovered beneath my glowing finger, power incarnate. I lifted the text, spinning it lazily in the air, before hurling the curse at the image of my nemesis.

The photo I had ripped from the backcover of her book dissolved, dripping onto the table, her face hideously deformed, the black ink staining the tablecloth beneath....   Read more

Strange New World

by ganymeder 19 days ago

When he'd signed up to visit strange new worlds, he'd never envisioned this. He turned slowly in the glass globe, devoid of even snow or glitter, and bemoaned his fate.

He should have known better than to answer an ad for interstellar traveller posted in the local classifieds.

Crap.

Watching Se7en With a Girl Who Smells Like Apricots

by the clark 28 days ago

You know damn well the head is in the box. You know damn well how this movie will end. But her legs are across yours and she shaved. They're smooth like you could have only guessed, because in winter she was all jeans and tights.

You've been hovering with your hand on her knee and...   Read more

A Symphony At Sunset

by Lobotomy Bob 30 days ago

We wrote a song for the silver trees. The streetlamps gathered underneath the bridge to hear us. Our band played. Others milled. The night was soft. The river was a metronome.

We wrote a song for the silver trees.

Sylvia wasn't sure she should have been there, never higher than 3rd chair in the symphony, but the...   Read more

Anniversary

by TonyNoland 25 days ago

In the time of stone and wood, when you and I walked through shady forests surrounded by the scent of roasting ptarmigan and flint-struck fire, we loved the world and all it contained.

In the time of iron and silk, when you and I rode through across the land surrounded by the scent of rotting bison and coal smoke, we possessed...   Read more

Too Many Nights End This Way

by Overtlystreet 29 days ago

The stories rarely stop when the party does.

He was not tall, or lean, but he was fashionable. He had the bushiest eyebrows, like tiny mink stoles pasted to his forehead, and a strange (but familiar) teetering gate to his walk as he meandered like a river through the empty park lawns.
"I hope I...   Read more

I Was a Coin

by CiaraAoife_ 16 days ago

People always said that I was like a coin. I had two sides.

No one really knew what side they were speaking to. I'd always laugh it off and say I as a Gemini by nature. I had two personalities. I had two ways of looking at things. I was two people.

Until one of them died. The happy side. The reasonable side. The rational...   Read more