"I really don't see why your dollhouse needs to be 1:10 scale," Jose grumbled as he surveyed the wood-and-glue staircase that Sandra had erected in the middle of the garage.
"I'm thinking it needs a bit more support here," Sandra pointed to the middle stair, ignoring his complaints. "Pass me the staple gun, will you?"
"When are you going to make the dolls?" Jose wondered.
"Silly," Sandra chided him. "I'm not going to MAKE the dolls. They'll come by themselves."
"Huh?"
Sandra smiled mysteriously. "You'll see."
Jose shrugged.
"By the way, you probably shouldn't come down here at night."
Spinning. Thirteen years old and with my friends in some suburban backyard, spinning. Looking up at the nightime stars and spinning. Spinning until a single star became the axis around which the universe revolved. Spinning until everything made momentary sense and then dissolved away in fits of giggles and pratfalls on the grass.
Spinning, the car catching my rear bumper and turning me in a full circle so that the city became a blur.
Spinning in the pool, three somersaults in a row is what turned the pool into the ocean filled with the giant squid and the great white...
"Mister Cloone?" said the sergeant as he sat down. "You know why we're holding you, right?"
Cloone shrugged and leaned back. "Fascism? Something something smokes?"
Sergeant Miller took off his own glasses. "We're stopping you here at the Richford/Quebec crossing because you were smuggling Cuban cigars into the country. Why would you do that? You didn't even try to hide them."
"It's the Hemingway in me. Cuba. And 'fuck the system'."
"You think that smuggling cigars makes you Hemingway?" asked Miller.
"I think it's a good start," replied Cloone.
"We have the boycott in place for a very good reason....
I stand on the fine sand, gazing out to sea. We stood here before, didn't we? You and I. Younger, then. Innocent perhaps. Lovers learning about each other in those early days.
The time we spent on this beach was perfect. Like an advert on TV for far flung luxurious holidays. Our own private paradise. We didn't want it to end, did we?
A man walks past. Dressed in green trunks, he glances at me. I signal to him and buy. He's feeling lucky now. Selling watermelon and coconut is not easy at this time of year. I feast on...
The shipwreck was catastrophic -- the kind where the powder magazines fireballed into the sky. Wood and masts and sails and all that turned into a bunch of toothpicks even Dennis Hoffman couldn't count.
Only Dark James Jameson survived, catapulted as he was from the plank he'd been stumping down as he crossed himself and wished the darling world goodbye. He landed in the evian blue water with a sploosh, swam about in a silent camera shot and bobbed to the surface for a breath -- upside down. His leg was the only bouyant bit about him.
He hung upside...
If your parents are going to name you after a song, there are a few things they should think about.
For a start, it needs to be a good song. Actually, no, it needs to be an actual name. Nobody wants a kid called "You know what they do to guys like us in prison."
But it still needs to be a good song. A really good one. Not some one-hit-wonder.
And it should be subtle. I mean, "Penny Lane" - that's obvious. "Layla"? Not so much.
Maybe I'll change my name to Layla, when the forms come through. Or...
The Potentate surveyed his creamsicle tower cooly.
"Were my instructions not clear," he asked in the calm manner so many of his associates found so frightening. "Was the language I was speaking truly so difficult to decipher?"
Nobody spoke up at first, though everyone knew two things: the longer he went without an answer, the angrily the Potentate would get. The second fact, whoever spoke first stood a good chance of receiving the brunt of his displeasure. As was often the case, everyone opted for an intense anger spread over the whole group, then face being a direct target of...
The gate closed behind them. It was too late, she knew it. How did they get here? Why did it have to end this way?
"Jamie, it's okay. They won't find us here."
She wanted to believe him. She tried to believe him. She couldn't. They corner they hid in was dark, damp, dirty. She didn't have to wait long.
As the latch opened on the outside gate, Sean starting shaking. He can't handle this, Jamie thought.
"We're going to die, aren't we?" he asked.
Jamie considered lying, but what would be the point? She put her arms around him...
'Kenya.'
I looked up from my book. 'Huh?'
'Kenya.'
'Can I what?'
'No, the country. Kenya.'
'Yeah, okay, in Africa. What about it?'
'We found him there. He's working in an aid camp for Somalian refugees.'
'Him? Who?'
'You know who I'm talking about.'
I put the book down, forgetting it. 'How certain are you of this? There can be absolutely no mistake, understand?'
'Positive identification. No question.'
'Anecdotal or visual? We need to be sure.'
'Oh, absolutely visual. A low flying drone picked him up leaving a market. He had a couple of bags of veggies and a rack...
His hand skimmed lightly over the cool metal bumps. His brow furrowed as he struggled to remember the meaning of the pattern, feeling the warmth of his girlfriend pressing close to his left.
"D-down?" he asked softly, biting his lip as his fingers lingered, heating the Braille with his own touch. Braille. Just another sign, along with the sudden paranoia for his safety, that he was no longer the young man he'd been before the accident. Just another sign he was no longer going to be independent, not really.
Just another milestone.
"Yeah," Jessica replied even more quietly, her voice...