It was such a long time ago.
Such a very long time ago.
Yet for some reason she had still believed she would know the way.
As though she would remember the path that she had taken over and over when drunk, in the middle of the night, surrounded by people she hadn't known hours before but were now her best friends.
But it was daylight and it was years later and nothing looked the same.
Was that always a carpark?
Were the buildings those shops stood in new?
Was that where they had kissed?
Was this the corner where...

He was dressed in green. It made him stand out from all the other people at the beach in their reds and blues, their dark shorts and white vests.
He hadn't intended it as a fashion statement, the green shorts had just been the last ones in the store.
He looked around at the tan, well-sculptured bodies of everyone else on the beach and felt very out of place.
He was not a fan of the outdoors, he had never really even tried it but outside was varying and unpredictable and he just knew by instinct that he wouldn't like...

She could feel it clawing at her as she sat in the room, nudging her, trying to pull her back.
The fantasy was becoming ever more difficult to escape from. The fantasy of her life years from now, successful job, a partner who was her equal and who she could love for the rest of her life, the promise of children, the happy ending that she had always desired.
It was consuming all her waking moments.
The hope that she held in her heart that she would survive this and everything would turn out well.
She hadn't needed to escape...

She could feel it clawing at her as she sat in the room, nudging her, trying to pull her back.
The fantasy was becoming ever more difficult to escape from. The fantasy of her life years from now, successful job, a partner who was her equal and who she could love for the rest of her life, the promise of children, the happy ending that she had always desired.
It was consuming all her waking moments.
The hope that she held in her heart that she would survive this and everything would turn out well.
She hadn't needed to escape...

Imagine you're sitting at a table and the drunk version of you sits before you.
What would you say to one another?
Would the drunk you tell you the truth, admit to all the honesty you bury deep within or would the sober you manage to quell all of the clarity with your denial and issues?
And which one is the real one at this point? You spend more time with alcohol than you do with the voices in your head these days. So if your friends were to join you at the table, which of the two of you...

One boy changed her life.
It was one of those things that you only realise in hindsight, but it was true. Yet, it wasn't really about the boy. He didn't change her life in a romantic 'you are my soul mate' way. They had kissed that night, but that was more like a signature at the end of a deal - the deal that that was the day that her whole life changed.
Before that moment that he came through the crowd and took her hand and led her back onto the dance floor, she had spent years feeling rejected,...

Lost, without a hand to hold. I imagine that's how some men feel in my position. As though everything they once had, all those they once knew, has gone forever. Because they were abandoned, or because they pushed it all away, who can say.
Yet it's weird, I've felt that way for so long, for so many years, I assumed that that would be how I felt at this moment. But somehow, staring at the noose before me, I've never felt more alive, and less alone.
I am guilty. I am innocent. I am a contradiction. And it doesn't matter....

"Do you remember?"
"I remember"
"We were so..."
"Young"
"Stupid."
"We were kids."
"Would you still buy that excuse if one of yours said that to you?"
"Ha, I guess not."
"Because we were idiots."
"Clearly we haven't learned our lesson."
"Of course we have, there's some method to the madness these days."
"You call it method, I call it being surrounded."
"Go out with a bang though?"
"Always."
And with a nod, the two old friends picked up their paint ball guns.
"On three?"
"On three."
"One... two..."
Into the battle once more they ran, best friends who had...

We take the ability to breathe for granted. It's the basic function that keeps us alive, you would have thought that we would keep a closer eye on it, that we would pay attention to how many lungfuls of air we consume every day. But we don't. We don't think about that mundane process because that is not the element of breathing that adds a spark to life; it is the thieves that trade in such banal fare that creates the interest.
For a breath once stolen is never forgotten. Whether it be by the view from a hill over...

The disco ball was turning, just as it had the very first time I had walked in, ten months and five days ago.
Back then, I had only been a visitor, an anomaly in the lives of those who were gathered around me this night. Somewhere along the way, I had become a recurring cast member: life went on without me, but no one objected when I made my impromptu appearances.
Tonight would be the last night I could stay before my whole world changed. Because of that, I kept my eyes open, nostalgia clouding my vision more than the...