I am looking out the window of my tiny house in Michigan and watching the snow pile up on the road.
I won't be going into town today, and I don't mind at all.
My dog is in a ball at my feet. The heat is on. I'm wrapped in a blanket. I feel so lucky in this moment to be alone here, to feel safe and to feel like I'm home and there is nothing to be scared of.
I think this morning I will maybe go back to bed. But I think later I'll read a bit, and...
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 of course.
The second death was a spear. Ted bled out over a few days, his last fevered thought - blood poisoning - being one of confused pride he had all his own teeth 'this' time.
Ted's third demise was...
Giving in wasn't an option, but there was little else she could do.
"Ok, ok," she told the young galant with the sharp blade, "take whatever you want. Just don't hurt me."
The rascal had a look in his eye so sharp it could cut glass. "What I want, my lady," he said, drawing the space out between words to give them import, "is you."
The young woman's eyes widened, her ruby lips opened, but words failed her.
Reaching down, he made himself ready for his reward; then laid his hands upon-
her chastity belt.
Freed of the constraints of...
Giving in wasn't an option. To surrender to that demon wench, horrifically taunting him with all the glories of his gender-bent body that he knew made him sick, was out of the question. He'd sooner stab himself, or worse, let his younger brother best him in their next bout.
He could not deny, however, he was getting cornered into a difficult position. There was something off about the way the chimera chose to come at him this time. Aside from letting watermelons of bosoms bounce and burst out of his vest at him.
He inwardly shuddered. That had to be...
Giving in wasn't an option. She - he'd not had time to ask her name - had wept, pleaded, then finally agreed. Shuddering, the way he'd imagined a suicide would cutting his own wrist, she'd - Hell, he should ask her name at least - placed the unpinned grenades one at a time behind his back.
The release levers successfully pinned between spine and the plastic that had separated driver from passengers, he felt their edges anew as he extended his arms to push against the bus's folding doors.
"Good girl. Get upstairs. When it's safe. When they're all gone....
Giving in wasn't an option anymore because I had given in too many times before.
I'd taken it time after time - too many times before, and this has me broken. I'm broken, broken from you.
You've simply abused me, in the finer way. The finer way where not all the cracks show, in the way that I can hold them in so that they are only something I know. In the way that only I will know when I see you again, and the cracks come stabbing on like a nightmare.
Now when you're feeling down, I won't risk...
Giving in wasn't an option. "2,4,6,8! We don't want to integrate!" shouted his T-Shirt. Well, the left hand side. The right blared out "We're ALL in this (body) together…"
Both the Prosecution and the Defence barristers sighed at the witness's garb, shuffled papers, breathed slowly, and were grateful he was wearing anything at all. Both were getting paid. From the same bank account, in fact. They both rose as the Right Honourable Judge Jewel took in the room, and then her seat.
The clerk stood and announced in a notably less bored tone than usual, "Giles #3 versus Giles #1,2...
Giving in wasn't an option.
He/She
hadnt considered the consequences of the experiment. Quantum Flux theory was such a new area, although
he'd always /she'd never
been interested in it
ever since he / when she
was a child
Or maybe/ but actually
it was later,
much later that
he'd / she'd
come to the field. Now the latest test apparatus had performed
well he / strangely she
had begun to have doubts.
Maybe it was the results or maybe
he was tired / she was overreacting
but
hed / she'd
noticed strange things happening. A sense of deja vu? Something wasn't right. Like...
Giving in WASN'T an option. I absolutely had to make it out of this place alive. Now, I know that no one gets through high school unscathed, but I had been observing the teenage life long enough to learn a few things. Number one: Teenagers are brutal. They will stop at nothing to ensure that they hold a place at the very top of the popularity ladder. They will back stab, manipulate, or talk their way in or out of any situation. Number two: When it comes to survival, anything goes. That's right, anything. If you need a 80% to...
Elsie, her name was Elsie. She was a big lass. Big arms. 'Big boned' my mum had called her, 'a rough sort', she'd said, 'stay away from her, she's trouble', she'd said. But I never listened to my mum.
I decided from the word go that I wanted to be in Elsie's gang. When I crept up to her side and said
'lo Else, can I be in your gang then?' she'd blown a big bubblegum bubble which popped right in front of my face and sneered
'you'll have to go through 'tha 'nititation beanpole'
Beanpole. I already had a...
Giving in wasn't an option.