The fetid winds drifted heavily across the abandoned battlefield. Stench and Decay and the futility of it all. To our protagonists it was a bounty of untold riches. Coin and Cloth and untold amounts of scrap metal to be melted down. To the pickers and eaters of the dead this waste of life and treasure might feed thier kith and kin for many days. Wherever the Gods of War traveled, they were circling with unnatural patience.
We had been the best of friends all though high school. It was summer after senior year and we would soon be off to our respective colleges. This was going to be one last slumber party; one last tribute to the way we had spent most weekends throughout the last four years.
Mindy had brought the tequilla, which was a recent development. I mean, slumber parties as freshmen didn't include booze. I furnished the barn, or rather my parents did. The night was soft and warm and the air was sweet with mown grass, and if you didn't mind the...
She opened the fridge and took out a jar of pickles. Rubbing the condensation off her fingers onto her jeans, she prized the lid off and pulled out a spear.
Crunching away, she rifled through the crisper drawer, but didn't find anything appealing. She noticed there was still paint on the back of her hand, but she was too tired to rub it away.
The house was quiet, except for the snoring of her husband, which carried through the house. She was beginning to feel like she heard more from him when he was asleep then when he was awake....
Everyone was on board for the show. They had their fly gear and their hats. I, of course, forgot my sunglasses.
"No problem," mama said, "just squint!"
As we lined up, I squinted at the audience. It never ceased to amaze me that the entire population of a town would stop what it was doing to watch our show every week. But they did. All fifty-four of them, including the dogs.
I was getting antsy. This week, I was the leader! Never before had a child led the show! I wasn't nervous; there's no room for nerves in show-biz. However,...
They were listening. Their ears pressed up against the wall. She held her breath, the clock ticked. Her boyfriend huffed and rolled his eyes. She glared at him and held a finger to her mouth. He was about to speak when it started again.
The yelling, this time it was followed by a crash. Then the low voices. It was odd, it wasn't the usual commotion they heard from the neighbors. The man's voice was urgent, the woman's angry.
Straining, she shifted her weight so she could better press her ear against the wall and when that didn't work she...
The key couldn't break.
Forged by the hand of fate
In the fires of adversity
Her love would mold
The white-hot metal
Into the shape it was meant to take
Then
Cooled by her touch
Quenched with desire
It would unlock
Anything
Martin Adams began to type. He wasn't sure what to say; a fact that the repeated DELETES and EDITS made clear. Love letters were so much simpler in the pre-computer days. You'd write what you felt, scrunch about 3/4 of the pages up and throw them next to, if not in, the bin. Then you would belabour whether to post the thing. Sometimes you would, then regret it. Sometimes you wouldn't, then regret it. Now all he had to do was click SEND. Or not. Not click SEND that is.
Martin wished he'd managed to set up that clever thing...
there were roses of Blue Cross is everywhere everywhere I look I could see a blue cross suddenly I noticed that 1 of the Blue Cross is this a crescent moon this disturbs me a little bit because it interrupted the uniformity of the rest of the field of Blue Cross is I was all alone so I had no 1 to complain to which is why I am completing to you dear reader of my 6 minute story see that little crescent moon it looks out of place no obviously the crescent moon is there because it marks the...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. The boy standing across the street couldn't help but notice her. He thought she looked a little curious as to what he was doing just standing on the other side of the street.
He totally forgotten the reason himself. He couldn't wrench his eyes off her no matter how hard he tried.
Her dark brown hair ran down her sides like silk, ending where her waist begins. The crimson red of her gown brought out the tan of her skin, and fit just lovely on her...
The running wasn't the best part - but it was the part he did best. With pumping arms and striding legs, he moved gracefully around the track, passing others without a second thought or glance, as though there were mere statues standing still and in his way.
The best part was the winning. But he wasn't a very good winner. Oh, he smiled and shook hands and took his trophy or medal and posed for photos, but he was already thinking about the next race. And when fellow runners came to congratulate him, he didn't care. He was, if such...