She wanted to hear the whispers in the next room, but the pleading to her ears were also unheard. She stretched up onto her toes as if height would give her hearing a greater advantage.
"What are you doing?"
"Nothing. Go away!" she frantacilly whispered, ushering her little brother out of the room with her eyes.
She suddenly heard footsteps approaching, and she pressed her small frame against the wall as to not to be seen. The red drapes of the gown following like an obedient shadow.
"If that is what she wants, that is how it will be."
The...
, Nevada. The most nondescript town imaginable. Even the dust had dust. The air was dry, and it was hardly ever cloudy.
A convenience store with a broken sign in this dull town would prove to be the battleground. Mr. Block arrived first, slowly perusing the landscape, planning ahead, preparing for the confrontation. Satisfied, he entered the store to buy a candy bar.
Mr. Arc came next. He'd been following Block his whole life, in a chase that had ruined countless others, never gaining ground, never getting closer. Until today.
Sparks flew from his hands as he increased the voltage...
Thats the kind of life I dream about, one where i stop to arch in the wind alongside the flowers. The life I have, it's not so much like that, I rarely stop, seldom arch, I stride, I talk, I eat I drink, I spend, I worry. But I know the wind blows and the flowers go gently with it, and they'll be there one day when I stop to see them, to sit with them
and bend.
It was late, and all the old songs had been sung. Much of the sweet red wind had been drunk. We sat in the desert on that little peak that looked down over the town. The moon was full and for a few minutes everything seemed like it did the last time we were up there, which had to have been thirty years ago. Sam and Richard went off to look for some dry scrub to make a little fire. I looked at the lights below, thinking about old times, back when the band was together. I nodded out for...
Tigger was not just any old Maine Coon Cat. He was *the* Maine Coon Catt. It was perhaps a lengthy code name for a spy but he liked it all the same.
He unfolded the small piece of paper that had been folded up inside the sole of the shoe he had just been handed at the dry cleaners.
"Distract the Family Dog Captain," it read.
Tigger knew the Family Dog and knew that distracting him from his important task of manning the security barrier that led from the A Zone into Second Street and beyond would not be easy....
All of a sudden, Mary had transformed. She had gone from a reasonably normal looking human woman to a ferocious tiger. She roared. I roared back. Wait, why did I roar? Oh no! I was a tiger as well. Well, this was unfortunate.
Now that we were both tigers, the argument we had been having moments before about who would do the dishes was rendered meaningless. Tigers can't do dishes, because they don't have thumbs. We were also a bit too large for our kitchen. I pushed past tiger Mary to escape the cramped space. Going down the stairs was...
The garage was stacked to the ceiling with boxes, the U-Haul ready to cart them away on that windy Tuesday morning. I was wearing sweatpants and my hair was tied up in a bun, ready to move the hell out of there. I had only lived in that white suburban house for two years. I remember the day I moved in it was mid-February. That was two years ago. Then it became May 19th, Tuesday, and windy. I held back tears as I drove away from that house, the one we were supposed to live in after the wedding, raise...
Wine, you are wonderful. I won't shout it, I won't be heard about above the din. Nightlife never appealed to me beyond the very notion of it. I appreciate gatherings, but rarely the gathered. And so, wonderful thou art, wine.
I got tanked on pinot gris and focused on her adoringly. She had better legs than this too expensive wine I ordered with careless enthusiasm. Yeah, she was a showgirl. It's as obvious as the hangover I'd nurse in the morning.
The bird landed. The men initiated procedures drilled into them back on earth and dream't of for the past month. The main hatch slowly opened. The first men stepped out onto the Martian surface. This would be their home. For the rest of their lives, they'd volunteered knowing they wouldn't ever return to earth. Alphonso stepped forward and turned back to face the rest of them. This is what they had rehearsed. He flipped the switch that would enable the broadcast to be heard by everyone on earth, instead of the internal channel to the corporation. He began to speak,...
Hugging her knees, Tanya stifled another sob. Her face felt swollen and sore, yet numb from the pain. Sitting in the pitch black, the only light coming from the oven which was still humming beside her. The lasagna she had been making for tea splashed across the floor and up the walls.
She could hear Tim banging upstairs, the slamming of cabinets in the bathroom as he got changed. He couldn't go to the pub with blood on his shirt, could he?
Tanya knew she would have to clear up the mess at some point, but for now she was...