My hand disappeared a week ago. I was rolling out a sheet of cookie dough for the kids. They come home around three and I like to have something warm baking for them. It makes me feel more useful and it's good that kids end their day with something sweet.
I was rolling the dough. Chocolate chip, I think it was. And my left hand just wasn't there anymore. The space where it was before was empty now. I didn't scream or cry. I'd gotten used to missing things. I figured this would be the same.
I had another hand...
"Knives."
The scientist looked up. The musician was bright-eyed, excited, although there were bags under his eyes. She replaced her spectacles (why did she always take them off for the close-up work? It didn't make sense) and gave him her full attence. "Knives?"
"Knives." He sat down on the stool, gangly, limbs too long. He was not suited for the labratory - not a huge surprise, really. "Knives are the answer. We...we cut."
It was almost cute, watching him try to describe what he presumed the scientific method was. "Do you mean dissection?"
He nodded, enthusiastic, excited. "Yes! Yes, we...
The mannequin looked so real, but was not. Apparently. At least that's what Mr Saunders always said, and he had to be right. He was a teacher, wasn't he? He was my teacher and, at nine years old, I believed every word he said.
And yet, every morning as I passed it on my walk to school, the mannequin - whom I had named Joyce - in the window of J. T. Kingsley's department store seemed to watch me as I went. Seemed to call to me, to invite me in. That was, after all, her job. But she did...
Perched upon a thin branch flailing in the wind, the owl cried out into the night, "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you?" Only the still, dead night and the rustling of branches and drying leaves responded.
I tampered with my oil lamp and let the flame grow tall, casting shadows that played hide and seek on trees. Shadows bounced off of trunks, flickered to the branches, and waned off on the broad, saw toothed leaves.
The owl's cry grew into the night, screeching to the stars, to the trees, to anyone that was willing to listen. "Who cooks...
Public Service Announcement (this has no relation to the prompt): When Hemingway (I think, but it doesn't really matter) said, "Write what you know," it was a critique of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who had said, "Write what you don't know." In other words, it would be like me saying, "You are therefore you think." It may or may not be true, but it was a critique of an idea that had been set in stone and codified. Codifying that idea, in turn, defeats the purpose.
To be more succinct, When I hear, "Write what you know," I reach for my...
She'd have preferred the electric chair as a pendant to the cross which she now wore around her neck. Who was it who said if Jesus was killed nowadays little Catholic girls would all be wearing electric chairs instead of crosses? But she had to wear it; Grandma was coming to Sunday dinner and the family was big on making a half-assed show of religious values. Not like anyone even went to church anymore unless Grandma was around. Nellie flipped her hair in the mirror and made a face, then went downstairs to where the rest of the family was...
Sweet agony awaits me everytime I wake. Now don't get me wrong, I'm in no way a life hating specimen, you can call me an over analyzer.While the rich eat caviar and the poor beg for money, I try to see the use of my math homework. Trying to understand the use of knowing how to use algebra, speak French, or know how a global economy is set up. Somewhere deep inside I know that this school system is for my own good, and mother always used to tell me that to be someone I'd have to have a diploma....
What would happen if I just left in the middle of the night?
He wouldn't remember you when he got older.
A price would need to be paid, but I don't know about him completely forgetting.
Personally, I think you should go.
He loped into the night, thinking and rubbing his too soft hands face, never quite sure if he had been slapped in the face.
when you click here the prompt will appear and the timer will start
Harry had taught her well. Any failings during the performance would be entirely her fault, but she wasn't worried.
Harry had taught her well.
She felt her hair drift about her head like a mermaids veil, her garments float on the current like a breeze, and the gaze of her lover as she fished for the key.
Harry had taught her well.
She'd concealed the key just as she'd concealed her knowledge of his affair. Not to be outdone, the student became the master of deception in...
I shall wait.
I shall wait for the timer to go through it's course.
Wait for the little seconds to pass me by.
Produce nothing of content.
Produce nothing of consequence.
Just words strung together in a jumbled sort of way.
Words become random assortments of letters.
Meaning is lost in the rush to get them out.
It's killing me.
Realizing that six minutes is such a vast distance of time.
And yet my brain cannot seem to function adequately.
I like to sip my stories like brandy.
I like to savor my poems, swish their contents around my mouth...