She kept her eyes down, on her shoes. People brushed past her, maybe impatiently. She didn't move, she didn't walk.
She waited for someone to take her hand, to try to talk to her, to lead her away. It didn't happen. No one looked at her. Nothing happened, and she heard nothing. Better that way, because how could she explain anything?
Making the decision, she walked over to the bench, sat down at the very edge, across from a display of vacuum cleaners. Still, she stared at her feet.
Without warning, he was standing in front of her, cheeks still...
The power of flight could be transferred.
When Marisa first discovered this, she was thrilled. As far as she knew, other 'birds' could only fly themselves, the envy of other humans. Being part of the elite wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Envy was a problem. Bitterness led to hate led to violence.
Her mother had told her to hide her abilities, that others would fear and resent her. But this new ability changed everything; didn't it? Instead of hating her, she could grant that power to others. What wouldn't those stranded on the land give to be...
Majestic words like maelstrom, preponderance, warbling swirl through my creative whirlpool, pulling in pieces of conversation, tail-ends of admonitions, the lilt of swearing. I live by the calendar, fitting my days into the squares, x'ing the boxes at midnight.
Friday is the wave that crashed but hasn't withdrawn to the sea. I'll compose this in the spiked surf.
Waves. The sound was the first thing she noticed. She had to be somewhere near the ocean. She took a moment to register her immediate situation. Her right hand grasped a jutting piece of rock, and her left held tight to a thick branch that had somehow taken root in the cliff face. Her feet rested on a narrow ledge of rock that was no more than a few inches. She was thankful for her small feet, which her mother used to say were her best attribute.
She had to be at least 20 feet up. The ocean was too...
Loved him for an evening.
Sienna had a way of loving them that way. In one evening her compassion for the man at her side transcended adoration.
The men usually left quickly, a blur of parties, cigarettes and alcohol. She was happy enough that way, and of course so were they.
The man in the red hoodie was a bit different. About ten years younger than her if she cared to admit it. As slim as her, with large, dark, cow eyes. Sweet as pudding and she let him linger a week.
Apparently had found religion recently, tried bringing her...
Swing. That was what we did every time we danced. We'd grab hands and swing each other around with all our might, laughing all the while. Everyone made sure to stay clear when we hit the floor. Once, he dropped me. It was unexpected, a fluke. We were swinging, like always, when, suddenly, he let go. All i felt beneath me was the cold hard floor. After that incident, we stopped swinging for a while. We'd get onto the dance floor, and everyone would run clear, but all we'd do was kinda sway and maybe do a little hip-hop. After...
The anti-grav boots were worth every penny.
Shelly had saved for weeks, mowing lawns, delivering papers, collecting coins from every cushion in the house, to earn enough hard cash to buy them. Her mother had told her not to waste her money, that they were probably just galoshes with springs on the bottom, but the girl refused to be deterred. The magazine ad had proclaimed them anti-grav, and there was a Truth in Advertising law on the books, so they must be the real deal.
And she was right.
But not in the way she thought she would be.
Instead...
Well, it's not everyday that you actually get woken up by a ghost that you didn't believe in, but there it was (he?) - a fuzzy apparition perhaps imagined more than actually manifesting before your shimmering eyes in the night (shimmering to eyes as tinnitus is to ears) - and the thud of the door as it fell from it's hinges to the floor. It (he) was assumed to be the grumpy man who lived 89 years alone in the old house, leaving crates and crates of dusty homemade wine in the basement, bottled in old milk bottles stopped with...
Martin put the off-white china mug to his thin lips and took a long drink of his rapidly cooling coffee. His eyes scanned over the classified ads for the hundredth time but, once again, there was nothing. Nothing in his field, nothing in his area, nothing, nothing, nothing. The pen poised in his right hand tapped against the page angerly and he took another mouthful, swishing the lukewarm liquid between his cheeks.
"Good morning, pumpkin." Candice's bare feet padded along the bare hardwood behind him, and Martin soon found his girlfriend's arms wrapped tightly around his chest, her face buried...
He couldn't see through the rain. The rain covered everything in sight, like a thick veil of mosquito netting had been thrown over the city.
It was a dilemma. The once wished-for, prayed-for, blessed rains that the Americans had provided for the desert nation had turned into a curse. They washed away everything, buildings crumbling on what had been sturdy foundations in the desert. While the crops suddenly flourished, the cities were dying. The culture was dying. The people were dying.
Now the americans were threatening to take the rains away.