Circus time and the big top was humming with activity. Punters were arriving and children were shrieking for ice cream. The trapeze artists were warming up and I was standing holding one of the rope ladders steady as the Frazelli Family (Fantastical Flyers) were assuming their positions on the high wire.
Suddenly, there was a shriek from Bobobono, one of our clowns (not a very funny one if you ask me, but then I have never liked clowns).
"A child has fallen in the river."
At the bottom of the muddy field where we were camped, there ran a river....
There was a little girl who loved a boy. It was her first time with a crush on a boy. It was her first time with love. This little girl was my sister, so I tried to explain to her that she was too young to love. She wouldn't listen. She loved her "boyfriend" too much.
One day, I took her to preschool. She ran over to a boy tried to give him a hug and a kiss. He pushed her to the ground. "Don't talk to me, you Wussy Wimp!" he shouted.
I ran over to her to help...
Walking slowly through the bush, the elephant dragged its feet. Today he felt no joy.
The village lay behind him. Here were fields he could trample in revenge. Here were corn cobs he could eat, juicy and succulent. Here were the years growth of food supplies, enough to feed a family for a year. And he could destroy it all. If he chose to.
Today, he chooses not to.
Yesterday was different. Yesterday, he was fierce and proud. Head of the herd, head of the bush, head of the tribe; ah yes, he was the head of it all.
Then...
He grimaced as the flash went off, realizing too late that the final extant image of himself would so clearly portray the unease he was feeling at that moment. All well, he thought -- better that way.
On the one-off cedar deck table he had placed his remaining possessions. The cool glass beneath had the strange optical effect of making them seem blurred, though he knew his exhaustion was catching up with him.
"Ok, what do we do now?" he said to himself. Another sign, he chuckled, that things were going terribly.
He grabbed his smart phone first, and, unsurprised...
The conversation lasted two words. I survived.
That's what I usually told my girlfriends when they decided to end it with me after trying to deal with my post traumatic stress disorder. Those that began in 'rescuer mode' soon realised I was too much for them. The others that either were in lust with me or maybe after my money decided they would put up with anything if it was worth their while. But they all gave up in the end.
The recurring nightmare felt so real. Long empty corridor, bare walls and concrete floor. I saw him approach, tall,...
They called it co-dependent. They labelled it, the need to go from one relationship to another, to never be alone - they labelled it like it was bad. Like it wasn't what everyone did.
Alright, maybe - just maybe - she took it too far, maybe she was a little too reliant on whoever's hand was (by rights) hers at that moment. Maybe it wasn't what they had decided was healthy, but their healthy? They could keep their healthy.
Their healthy was not her healthy, and it wasn't what she wanted. They decided all of these things, using test after...
Once upon a time there was little man whom no-one believed. His name was Henry, and he loved to go to parties. But when he said he would go, no-one thought he would turn up. And sometimes he didn't believe himself that he would go to the party. One day there was a fancy-dress party at the house of his cousin, the Lady Esmerelda Wallop-Smythe. "I'll be there!" Henry said. "Yeah, in a cocked hat!" said the Lady Esmerelda. So when he arrived in his best britches and dress uniform, he found that he was the only one who had...
Down six steps and under the fire escape.
Don't knock on the door, follow the hall to the end.
Go through the curtain and around the corner.
Follow the music.
Yes, just there, through that door.
Don't speak. Find a seat, even if it's on the floor.
Yes her voice is real, though you expect wings to sprout from her back at any time.
Put down your phone. This isn't for the masses. Did they make the pilgrimage? Did they risk the dank, dangerous streets?
They don't deserve to hear it. The phone won't capture it anyways.
Just sit. Listen....
"Good night," the bar manager said, as he tapped a stack of bills on their side to even them out. The waitress dumped another pile of crumpled bills, coins and receipts on his desk.
"Good as any other," she said. The manager paused in his count and looked up from beneath a heavy forehead.
"Something wrong sweetie," he asked.
"No," she said and left the office, heading back to the front. The manager watched her walk away, thinking about what her ass looked like twenty years ago, and smiling to himself. He finished counting the money she'd dumped and dropped...
Never before had he entered this room. The dream of the golden sea was clearer in his mind than ever before. There was nothing in here beside a small woorden bench under the high window. When a girl suddenly spoke behind him, Entas froze to the spot. She said his name. Then she started to sing. And he knew: this is her. It must be her. She knew the lines and the melody nobody else in the world could possibly know.
Entas, she said, I'm here.
He turned around.
The light behind her was so bright that he only saw...