We'd been here once before. Staring through tiny holes on a weird-shaped box staring down at the bustling city below us. This time is different. This time he tells me he's ending it. No, not with me, with his fiance of merely two months who he works with at a dive bar down South. Naturally, I thought his engagement the week of my wedding was ludicrous to begin with. A Sapphire instead of a diamond on the hand of a girl with striped purple hair. She wasn't his type.
I gave my condolences, I guess that's the right word, I...
The constant clicking of the camera's shutter was the only sound in the studio for a full fifteen seconds until the photographer sighed in frustration and lowered the Nikon. "Honey, you're not making this easy on me. I need more steam, more heat, more 'you know you want what I'm selling' attitude."
Tugging at the unbuttoned plaid shirt that had been rolled up and tied just below her breasts, the woman in front of the camera tipped back the cowboy hat she was wearing and blew at an errant strand of hair that had fallen across her brow. "What exactly...
She cradled the faun's head and he went to sleep.
I had read the final line of the bedtime story about a thousand times, well that is what it felt like and each time Suzie reacted as though it was the first. It made me wonder about the magic words from the authors of these kinds of stories. Did they have any idea just how powerful they were? To instill such feelings in the children listening they could hear the same story over and over yet always hear something else?
Often when my eyes were too tired to read, I...
As a child my Mother has always told me to make something of myself. She'd push me into doing things I really did not want to do.
"Learn the piano!"
"Take up dance!"
"You will act!"
Order after order. I wasn't any good at any of it really. So I just gave up quietly in my mind and pretended to care.
For Mother there wasn't any point in just being alive.
"You must be living!" she'd shout whilst doing something boring and mundane like peeling an onion.
I didn't get why she was so determined that I do something. I...
"I'm dead, really dead. Not the dead in all those stupid books people read- the kind of dead that means you'll be done in all of five minutes.
I was still waiting for him to return from the store, but I knew he wouldn't.
I heard the crash from the garage, the start up of the chainsaw. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Crying. I had sent the kids to my mother's thankfully.
I heard the basement door open. I waited, alone in the kitchen. I heard the footsteps through the hall. And there he was. Not the man who left, but a...
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...
The conversation lasted two words. Alien Origin.
The scientist was shot in the head after his pronouncement. The trail brought to a halt. The military chief hearing the evidence verified, used his own pistol and was returning it to his pocket and issuing orders for the body to be removed when he received a very unexpected call.
His wife. She knew not to ever call him at work. But from the tone of her voice after she had finally been put through, something was seriously wrong at home.
Ordinarily anything to do with his work, was the priority. But not...
The woman at the window was dead. I knew because it was my sister. She appeared whenever we left the house. We no longer looked around up at the top floor to see the dark shape behind the thin lace curtain. We had seen her too many times before, her wretched, contorted face imprinted on our minds.
Martha died in a house fire seven years ago. Accident after she left a burning candle on her bedside cabinet overnight. It tipped over as her blankets were thrown back during a nightmare. Dad couldn't reach her in time as the room had...
It stayed there, staring... Just staring him down. There was no motion for what seemed like an eternity. He kept his eyes on the beast, unblinking for fear of its immense unstoppable powers.
And then the second of peace was over. He reeled back, shock rolling up his arms from the knowledge that he in fact, no longer had fingers with which to grasp the beast as arm's length. The black pit of teeth consumed the digits and sought more. Clutching the stumps to his chest, the victim scrambled for ground; an escape from the vivid Death that lapped up...
Pollution is an artist
and poison is a poet
Death is the brightest of colors
Noise is the sweetest song
Pollution won a grant
and poison won a fellowship
We're meeting for drinks downtown
to celebrate their well-deserved
recognition.