Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. It was not that she was frightened - no, fear was something she found rather useless - but because she knew with an unshakeable certainty that if she wandered onto the street, she would be eaten by a vampire.
The house beyond the doorway was no better, on account of there being a ghost lurking inside, the type that would drip ectoplasm on her most horribly before devouring her soul.
This girl, then, was at an impasse. She could neither proceed nor retreat. Go out, the...
Until now, she'd never thought of herself as pretty.
Sure, there were lots of positive adjectives she would have included in a description of herself. Clever, athletic, determined, sensitive, ambitious, caring, discerning, admirable.
Ok, maybe "admirable" was stretching things a bit.
But pretty? That was a word for the popular girl in high school, with the childish voice and the two-expression face: desirous and desirable; I want THAT and you want ME!
Pretty was the compliment of an unimaginative father, the manipulative tool of a mother living vicariously.
It wasn't something she had ever felt the need to apply to...
Twist. Twist your t-shirt to ring out the blood and water. Shake. Shake your head again and again. It's over. It's gone now.
Your palm feels cold against your forehead, but the blood is hot. Hot and wet and it feels funny because there's no pain, only heat. And you can see but its not the same somehow, like when you look away from staring at the lightbulb and shapes dance around you.
I hear pounding. Like drums. Hammering a distant rhythm but wait... no. It's in my head. It really is. Blood. Pounding, marching through each stressed canal like...
The chocolate scoop was all she wanted. However, the lanky boy behind the counter of Baskin Robbin's wanted to give his number away as well. In any other sinaro Jenny would have jumped at this opportunity, but the boy with the greasy hair, fuzzy eyebrows and a horrible wink did not please her. The boy still stood with her cone in his hand. Now he was getting irratating.
"Hum, thank you," Jenny tried reaching for the cone as a huge hint. He didn't take it.
"Do you have any plans for Friday night?" Oh boy. He was so clumsy with...
Jail. Only saw my dad once a month, too far to travel. He used to tell me funny stories, keep his mind off the grim reality of life inside. Never gave me a chance, either, to relate how the family were doing, what they felt about losing him.
My mind travelled, not really listening to him. Noticing the regulars at other tables. The fat woman with red hair, always in blue sweats with white stripes down the sides, green laced trainers. Talking non stop to the thin man with the hollowed pale cheeks and ginger hair combed over his balding...
She was looking ahead, eyes parallel with the ground.
She was looking ahead, eyes perpendicular with the ground.
Parallel. Perpendicular. Parallel. Perpen... parallel.
The car came to rest. Her weight pressed her into the seatbelt. Gravity pressed her really, but she thought of her weight first. Gene had made her borderline bulimic. Speaking of: she wretched onto the ceiling of the car.
Gene's eyes, perpendicular, winced. "Lovely," he said.
Her eyes closed. "Just one last puke, to cap off a year of puke together."
"A year of memorable voms. Remember the first one?"
She nodded.
I thought, looking at that bloodshot sky, wow i thought, this is a sky to die under. Look at the sun. I bet it's not looking back. I also remembered that scene with Leo DiCaprio on a beach, when he is dragging himself and he has that look on his face as if he is dying. He must be really dying I thought. What is it like to die? I couln't answert that, so I took another look at this sunset with the clouds darkly in front of it. Then I imagined what a world it would be if you...
In the scheme of things, it wasn't a permanent state I was after. Just long enough to get on stage, dance for two minutes and fifteen seconds, and get off.
Five pounds, what did that even look like. I dragged the scale into the kitchen and got out a can of beans. 1.3 lbs. A gallon of milk. 8.33lbs. Two boxes of fish sticks didn't even move the needle. A giant bag of shrimp. I mean, GIANT. Boom. Five pounds.
I needed to shed a GIANT bag of shrimp in a matter of days. I eyed the shrimp, their gray...
The moon would never be the same again.
I could tell as I looked out my window tonight that now that he's so far it just, would never.
They all say "Looking up you are staring at the same stars so he can't be far away", yet still in my deepest fears I've realized tonight happens to be a blue moon and the stars have already begun to change without him by my side.
How could this be happening when we said we'd be strong?
I love him.
But i supposed In essence I killed him.
I encouraged him to...
The elephant dragged its feet, following behind the child experiencing the wet sand of a beach for the first time. Its right leg was longer than its left, the result of being constantly tugged along with the 3-year-old wherever he went. The elephant was much loved around its trunk and ears, its belly crisscrossed with patches from old flannel shirts, worn jeans, tattered baby blankets. If not for its owner, the elephant thinks it wouldn’t even be an elephant anymore.
"Come along, Dylan," the man said as he scooped his son up into his arms. They were halfway back on...