A Sad State of Affairs
It is three o’clock in the afternoon and she has kept the same position since breakfast, writing in her journal, nursing each fresh drink, drawing it out so that her budget (small) will see her through until she is forced to give up her seat. She is in no hurry to leave, having nowhere else to go, no pressing appointment – except with home, and the house is depressingly quiet and yet still too full, inhabited by a long line of hours waiting impatiently to be filled, the space between now and then too vast...
Thoura just wanted to enjoy herself, that's all. Was that too much to ask, summer here and all. The green already starting to burn out of the grass and the leaves. Everything getting that white-out feel when the sun gets too bright.
And that's when they come. Tramping and shouting, splashing in the pond out back. Her pond. Her fish. She and the other little ones had to eat and the tourists scaring dinner away. Made it hard to find stuff to eat. Made the days arduous. That's what mom would have said. But Mom was gone. Long gone. Just...
1943. The year of my birth. To a very young mother. Raped by a stranger. I spent forty years believing that Tom Morran was my real father. When I found out the truth (by accident) I had a breakdown which took me by total surprise as I had always been an unemotional, logical man. Cold, is what my wife called me. A cold fish. No empathy, no sentiment or sympathy. Even when our youngest was miscarried after a car accident I didn't shed a tear.
Divorce was not something my wife contemplated after her short stay in hospital but I...
The first day of school and he was already in a fight. Mark sighed as the three seventh graders approached him from three different directions. His electric blue eyes took in the boy in front of him, a lanky kid with a bulbous nose and mean eyes. Beside him, another boy stood with his arms crossed over his broad chest, a sneer on his face. And behind him, Mark knew, was the last boy, a slack-lipped teenager with dull, incurious eyes.
“Lunch money,” Skinny said, holding out his hand.
“No,” Mark replied coolly as he sat back in his black...
He was obviously part of the mob.
If you didn't know the mob like Claudia did, you would have said that was a foolish statement. You would have looked down and not seen a mid-level member of the criminal organisation that secretly ran more than four-fifths of the city.
You would have seen a dog.
But Claudia had been a beat cop for more than a century now, and if you survive that long, it's because you know things. You know how to look past class, how to look past species.
You saw the stance, the attitude, the carefully positioned...
I am in Palm Springs the sun the haze the people I am in focus everything behind me is a blur an attractive sexy blur. I am in focus, focus with a lower case f. I want to tell you something I want to tell you what it feels like all hot and steamy the way chilled alcohol burns and tingles demands more my throat loose my toes free the smell of grass the smell of pools. I want to tell you something something about time about memory about thinking that things would never end never get bad I want...
I stood on the old wooden bed I always slept in. There was always a window up high and I would always look up to it at noon and see the clock chime. There were so much out there waiting for me to learn. I wanted to go out there, explore the world, make real friends. But I couldn't. My name is Ginnadi Mistaikov. My anonymous parents dropped me to an orphanage when I was very young because they thought I would make a fool of them because of my skinniness and ugliness.
The matrons in the orphan always called...
Their trip to the zoo had been postponed due to the rain. She was gutted as it was something she had looked forward to since their arrival roughly five months ago. And it had promised to be such a fine day upon waking: sun without clouds; an average or around 17 degrees, exceptional for winter. Like with so much about the country (and there was rather a lot): it was one long line of broken promises. However, she had learnt early on not to give much credence to the weather forecasts and to trust her own judgement and the colour...
"Surprise!" The lights flickered on, and the balloons flew up to the ceiling. I jumped back, startled. A surprise birthday party! My grin reached both my ears.
"Oh boy! Thanks, guys!" I ran up and hugged my dad.
"That's alright, my boy. Look, there's your presents! Go open them, kid." I disengaged and rushed over to the pile of gifts. I ripped them open, tearing the wrapping paper into tiny shreds. The first one I opened was the best.
It was a dinosaur costume set of pyjamas. I immediately rushed to my bedroom and put them on, and ran back...
It starts out a little top heavy
with a first line so weighted down with its own importance
that it has to sink to the second (or even third) stanza -
the spark of an idea around which the softer lines crowd.
It usually has a trail of water drops leading up to it
because all good ideas strike in the shower
(it's always the shower)
and will be lost in the time it takes to comb or dry or dress.
It's never quite happy in its own skin
but lacks the will to be anything else
It shouts to...