Maggie knew it was only a matter of time before she was caught. It was inevitable, as certain as the rising of the sun each morning over India's beautiful river.
She wasn't cut out for this sort of thing. She KNEW that. But when she saw it there, dark and rich and beautiful she knew she just had to have it, come what may. So now she sat in her seat, shivering, sweat beading on her forehead as the plane taxied for a landing. The bag shifted inside her blouse, it's contents conforming to the shape of her body as...
Gene loved the smell of leather. He loved the smell of Heather wearing leather. He loved Heather in leather and the smell and the idea of the smell and the smell of the smell always left him crazed and wanting. He couldn't help himself. He didn't know how.
Heather hated Gene. She hated the idea of Gene and the smell of Gene and the smell of the smell of the leather Gene always wore. She had hated him forever. She always would. She could never forgive him for that one thing, years ago. She couldn't even remember anymore. She knew...
Fancy dress at Tom's party was optional, but all the children wore something wacky. First prize was for the circus ringmaster with a home made whip, big black curly moustache, top hat and black suit. Fortunately, the whip was made from wool, as Sam kept lashing out at the girls in their sequinned lace dresses and black slashed leggings. For some reason, urban fairies were popular this year.
My son Jake was very angry when he got home. His outfit, the blue bull, was not chosen for any prizes.
I was trying to prepare for the next day, we were...
Modelling had never been her idea. The vacuous stares, the hours in front of the mirror. Was it her fault her proportions were perfect for summer dresses? It was a life she escaped the moment she fled her mother's house.
She didn't pick the color of her hair. It didn't come on a shelf, stinking up the bathroom with it's noxious fumes, attracting evil eyes from other women who thought they knew what she was like simply from the glow of her yellow hair and the swing of her hips?
The pitch of her voice wasn't her fault. How did...
The winter of 1970 in the Bay Area was not something I ever expected to experience- especially since I was born in 1990. My folks scolded me every night for sneaking into the backyard whenever there was a full moon. It wasn't my fault: grandpa planted the story about the time-well in my head and it sprouted into a maddening obsession.
My hair was now curly instead of wavy and my hands reverted into the pudgy state of toddlerhood. Who was I, in this time, and why was I only a spectator? My new parents talked about the lunar landing...
The fiction being poured through letters that collied into words, which sit next to other words, that extend to as far as the punctuation that keeps a careful watch to make sure no one is getting too crazy, breaking the law.
And somehow, none of that becomes trivial when we start to see punctuation being used to keep the pace of my pronunciation so my eyes can scan the code and I can zone out into that little story I'm reading in my head.
So much becomes poetic if I just start to look at it a little differently. Cubes...
Sal knew his time was running out, a runaway train heading straight for him but he had nowhere else to go.
"So... will you?" he pleaded, kneeling before the woman of his dreams, heart- quite literally- in his hands. Ever since they had met at the runaway shelter, they had spent every waking moment together.
Lucy gazed, not at the engagement ring with the heart-shaped diamond, but rather at the train hurtling toward them both, it's lights illuminating her would-be fiancé like a spotlight.
"What, are you crazy?" she hissed, pulling at her boyfriend's arms, leaning back with all her...
I...
I...I'm not sure what to say.
Lola.
God. Just the name. Just reading the name - a word, really and I'm gone. Just gone.
Do I actually remember her anymore? Sometimes, I wonder about that. Sometimes I think that what takes me away, what takes all ability to think or feel anything beyond the word, the name - LOLA...isn't really her at all.
There's this insidious thought that it's not her at all, but just what I always wanted her to be. And wouldn't that be the final victory? That I'm tormented by what I tried to make her...
"You had me at 'ox bow lake'." The girl laughed, twirling a strand of silky blonde hair around her finger and leaning towards David, giving him a tantalising glimpse of her cleavage. He swallowed hard, trying to stay calm. This girl...Megan? Mary? Melissa! Anyway, she was a student, one of his students, and he knew her game. There was at least one every year, the girl who attempted to coast through university on looks alone. Invariably she would behave just like this, taking front row seats in every lecture she attended but spending more time trying to make eye contact...
"Skipper! Where are you, dammit?"
Op.8. Op.8.
"Wretched dog! You've only got so much time!"
Locate Rory. Locate. Locating. Locating.
"Where are you?" Another voice chimes in. "I want my paper. It's early in the morning. They told us you were an obedient creature."
Rory found, chasing butterflies on the south lawn. Come closer. Closer.
The little girl shouts, "Skipp-er! Skipp-er!"
Skipper barks, and Rory calls back. Safety is across the bridge, across the broken-windowed fairy house and shattered pond, but the voices are coming and Skipper has no idea how to stop them.
"I want my newspaper! Come over...