I saw a girl press her cheek into the moldy stone column. Her arms gripped the sides in a hug. Her eyes were closed and she smiled.
I wanted to take a picture of her but then her friend arrived, a girl about her age. They were both older teens. They were American, with spots on their foreheads and chins, hair streaked with pink and blue, pale skin, and wide eyes. They giggled as the first girl, a blonde in a pink jumper kept hugging the column and hamming it up for her friend who took pictures.
I remember when...
The implant's biggest drawbacks were the headaches. The gear-man had assured her that would abate in time, but meanwhile she was dying for an injection, or even a good, old-fashioned aspirin. Too bad the chemicals would interfere with the implant's bonding process.
Text passed before her eyes, the latest news, the day's top story, ads for sexual aids and fast food joints. She blinked, but the visuals refused to recede into the background of her consciousness. Could she really take another day of non-stop sensory stimulation before she could control her access?
Resigned to stay plugged in, she laid back...
The butterflies danced outside her window bidding her to come and play. Lessons, lessons, lessons, She looked again just as a fairy slipped beneath the rose petals on her windowsill. She looked closer but couldn't be sure. Was that a fairy foot or just some dust. Mum was calling from downstairs. She looked around and then opened the window just big enough to squeeze through.
On the ledge her wings unfurled and she was off. Dancing in the breeze. The hummingbirds joined her and together they flew off to the honeysuckle where there was a party for the king....
Groggy from the lack of sleep I got the previous night because of a runny nose and a running mind jumping from one work thought to the next, I walked into the office kitchen to grab some hot tea to soothe a sore throat. As I was about to pour some hot water from the water cooler, my colleague dispensed some water for herself.
"Getting some water?"
"Yeah," I said.
"I heard you were sick the other day. I hope you're feeling better," she said with sympathetic eyebrows.
"Uh, a little bit, thanks."
"I love water."
"That's good."
"I actually...
I awoke, bleary eyed to an explosion of noise outside my room. I lay there still, playing the situation through my mind, wondering what on earth could be happening. It was cold, my face especially so. Suddenly I felt a wetness there and lifted my head so that I could look down at where my head had been resting. There was blood on my pillow. The smell of it hit me with some force and I almost fainted. I touched my cheek where it had rested and felt the blood there on my face. Was it mine?
The noises outside...
"What is this?" I ask, my voice becoming more and more hysterical with every word I say.
"It's your life." Jordan says. My life? My life is printed in front of me. It's not possible! I know what my life'll be like. I like to swim, I'll be a swimmer. But this book says otherwise.
"The Dramatic and Unfortunate Life of Mary Sue Crawson." I read out loud. "My life is supposed to be perfect. This story says I'll be a representative of a rebellion. I'll lead the world to destroy the government. I'll... I'll... get shot." This can't happen!...
She didn't look at him; she looked past him, half closing her eyes as if basking in the sunlight. She was really trying to cut him from her vision altogether, the better to scry into the future he was pulling them towards. This had been his idea, his romantic idea: "Let's hire one of those rowing boats and take it down the river."
The top of his head dipped in and out of her frame of vision as he pulled them through the water.
"Tell me if I'm going to hit anything," he panted. "I can't see where I'm going."...
Cameras lie. Greasy gray hair shining with oil tied back with a cheap rubber band. XXL sized elastic joggers pulled over a stained white t-shirt, the underarms looking greeny yellow. Round face, tiny eyes. Arms folded trying to hide the belly.
Security rushing onto the stage, standing between Sonia and her tormentors, skinny family members disgusted with her appearance and laziness.
Sonia reliving her bravery, assertiveness finally expressing deep held thoughts and emotions. Given the space and security to speak.
Now watching the tape she could not recognise the overweight woman. She was thin wasn't she? She did not even...
The summer was new, the grass was having that wet green quality when it is the first time in a long while the sun have reached it. It is happiness distilled.
They where moving in together, this was the first spring of the rest of their life. It was their love that made them set the mirror down on the grass and frolic in the spring.
Lifes sadness had not yet reached them, they did not know that this spring of love would turn into a winter of despair as they would argue the content of their lifes but somehow...
The best oak hand sawn carved by a master carpenter. Plush deep red velvet that is soft to the touch yet heavy, and sumptious, the heaviest brass polished to a mirror finish. Everything I bought was the best money could buy, my house photographed and featured in all the glossy magazines.
Rachmaninoff and Bach were always my favourite composers so it was fitting they were chosen, expert pianists played to give me the best send off. As I lay in my coffin in a gown made in Paris, my relatives knew I would be happy.