It was a surpise to discover that grandad's home disappeared down the sink hole. The ground literally swallowed him up, not a trace for over ten years.
Now I was grown up, I was allowed to stand around with the paramedics and police and watch the removal of the body. I didn't avert my eyes like Mrs Wozniak standing next to me, one moment excited and chattering, eating ham and mustard sandwiches, spitting crumbs, next moment for once in her life she was quiet. The reality of life versus CSI on tv. Soon after turning her thick neck away she...
She could feel the terror drenching and cloaking itself around her. Don't be afraid, it whispered. You've known for years, it whispered. But still she did not know what do to.
Her name was Emma Fairfax, and she was dying.
It approached, back bent and hooded cloak hiding its face. It was terrifying and calming all at once, a simple presence in a simple place.
She was afraid.
A single bony finger reached out from under the sleeve and cricked forward, beckoning her towards the form. "Come to me," it whispered.
And she did.
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...
Knives.
Knives.
What was she going to use them on next?
The silver blades shimmered in the sunlight streaming through the kitchen window, capturing her image on the blades before she turned away to grab another freshly scrubbed potato from the colander in the gleaming, porcelain sink. Chop chop chop, went the blade, smooth up-and-down motions repeated again and again, reducing the vegetable before her into ever smaller and smaller bits.
She loved these new knives, worth every penny. It made her want to chop other things, to test their abilities, to watch the thin blades slice through produce, flesh,...
Have I ever told you the story of how I got expelled from high school? It all started with this asshole kid, Greg Helsprat. He wasn't called "Greg Helsprat" back then. Instead, we called him "Fistbump". He hated it, but it fitted. He used his fists a lot, but most of all he kind of looked like a fist. Anyway, Fistbump seemed to enjoy treating other kids like crap, but he always had something special planned for me. Maybe he hated funny people, maybe he had a crush on me, maybe because I coined "Fistbump". I never found out why....
"Why the rush?"
A hand grazes the back of my neck, pulling my hair away. Warm breath sticks to the back of my ear and the skin of my neck. I stiffen. That voice is so familiar. I hear a shift to my right and then feel a hand wrap around mine. I jerk it to my side.
"What's the matter?"
I barely hear the words when my body shudders it's disgust. My eyes squeeze shut and I take a step forward. Then two steps. Then three. I don't stop at the door or at the road or anything. I...
I sat on the bench in the park. Breathed in the air. Smelled the ash and dust.
It was quiet here, beneath the shade of the building, and it wasn't something so surprising. The city was empty. I was alone.
They say that death sends you somewhere either utterly amazing or utterly horrible. I can say that death brings you to neither. I died a while ago, though time seems to freeze here. I wondered where I was, for a while, and where everyone else was. But this place, this quiet, lonely place, is now my home.
I lean back...
You can count me out. My arms are too sore to continue. It's almost dawn and how I long to lie with my love. This meager pittance of a nights work might afford a cup of coffee and bus fare. Hopefully the driver will allow me on tonight with the tools of my trade.
Such is life for a man of little talent. I read once that in order to be truly happy your name must match your occupation. Sort of like, George would be a Geologist. Or a Dennis is destined to become a Dentist. So what was Mom...
"Listen," I whisper. "Hear the waves crash."
She listens, head cocked to one side. Her beautiful golden hair cascades down her face, a blonde waterfall.
"They're telling you stories," I tell her. "And you can hear them, if you listen."
You can almost hear her, the force it takes for her air-filled brain to concentrate, and listen. Now, she is perfectly poised, on the edge of the cliff. The waves break below her, screaming in her ear. It only takes a slight shove, and she topples off the edge. Even in death she is picture-perfect. For a few moments she...