The Potentate surveyed his creamsicle tower coolly.
Lord Howard stood behind him, rigid, hands neatly behind his back, and cleared his throat. Loudly.
The monarch continued to regard the sweet monstrosity before him.
Finally, Lord Howard stepped forward and addressed his sovereign ruler. "Sire," he said, polite and yet as frigid as the ice-cream on the table. "The people in your kingdom have barely enough to eat, let alone food to play with." His eyes darted to the large dairy-based castle slowly melting onto the linen tablecloth. "If you aren't going to eat your dessert, you shouldn't have taken it."...
"No. He didn't." I hid the bruise on my face with veiled hair. I didn't want to admit the truth. It was harsh.
"Then what happened?" The sternness of his voice almost made me flinch.
"No one hit me, Joe. It was my own stupidity."
"Stupidity smacked you in the face?"
My laugh was curt. "Yeah, I wish. That would've helped."
"Lena..." With disapproval heavy in his tone, Joe stepped forward. His hands were warm on my arms. "Tell me."
"An accident. I fell."
"You're lying."
He was right. I was. He always knew when I lied. I almost hated...
Heather didn't like being out in the rain. She was going to get even with that bastard Gene - how dare he dump her in such a manner, in the middle of nowhere. She eased the strap of her high heel shoe where it was rubbing, and turned to look back up the street. The road glistened black in the wet night, and the streetlights merged into the puddles. She began to walk, planning what she would do. For a start, she had his key, she realised suddenly with a gleeful grin. He wouldn't be able to get into his...
She adjusted her collar, the mic hidden surreptitiously behind the pearly buttons. Her career was waning to the point were SNL parodies portrayed her as a confused old hag and the use of her name was synonymous with the people she had worked hard to objectify. She had once sparred with Palin, but was now firmly under the Madame President's heel.
"I can take you away from here," the apparition wavered into view. The faint scent of lavender and soft scratch of lace on silk pervaded the air. "Ma chèrie, souvenez vous la contracte?"
The gate closed behind them. Ahead of them stood the fearsome Morley house, said to be haunted with the ghosts of the former occupants, who had been killed years ago.
Jana, the youngest of the four, turned pale. "Are you sure it's safe to be here?"
The second-oldest, Robert, scoffed, "There's no such thing as ghosts."
"I'm more worried about Dad finding out we're not in bed," Jason, the second-youngest, said.
"You guys are such wusses. C'mon!" Angela, the oldest, ran up the hill to the house, opening the door. As soon as she stepped in, though, she ran out...
He watched from a distance, hidden behind a bush. The two tigers snarled at each other, circling around, judging each other's strengths, weaknesses. His camera was held up to his eye, and the only part of his body were his fingers: depressing the shutter, muffling the click, repeat. They were magnificent creatures and couldn't have been more than three years old. Most likely this was their first time encountering another, hostile male. This would be the fight where they proved their worth. Maybe they were fighting over a girl, the age-old battle. But msot likely it was territory: this is...
We take the ability to breathe for granted. It's the basic function that keeps us alive, you would have thought that we would keep a closer eye on it, that we would pay attention to how many lungfuls of air we consume every day. But we don't. We don't think about that mundane process because that is not the element of breathing that adds a spark to life; it is the thieves that trade in such banal fare that creates the interest.
For a breath once stolen is never forgotten. Whether it be by the view from a hill over...
"This is the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in", Bradley thought. No wife, no kids pecking away at 6am, no job to drudge off to. "I can get up whenever I want."
Living off the street was a lot easier for Bradley than he'd expected it to be. You can make $20/hour simply begging on the subway. When everyone gets out of work it's prime time, everyone's happy to be done with the day so they'll toss you their spare change they made from the day. He remembered how uncomfortable loose change can be in the pocket of a...
Sarah draped a second blanket over her shoulders and cupped her hands over her mouth. She huffed on her fingers in an attempt to warm some feeling back into her frozen digits. It had only been three days since the power had been cut off, but already her apartment felt as if it had never been heated. When she had woken that morning, she had felt as if she were lying on a block of ice instead of a bed, and upon finally slipping from beneath her inadequate duvet, she had been shocked to see that frost had formed on...
Sometimes I still feel like a kid - excited about silly things like jumping into puddles, watching how the water splashes out in every direction. It's nice to be the centre of something like that, something movable and real.
Especially now.
I'm so caught up in my own head. I'm worried about disappointing my parents, my professors, myself... it's hard to just live. It's hard to just follow my heart when I'm so concerned with what everyone else wants. The thing is, I don't even think anyone has such crazy expectations for me. My parents just want me to be...