she kept bird feathers in an old mason jar beside her bed. every night she would pick one, and blow sweet, freshly toothpasted air through the meat of it. sometimes dust would fly away with the wind, other times a few clingy strands of the feather would lazily float through the air. every morning, she would pick one, and slowly stroke her face with it, making soft rotations until she felt alive again. she says it stopped the dreams from coming real. one day, i worked up the nerve to ask her, "how do you pick the feathers you do?"...
Leaving was the easiest decision to make, and the hardest action to take. Which was strangely ironic, because he was notoriously indecisive about everything. But this time, it was a clear case that he needed to get out, run away, and with haste.
However, haste was yet another thing he did relatively badly, too.
But maybe it was because it had become too entertaining to leave. Yes, he was in constant peril, but verily, the actions of the mortals around him were entertaining to the last. Nowhere else could he find people willing to do such stupid inane activities like...
"Wait, so he hit you?" "Yep." "Right in the nuts?" "Right in the nuts." "But, why?" "Well, you see...
When I entered that store, I had only one thing in mind: beer. I went straight to the aisle, grabbed a six pack of the usual, took off to the counter, handed it over to the nice cashier, and payed. But before I got to the door, the cashier called me back. She said, that that old man behind me in line told her, that I stole that six pack from him. I went over to talk to him, but before...
He had hoped it wouldn't come to this. Making a strategic withdrawal into a tunnel, luring in the rest of the elite squadron that pursued him to pick them off two or three at a time now that they were forced into tighter quarters. He had not heard the sound of the train from far off, and figured he had the time to keep running, slash a few soldiers, put some distance between them, and repeat.
The tunnel was deceptively longer than he presumed.
He ducked beneath the spray of incoming bullets before making a horizontal slash, Rihatsu cleaving through...
Spinning. Spinning. Spinning. That is all she knows now.
"You'll become dizzy soon," he whispers in her ear. She smiles deliriously as he turns her around, spins her again. His hands, big and strong, fit around her waist perfectly.
"Spin," she tells him. "Spin." Again he twirls her. She is tiny in front of him. She smiles again.
The world has become a colorful blur around her. In this spinning she can forget everything. Maybe her past blurs behind her now, and all the lies blur into something deeper, into truth. Maybe this way everything can blur and blur till...
Wide eyes, open and deep
Divine perfection in bodily form
An angel drawn from sleep
She draws me to the sweetest storm
Flan in the face, flan in the face, flan in the face.
A wild grin stretched across his face, an expression of pure exuberance, of joy and abandon, just before the pie tin splattered the gelatinous goo all over his tweed coat.
The students were gathered outside the lecture hall, sprawling in the hundreds in the oppressive heat. Here and there, groups had clustered beneath the maple branches, trying desperately to stave off exhaustion. They had been at it for two days already: the most notorious sit-in in America's higher educational history.
As if to further puzzle the wayward boomers...
They did not know where they arrived, the landscape was strange and different. The last days was mixed up as the food on the lifeboat had been gone for quite a good while when they finally reached this shore.
Maybe they where in the afterlife, he had no idea and neither had Marc that was with him in the lifeboat. Marc was one of the sailors on the ship that he was traveling with, hunting for inspiration to write new rhymes about ancient mariners.
Now in this shipwrecked state he somehow had saved pen and paper. So important for him,...
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.
Inner core
Outer core
Mantle
Upper mantle
Crust
Susan.
Flora between her fingers,
Seeds between her toes.
Like Cinderella, I thought,
recalling an old "Wizard of Id" panel.
I stroll above the layers of the earth,
sing-songing under the tarp of heaven,
bulging with the weight of infinity.
Susan springs to her feet.
"Jesus Christ, a spider! Kill it!"
tangling her hair with
typewriter fingers.
I catch it on a leaf and
move it across the field.
I guess that makes me Mantle.