She'd always come running when I called, well figuratively anyway. The experience of that rush of warmth when her headlights punched holes through those dark and cold nights. The litany of why me questions she'd serve as I kept my hands firmly pressed on the vents to chase away the chill. I'd never known anyone before or since who could shift so smooth. Especially given the roughly 75 scrunchies positioned on the gear shifter.
I would share with her the joys and triumphs of the seventeen year old psyche. Then after waiting out the enevidable diatribe on my selfishness we...
"Let's go!" She ran down the lane next to her apartment building holding a green balloon in one hand, high above her head. She grabbed my hand in her free one and dragged me after her. I ran to keep up with her and smiled. Always full of surprises.
"Where are we going?" She threw back her head and laughed. I loved that laugh; it was sunshine mixed with love and a smile. Looking over her shoulder at me, her dark hair blew around her tanned face. Her smile lit up her eyes and made her come alive. It also...
Safura was stalking her victim. Through the cobbled streets, around the market barrows, past the gates of the jail and under the washing lines strung between the slum buildings of the poor. The bones of an ox; she already had these. The teeth of a hound; yes, these too. Now all she needed was a few drops of blood taken directly from the heart of an innocent child.
The little girl stopped to buy an apple at a stall. Safura waited in the shadows behind. Jane, the stall holder, gave the child a rosy fruit and smiled at her.
"It's...
Twist. Turn. Dip. Sweep. All at once, the winds around the ship changed, shifting from a violent storm to a soft breeze. The black plumage of his Tengu Fan remained stock straight, even with the skilled hand moving it with jarring grace to manipulate the winds around them. They crew had all seen the man at work at least once before, but always it was a sight of awe. Not many on the high seas could willingly sail through a tempest and come out of it completely unscathed.
After the tribulation had passed, and the skies parted above into clear...
Balanced on the line, he told her again, "Put it down!"
"Why?" She replied.
"Just do it," he said. Both of his arms were held out, his delicate fingers rigid, there was a blue tinge descending on his normally raspberry red lips.
"Just tell me, why," she repeated. She held it gently in her hands, loose fingers, loose wrists, around waist level. She held it as if it held even less importance to her than the stock she put upon his commands.
"Why can't you just do something because I've said so?" he said, and the chill in blood became...
"Looking at things changes us so it is impossible to look at anything the same way twice," said Foley.
I did a double take and looked at him again. He had changed: something was sprouting from the top of his head and his eyelids appeared to be melting.
"Is this me or you this time?" I asked him.
He said nothing, but gestured upwards, extending a single finger to the sky above our heads. There was the moon, a milky smudge behind the racing clouds. Suddenly it came into full view and it had changed, too. The moon would never...
Rip Van Winkle was a story that I never understood. How could a man that slept for forty years in a forest, aging all the while, just waltz back into town and have such and unremarkable story? Imagine having an absolutely perfect memory of the incidents, the setting and the culture of a time before this. I've always loved history, so I guess I'm just gushing out of a personal fetish, but if I was to lock myself away for years and come out of it, I would like to think that someone would really appreciate my particular knowledge.
Walking...
The white sedan zipped down the city streets, passing cars frantically, horn honking. Inside, Mark Strickland sat behind the wheel, his knuckles white as he gripped it. "You're gonna get us killed before we ever get there," Mary, Mark's wife, said calmly as she reached out and gently held Mark's hand, making him ease up on the hand control which regulated the gas pedal on the car. Her other hand rested lightly on her protruding stomach.
"Sorry," Mark said as he slowed the vehicle down. "I'm just anxious." His eyes lit up as he saw the hospital sign and quickly...
"Should I do it?"
"What if I am found out?"
The struggle raged on in Wendy's head. It had all been too much for her. She had lost her job just the month before. Now she was struggling to keep the strands of life together. There was no food in the refrigerator, bills were piling up, there were too many empty wine bottles and worst of all, her friends no longer called her.
"What can I do," she asked herself. "There's just no other way than this."
Sitting on the kitchen floor in front of the oven, she struggled with...
The disco ball was turning. That was the first indication that something was wrong. That disco ball hadn't moved since 1982, when his brother put it up in his parent's attic to make room for his Tattoo You poster. The disco ball had hung for 30 years from a four-by-four, good solid wood. ("That wood ain't going anywhere, his dad once told him. That's old country wood, original American oak. Before all this," and let a wave of his hand tell the rest.)
He was up there in the attic when the disco ball turned, revealing it's multi-faced mirrored squares,...