We were to meet in the gallery. The glass one, stone fronted with tiles. It is an old place, no longer fashionable. It looks out onto a street where buses no longer run and rubble fills the roads. He said he had a message to give me. The way it was said, it did not imply that the message was from him, but only that he was a messenger, of the most unwilling kind. What inconvenience it must cause you, I might have argued, to have to meet up with me in such way. What a task your people as...
When I was 12, I went to sea. I was on my father's ship for 6 months and 4 days when i caught a glimpse of her.
I had been sitting on a chair on the deck, watching island after island float by when my gaze started slowly moving downwards. I was almost asleep when i saw the fiery red tail splash next to the wooden paneling on the side of the ship. I jumped up, about to call for my father to see this magnificently huge fish when the creature jumped out of the water.
Attached to the red...
Nicky crouched, letting sand dribble through her fist. If only the sand were falling through the hour glass instead, the time for departure drawing closer one grain at a time. The water was almost flat, small wave rolling onto the shore.
"Why can't we leave?" She asked without looking back. A sigh and a rustle of sand and clothing.
"Red sky at night, sailor's delight," Dirk answered, letting the rest of it go unsaid.
Nicky grumbled, dropped the rest of the sand and stood. "Why do they hold everything up for an old saying?" Just above the high tide mark...
I shot my butler. His name was Greg. I shot him because I don't think butlers should be called Greg. They should be called things like Alfred or Jeeves or Cadbury or Pennyworth. Not Greg, who was from New Jersey. He didn't have a British accent. He lisped. And he was a dwarf. And his armpits stank. And he insisted on working naked. That wouldn't have been so bad if his scrotum hadn't been seven feet long so that it dragged behind him when he walked. True, it helped keep the marble floors a little more polished, but grandma kept...
Outnumbered and out of breath, I didn't know what else to do. The lives that had already been taken now stained my guilt and I didn't need more blood on my mind. So, the white flag of surrender went up and the terms were made.
Our youngest children were to be taken from us and trained to keep their families in check. We were to only have children if the king commanded to. Oh, and we were no longer able to choose our mates.
The children were brainwashed to believe that their mothers were evil witches sent to destroy the...
The wind swept through the area, sending a chill through the hearts of all those that were paying respects here, the weather reflected the emotions contained here, it was violent and broken, moaning around like hell was chasing on its heels. Despite the destructive nature, the gale seemed to gather behind me and encourage me towards a path I had walked often, towards the highest part of this graveyard. The thorns dug into my hand harder, a painful reminder of why I was here. The sun had started to retire, casting an eerie golden glow, hitting the headstones in such...
Gigantic.
Enormous.
Immense.
Even bigger than Daddy.
Evie looked up at the ship as they waited for the cars to start boarding.
"What happens if it sinks, Daddy?"
"It won't sink, pet."
"But what if it does?"
"It won't." Evie sighed and looked back again. There were people moving around, she could see them. Little ants pulling ropes and other official-looking things.
"Why isn't Mummy coming?"
"She can't, pet. She would if she could."
Evie held tight onto Daddy's hand when the tannoy rang out.
"Please make your way back to your cars now. Boarding will begin shortly."
They went...
A tattoo of a shadow remains when the light recedes.
Mock the sun, then, and ridicule the clouds. They've always seemed so stupid anyway.
Clouds. The poets can have them. They can have the clouds and the sun. Where are their clouds on a sunny day? And where's their sun on this overcast morning?
That's my shadow. I always have it. I don't need the weather -- just the steady hand of a artist.
Tattooed, herself.
The sun seared our backs as we dove hand in hand. We were days from civilization, and it was the happiest we had ever been. The sand invaded every nook and crevice of our lives, but we had no shadows and no secrets, so it was inconsequential.
I looked at my son and saw his mother in him. His eyes were the color of eagle-sky, as if he spent so many hours cloud-gazing that the heavens imbued his irises with their hue.
"What did you learn today, daddy?" He asked me this every evening, knowing I had long been mute....