The gate closed behind them. Skidmark spun around and readied his rifle, scanned the scene and grunted to himself. He lowered the rifle slowly and turned back around. It appeared that there was no escaping the arena.
About fifty yards across from him, another contestant appeared, a tall, lithe woman in a jumpsuit, her Mohawk towering a good six inches above her scalp. From the way her eyes glowed red, Skidmark could tell that it was Annex Annie, reigning champion of Arena Combat League. In her hand was her trademark laser mace.
Skidmark cracked his neck in anticipation of a...
The water was clear and the sky, a burden. That clear, opening water annexed from infinity by the murky, swollen sky. Everything the sky held glared and grimaced like sweaty bustlers at a flea market.
And then I look back at the water and eke out a smile before the groaning creak of the sky turning darker toward the night pulls out my grin like a bad tooth.
The water was clear, so clear I couldn't see the bottom.
Lousy sky.
She'd always come running when I called especially on the beach after a thunderstorm collecting amber. Knowing that I'd get worried because of the deep rockpools. As this was a different time, after the apocalypse, it was the other way around, she called out to me, worried that as an aging scavenger I'd come to harm on the shoreline each morning.
Keira, my beautiful grand daughter wanted me safe, home in front of the fire reading a newspaper, instead saw me beaten with fatigue, stumbling around the barren landscape hunting for food.
I love her.
laying on the my bed, i relive my dream. thinking about the dream just made me forget all of the chaos and worries surrounding me. the vivid colours of the dream dance around in my head, i try to fall asleep again, to dream the dream again, but it was impossible. the more the i tried the more it didn't happen. finally my relaxation was interrupted. the yelling from downstairs made me sit right up. rubbing my eyes, i stood up and walked downstairs, the cold stone floor made me wake up. the yelling didn't stop. the chaos started again....
-Let's get this over with. Sister Mary said
-Fine with me. I said, trying to act tough.
-You have twenty minutes on each section, the first section is fill in the blanks, the second is multiple choice and the last section is a prompted essay. I will begin the timer when you pick up the pencil.
She said in that cold tone I had learned to loathe. She didn't have enough evidence to get me expelled, but it was enough to force me to retake the final.
-Are you nervous? She added after letting the silent tension grow. She hadn't...
butterfly is my name, butterfly is my code name is what I mean. Small 'b'. Serial number 123456123456. One day I will be allowed to see green hills and blue skies but for now I am living under fluorescent light in the bunker I get told is home. Did I tell you I am an alien, accidentally arrived here ten of your years ago and kept alive, miraculously, not sliced up like my companions for the delectation and curiosity of the military and scientific communities.
One day I might be free to fly away like my namesake.
My wings are...
Whoever said a picture was worth a thousand words had never met Frank.
The man had never met a camera he didn't like, a paintbrush he couldn't weild with the skill of an accomplished demolition man. He didn't just fail to capture his subjects, he mutilated them, butchered their faces on canvas or in gelatin print to the point that the destruction itself was an art form.
Shadows cast a sinister light on the angelic face of his little girl. Brush strokes created abhorrent textures in the golden halo of his wife's hair.
Artists were said to put themselves into...
It was the fall that suprised me most. It had just been spring, and now the trees leaves where turning there yellow and touching down on the ground. How did this happend, just recently I was happly looking forward to the summer of wearing t-shirts and shorts and not haveing to suffucate myself in layers upon layers of clothes. Now I had been surpised and catched by the coldness of an cold day when I was freezing my way to work. As usally dreaming about the girls I meet on my walk, and my thoughts was even more than usally...
People exiting the Proles said that the voting papers looked rigged. One woman reported looking for the her chosen candidates name but could only find Sugar Cane and when she sought to choose his running-mate there was a similar error Imp Palin.
There has been confusion all over this Mid-Western town today as voters have scrambled from prolling booth to prolling booth to find ballot papers without spelling errors to the names of the candidates for president. Some people have said that the whole matter was a plot by the Burning Bush outgoing President to try and secure another term....
I jumped.
In a few years time I would be able to pin down the thought processes that had led to possibly the most insane decision of my life, but right now all I felt was the surge of adrenaline as I took that leap of faith and laced my fingers with those of the man next to me. The almost stranger, the man who'd watched me across the room for the past month. We'd barely even spoken until two days before yet here I was, my hot sweaty hand in his, leaping into the unknown.
I couldn't help it,...