The princess ran through the halls, trying not to scream. It was iminent that she get to the throne room before the bishop did. She slid into the shadows, and instantly became one. Suddenly, the bishop burst into the hall, the ceremonial knife clutched in his hand. She ran into the throne room. As soon as the light from the windows touched her skin, she became solid once again, and visible to the murderous bishop. He grabbed her robe and she fell to the ground. She tried desperately to claw her way to the throne, fighting the bishop's strength. She...
I'm lucky that shirt was red already.
I put it through the wash, but the stain doesn't seem to have come out, but I guess I can explain it as bolognese sauce or something. I took care of any signs of what happened, I mopped the floor, cleaned everything else, and then made a slight mess so things didn't seem suspicious.
I probably shouldn't worry so much, but my mother is visiting and if she finds out, she'll scream, so I'm panicking a little. The clock says it's 17:54, she's supposed to get back in five minutes. That isn't long...
When I was young I found a baby sparrow. Fallen from his nest. Abandoned. I took him home and nurtured him. Cared for him. I named him Franklin. Day by day he grew stronger. He was soon able to fly. He'd fly about but always return. Until one day. He flew away. I rode around the neighborhood looking for him. Then I realized he was gone forever. I started looking always for a new baby sparrow. But I never found one. I am glad. I think just one baby sparrow was perfect.
No swimmers.
No DNA-laden tadpoles.
No way that the child was mine.
If you asked me 10-years ago if I could ever imagine myself sitting in a doctor's office waiting for my sperm count to arrive, I would have told you to fuck off. Or maybe piss off, since I hadn't lived enough life 10-years ago to cuss appropriately.
Yet, here I was. My soon to be ex-wife was pregnant. She didn't know if was my child or the child of the irish man she ran off with 2-months prior. Apparently, that surgery I survived only guarantees 99.995% success. But...
The boy continued staring at the empty space that wasn't empty. Air surrounded him, invisible oxygen that he couldn't see but was nevertheless vital. And of course, the creature was there.
"Hello?" he called tentatively.
"Hello," called the voice of a young girl. The water stirred around the hole in the water, and a female form appeared. "I'm sorry," she said. "I was just curious."
The boy continued to stare. The girl had hair the color of flame and a smile like no other. He was particularly worried about her sharp teeth.
She laughed, a sound like breaking glass, and...
The dapper man picked up a penny and found a little hole. The hole was smaller than the penny, but larger than a dime. The man, dapper and penny-wise, bent down on dapper knees, head bowed, right eye squinting into dime-sized hole.
"Dimes, dimes, dimes! Mole men flipping dimes, muddy mason jars tight with dimes!"
He wigle
"Happy New Year, love." the elderly gentleman smiled at her as she left the shop. She didn;t hear him. She didn't hear anything. Clutching the small package in her hand, she felt a calm wash over her. This New Year was going to be great. The best ever. The last ever.
Allowing her thumb to feel the smoothe edges of the box, she ran over her plans in her head. Over the last few months, she had gone over and over how things would work in her mind. She had done her research. She knew exactly how many she would...
No prompt today. I'm at a loss. The alarm has gone off as usual, but nothing in the display to tell me what to do, where to go or even what to wear. I'll stay here, in the warm cushion of my sleeper unit. It will reboot soon.
But it hasn't. Nothing has happened. No sounds, no whirring, no coffee. What should I do?
I slide my feet over the side. Naked I search for something to cover my modesty. The blinds stay shut, but I peek through and see no light. No sun. No rain. No people.
I look...
Hats. I hate wearing hats. They leave that weird mark in your hair and make your forehead sweaty. Ugh, and the way winter hats make your ears itch; unbearable! Baseball hats are okay - looking on guys, but I'm more into helmets. You won't get me to wear either, still, they call it hat hair, and helmet head for a reason. Who ever invented the hat anyway? I get the concept of keeping your head warm, but hoods do that job just fine, and don't make your hair flat or itch your ears, or make your head funny-shaped. I get...
It is beautiful. The trail was never going to end. Or at least I wasn't going to make it to the end. I won't live forever. I will die before we reach the end of the trail. We'd been traveling for three years. By all calculations it will take another four to five years. I realized that as I was digging through the journals from the explorers before us. I realized that the rest all knew that, they just didn't want to tell me. To tell me that what I had fought for wasn't ever going to be mine.
But...