Travel light, but take everything with you.
That was the last message I received from my father before he began his ascent. The words struck me in an unexpected way. I had anticipated experiencing a range of emotions at the outset of his trek. Exasperation at the foolishness of this mid-life-crisis-driven thrill-seeker kick. Pride in his ambition. Fear for his life--no, fear for my own life, which would change drastically and uncomfortably if he never made it back.
But at the base of that mountain, with ice on the wind, as he read me that short passage from the introduction...
I knew that my outfit was risky, the plunging black bra exposing large breasts and cleavage. White sheer dress with black embroidery. The patterned hat, sharp, long painted fingernails and matching blood red lipstick may have looked good in a lounge bar but my fiance's grandmother was not impressed. Her husband was though. He couldn't keep his eyes off my chest and received a withering glance from his wife and got told to make the drinks in another room.
I never guessed that Bob's family were so rich. The white remote gates gave it away. I imagined they would live...
Think warm thoughts.
Everyone hears about the other problem. Spontaneous Human Combustion, like it's some mysterious force. Ninety percent of the time, it's just a smoker who nodded off in a polyester easy chair. As if it's some big mystery. The other ten percent, you have your idiots that accidentally got soaked in lighter fluid, people trying to fry things, and other morons. Investigators act like it's so mysterious, but that is just because they don't understand fire. How it works, how it feeds. It's a bunch of pseudo-science, like a medieval doctor trying to cure people through bloodletting and...
Tom watched the sun set slowly over the skeletal remains of Brighton Pier. He had spent the day wandering through the narrow lanes of the town, stopping in the curio shops, selecting strange items from dusty shelves. A pocket watch, its mechanism rusted by age and inattention, was warm in his hand. Its smooth surface, touched by a hundred hands, was plain and unadorned. He wondered who had bought it, seen it in the window of a watchmakers, taken it home. Who had carried it in their pocket. Had they perhaps stood at this very spot, looking out to sea,...
Hero at Midnight
No one could remember who among them gave him the name Rooster; probably someone long gone by this point. A seventy percent casualty rate will leave one gaping hole in the communal memory. Everyone could remember why: yodeling and ukelele music in the pre-dawn hours was inexcusable by any measure. It had started after the battle for Hill 487. Most of Rooster's squad had been blown into pieces too small to put back together. Hence the coping mechanism. However, after two weeks of this crap, enough was enough, and Private Morlane drew the short stick: shut him...
Sideways glances and meanderings
Staring down some dark alley street
Cobbled and
oh
so
crooked.
This sway of me breezes free
seeking peace
not seeking.
Blood rushes through these veins
but ethereal do I sometimes feel
when falling.
Sweet surrender to do we offer ourselves to each other
and truly believe this is it.
Who are we kidding?
Death has no mercy and sometimes won't even let us die
but instead waste away inside of
bars
flesh
dreams.
So it be
so it be
but not definitely..
The lamp wouldn't turn on. Stupid thing, thought Lisa as she slammed her fist against it. That's what you get for buying cheap tat, though. She was a sucker for a bargain, or anything she perceived to be a bargain. There was of course, a vast difference. One time she had bought three crates of dog food from a clearance store.
'But you haven't got a dog!' her boyfriend had cexclaimed.
'Yes, but it was so cheap!' she had countered. This logic making perfect sense to her.
She tapped the lamp again, absent mindedly. Nothing. Not even a flicker. Zilch....
Sex wasn't always the first thing on Mandy's mind but it was today. The long zip at the front of the dress was perfect for what she had in mind. The photo of the online date didn't do him justice, he was much better looking. Even the meeting spot was quirky, the old churchyard. He knew she was into anything ancient, spooky, derelict from their messages.
He had suggested a picnic by the river which was adjoining the graveyard then said he'd take her home to meet his mother who always wanted to see his dates. She was very traditional...
I jumped on the bandwagon. Everyone else was going down, and I mean, I thought I knew the basis of the movement, so of course that's what matters, right? So I went downtown. There were all these people there. All this passion. But I slowly realized that I was just there because it was fun. There were a bunch of other kids, my age, maybe older, sort of just there to have a good time, to try and get a rise out of some people. Like people without clothes on, or like doing drugs in the street, really weird stuff...
Her pink shoes dragged on the wet pavement. To him, it felt like the sound of her heels thundered down the street, causing people to stop what they were doing and looking out their windows at him. He paused for a second and looked around. All the windows were empty, most were dark, the slight sound of shoes dragging on concrete not loud enough to be heard over the sond of rain and traffic. He got to the end of the alley and stopped again, shifting his load over to the other side so that he could reach his pocket...