It never worked on Sundays. Not sure why. It was plugged in and the Hydro folks never disconnected us on Sundays. We could use the can opener Sundays. The microwave too. But the TV. Well, it would just sit there in the corner, gathering dust. We'd twist the knob but dang it all, screen stayed dark.
"Gol!" says Paw, who's about the biggest football fan in these parts. "I bought that TV just to watch my games and now it won't work."
"You can go down to Duncan's Bar," I suggested. "He's got all the games on the big TV."...
The building was out of place and yet appropriate at the same time. Sarah was the only one who seemed to notice it either way. An old pagaoda-like structure in the middle of the town. Other people were nearby, but if they saw it, they didn't act like it.
After snapping a few photos with her smart phone, she approached one of the entrances. (At least she assumed it was an entrance.) She knocked on the door several times. There was no answer, but it swung open for her nonetheless. She looked around at the park, and the people in...
Elsie, her name was Elsie. She was a big lass. Big arms. 'Big boned' my mum had called her, 'a rough sort', she'd said, 'stay away from her, she's trouble', she'd said. But I never listened to my mum.
I decided from the word go that I wanted to be in Elsie's gang. When I crept up to her side and said
'lo Else, can I be in your gang then?' she'd blown a big bubblegum bubble which popped right in front of my face and sneered
'you'll have to go through 'tha 'nititation beanpole'
Beanpole. I already had a...
Snip. Snip.
Pause.
Snip snip snip.
He squinted into the test tube. The stems of heather floated in the solution of sodium dodecyl sulfate, suspended, waiting.
Laughing at him.
Gene closed his eyes. No, he thought, not now. Not after all this. Not when I'm so close.
Flashback to the grimy street where he was born, eleventh child to a drunk and a slattern. When he dared say that he would grow up to be a scientist one day, oh how the neighborhood toughs had loved it. Another reason to pound him, day after day. "Gene, Gene the gene-machine, work...
To run was the only thing he could do. He couldn't escape the overwhelming feelings.
He couldn't escape the overwhelmingly heavy burden of the path he was given. It was his path, yes. Or was it a shared path? He suspected it was, but there was no one who could verify it. No one. He was Forrest Gump, just running. And the Bubba Gump Shrimp Factory was his reward. Momma said life was a series of bumps-- raised sheaves of sidewalk to step over or turn around and avoid. So he runs.
How endlessly the ocean seems to stretch out over the horizon. It never ends as it drifts beyond view, but you and I both know that even though it continues further than our sight, it will go on to find its end at some far off beach on some other continent. There, someone will stand at it's shore and look out the way that we are now and make the same observation. We will then be the ones that cross their minds as some strangers with our toes in the sand, creating some cycle of perception of one another. I...
"She was the most delicate girl in town,"
I put down my glass.
"Delicate?"
"You know, delicate" and he moved his hands as if to express the shape "Like a flower is or a painting. She had a softness. And it was hot down there all year pretty much so she was like all the other girls and wore the cotton dresses but she wore them differently. Just by herself, you know, I mean she wasn't trying."
"So you mean she was pretty."
"I mean delicate."
"And you never worked it out with her? This very...delicate girl?"
"Well I got...
"You know why girls suddenly change their hairstyles don't you?" He leered over my sister with that gap-toothed smug-motherfucker grin. "Girls change their hair every time they make a major change in life. Like pigtails right before or right after a break-up. Females actually believe this changes them as a person."
My sister giggled, which is my favorite part, right before she undid the top two buttons on her blouse, which is my least favorite part. "You're so right," she said. She kissed him, hard, right before she saw me peeking under the door.
She scowled at me, but she...
"If you say so," I said, feigning indifference. It was best not to commit to something that would go south in microsecond, which I suspected would happen with Jacob's escape plan.
"Let's go over it one more time," he said excitedly. "At 2100 tomorrow, I'm going to shank Billy in the kitchen. The guards will come running to take me away to solitary, like they did the last thirteen times."
"You don't have anything to shank with," I said, annoyed at his overly dramatic air. "All we're allowed are sporks made of recycled corn, or whatever this shit is." I...
To keep her kids from starving, Mama mouse bravely went into the large house. The mouse hole they lived in was just fine, but the owner of the large house, well he was a villain in their eyes.
Mama mouse looked left and right before scurrying under the kitchen cabinet. She couldn't let anyone see her or else who would take care of her darling children? She peeked out from under the cabinet. Good, no one was coming. She cautiously walked out and looked up. There it was. Her goal. Upon the table sat a beautiful roast turkey. She was...