My name is Joseph Buxton and I am a terrible person.
The audience stared open-mouthed at me as the blood welled around the wound and covered my hands which were clasped over. I wouldn't normally do this, try to save a man's life, but I felt I owed him something. As he bled out and stained the cuffs of my shirt, the useless audience just stared on unmoved.
I felt his heart slow to a stop and watched the life drain from his eyes. He was still now, it was over.
I rolled up my sleeves and flagged down a...
I'm Theo. You might remember me. I had a guest role in several 80's sitcoms. Thigns jus didn't work out for me, I guess.
I got married at one point in my career, but that didn't work out either. I still keep in touch with my Mother-In-Law, though.
Last week, she invited me over to dinner. She doesn't seem to be doing so well herself. Turns out, she'd only invited me over in a vindictive mood about my divorce from her daughter. She came at me with a knife at one point.
Well, I wrestled the knife away from her...
The Bronx Zoo in my mind was empty. Maybe the gazelles were milling around Yankee Stadium, waiting for Catfish Hunter. The green grass of memory, my synapses folding in the sweeping July breeze, beheld the sweet roots of my birthday candles, climbing the kitchen air like lithesome monkeys, nimble as the imagination.
Light. Heat. Flame. Fire. Water. Wind. Sky. Skymall. Worst catalog ever. Useless items. The infomercial of magazines. Gadgets and gizmos that nobody needs. Needful Things by Stephen King(s). Free-associating. The Association of Free Words. Become a member today. The Today Show. Show me the money. Money in the bank. Bank of America. Abbreviation: BofA. Bofa makes me laugh. I love to laugh. This always appears in personal ads. Who doesn't love to laugh? People in TV ads love to laugh. A laugh riot. Riot gear. Top Gear. Gearing up for war. War of the Worlds. World War III. III blind...
It was practically viral by now. the video a friend of mine had posted on youtube, of our mass dance party for cancer. Everyone was doing it. There was a practically a million other videos like ours, everyone doing our dance, to various remixes of that song. We had worn masks, for some bizarre reason, and evryone was doing that too. i had seen everything from drama masks to those little ones you see doctors wearing. I watched yet another video of people throwing their arms in the air and twisting their hips. I was kinda proud of us. coordinating...
We were sitting in the basement, Danny and me. Tv's on. Hockey game. Upstairs ma and pa is fighting again. Bills. Or pa's philanderin'. Didn't know. Didn't care.
"Hey," Danny says. "Let's make a mix tape."
I roll my eyes a little but I don't say no. The two-deck tape player is in the basement as is my whole cassette collection. I know Danny doesn't like most of my music but he does like some songs (The Beatles' Birthday, The Who's Won't Get Fooled Again, The Pointer Sisters' Neutron Dance.)
So we start making a mix tape. Danny, who is...
I did not like the look of it. It had what other people might call poor aesthetic value. This thought was somewhat pointless though considering the mastery within the thing. It was about the size and shape of a lighter but had the colour and rough, jagged, texture of sea washed rocks.
Jenny had always said to be careful in what I was doing. Everyone else either seemed to think I was a bit eccentric or maybe more commonly just a nut case. I think Jenny only worried because she had sympathy for me though. I resented that. In reality...
She held the cat tightly in her arms, relishing in the warmth. It was comforting, strangely comforting, how much she could rely on her cat. His name was Alfie and he was her life. However sad it may have seemed that cat was her life.
She carried the cat out into the snow, watching as his eyes looked curiously around, desperately trying to take in all the new sights.
He'd never seen snow before. That's why she'd brought him out in the first place. She hated snow herself. Hated the way it melted the moment it touched her. Hated the...
Do you want to hear about it, she asked. The doors slid shut.
I couldn't say.
There was the first ding.
No, I said. Not really.
I want to tell you about it, she said.
The second ding.
She stood next to the panel. I leaned back against the opposite corner. No others at this time of night, in this elevator, in this place.
Fine, I said. Tell me about it.
It was warm. We in our winter coats, too warm, as far as we could get away from each other in our opposite corners of the elevator.
The third...
It was the fifth night in cell 16, my reflection staring back at me. The lights had gone out on the evening of the second day, leaving me and the rest of the people here shrouded in darkness after 4pm. No one has come to check on us since then, and the food they left me ran out yesterday morning. There were sirens outside, but they stopped yesterday too. I don't know what's going on, or if I'll even find a way out of here, but I hope the family is okay. Jesse always was the dumb one, getting into...