This starts out as a fairy tale, but does not end as such.
Riding on a subway, Jane was squirming with self-consciousness. Shaking dark curls out of her eyes, she wiped her shaking, clammy hands on purple and black striped leggings, brushing her elbow against the heavy object that was swinging gently -- almost innocuously -- in her left hand jacket pocket.
It's so heavy, she thought. Would I be able to drink all of it?
Earlier that day, she had obtained a potion in a sketchy graffiti-infested alleyway from her great-great-grandfather, who was alive and well -- and a...
I hoped they would stop worshiping the coat soon. After my husband Ed spilled coffee on his shoulder I'd washed it and put it out on the line to dry.
Someone from town happened to pass by as it swung from the line. He said he saw the face of Jesus in it. Right where Ed had spilled the coffee.
They came after. Ed tried to run them off with his shotgun. He tried to sick the dogs on them. They still came. All wanting to look at it. Take a piece of it home with them.
I took it...
Collapsing in a fit of giggles, Claire stopped to catch her breath. Catching up with her, Simone danced around her, still singing.
Claire laughed. It had been the perfect night. And morning, come to think of it. It was 6am and the sun was already beginning to rise above the terraced houses.
"Thank you for a fantastically brilliant birthday!" Simone hugged her tight.
"You're welcome" she slurred. She was due at work in just over two hours. This was going to need a lot of coffee. Continuing to walk, they reached Claire's house and she crept in through the back...
I couldn't sleep with her next to me. The smell was making me crazy. She dead to the world, breathing her breath, rustling the covers, each movement sent her smell across the bed. Sour. Sick.
For weeks she wasted away in front of me. Now she didn't eat and her body was starting to draw on what little reserves we left. All fat gone, now her muscle. I was afraid to touch her. Afraid to look too closely. Afraid to see her slow wasting death.
But we still shared this bed. She and I, as always. The only difference now...
He didn't think he was much of a cat person until he met Matilda. He'd found her one morning in a battered cardboard box on his doorstep and, seeing her huge green eyes and tiny paws, took her into the house. But he didn't know then that Matilda was a very special cat.
The first couple of years passed and Matilda grew from a small ball of fluff into a fully grown feline with glossy black fur. But it was the third year that Matilda began to change dramatically.
The black began to fall away to be replaced by bright...
He ripped the tape off the top of the box, and thrust open the flaps. There was a small cardboard van inside. He took it out gingerly, and held it up to his face, and smiled. The cat inside meowed at him.
The mail-order company had come through once again! He placed it on his shelf of Interesting Things.
He had taken it upon himself to order the most interesting things he could find in the local newspaper or on eBay and arrange it on this shelf. That way, he could impress almost anyone who walked through that door. The...
There was a man who rode on a white horse. He wore a golden cloak. He was handsome and upright in posture. When he passed by, people stopped to stare and to whisper among themselves.
"Who is he?"
"Where does he come from?"
And, although they did not know the answer to these questions, they knew he was good and bold and wonderful. A hero.
There was a man who rode a black stallion. He had a large hat, flopping over his brow. Below the brim, a bright red scar was visible - a slash across his cheek. He slumped...
Until now, she’d never thought of herself as pretty. She though of her body as a reclamation project. One of those trash dump sites that had filled up and had to be pounded down, covered over and made to look like something else. Something stable and pretty. Like a piece of ground someone would be willing to invest in - maybe build some houses on and raise kids without ever knowing what was underneath.
She couldn't fix everything, of course. Those scars...well, there just wasn't much she could do about them. Long sleeves, not tanning too much so they wouldn't...
'Kenya.'
I looked up from my book. 'Huh?'
'Kenya.'
'Can I what?'
'No, the country. Kenya.'
'Yeah, okay, in Africa. What about it?'
'We found him there. He's working in an aid camp for Somalian refugees.'
'Him? Who?'
'You know who I'm talking about.'
I put the book down, forgetting it. 'How certain are you of this? There can be absolutely no mistake, understand?'
'Positive identification. No question.'
'Anecdotal or visual? We need to be sure.'
'Oh, absolutely visual. A low flying drone picked him up leaving a market. He had a couple of bags of veggies and a rack...
It was the fall that surprised me most. Stumbling, suddenly in darkness, in a vile body that felt alien, so different, so limited, so odd - nothing to...before.
They never believed me, never believed what I said, when I tried to explain where I belonged (this tongue is clumsy and cannot say the words I need - I use words like "sky" and "stars" and "above" and "far" but none of them even begin to describe home - home is the closest approximation I have, but it is, I find, unhelpful)
They tell me that such things - I -...