The whale thought better and steered away from the shore.
I hurled a pearly conch into the surf and dropped backwards into the sand. Fiddler crabs filled the orchestra pit, their claws grinding salt and sand into no music. Two fronds breezed an applause, each clap sounding like "mock, mock, mock."
Alone, but not alone, the silence drowned by obstinate life.
Drowning in the sea. That was the trick of it. To be seen to swoon, to fall to the bottom. The pretend to expire. It was the pearls that weighed me down. They alway do. Spiros bought them for the moon. That is what he said. The moon. As if the moon had a price. All things had a price. He gave them to me in the back garden of the hotel under a moon that was more red that white. A bad luck moon. But the band played on in the gallery and couples in their best passed under...
Scales glistening in the sunlight, Todd swung a cache of fish from his hand as he walked up the wharf. Their scales, blue, green, and brilliant white, shone silvery in the harsh artificial lights he passed under.
All dead. He'd caught practically an entire school that his wife would get to scale and fillet that night. They were all so identical... Like a family of all twins, like they were toys. He looked down at them and decided, as their brilliance nearly blinded against the dark, dull surroundings of concrete and discarded fishing items, that the sea was a different...
He was lucky when he found that nickel in the bushes, that'll show up again later. But it wasn't luck that brought him there. See, Marvin got mixed up with some bad people, and right now he is hiding in the bushes behind a gas station, on the run from the police for a robbery job gone wrong. "I have to get to Melinda," he plotted. "I need an Alibi." Luckily for him, she lived only a few blocks away, so he snuck through the alleys, always watching out for cops, but he wasn't lucky enough to find her at...
2070. Last digits of the code. No matter what they did, I was not going to tell them the rest of it. My undercover mercenary training would allow me to live for longer than the other hostages.
On the last day of the siege, everyone was dead but three of us. Now they wanted us to fight against ourselves to the death, only way we could be given life saving water. Jackson saved us the guilt, died at 10 am. Lewis, a meek accountant, killed himself. This wasn't the way the captors were expecting to spend their afternoon so decided...
Disappeared into the cityscape,
hiding unintentionally,
friend to only the birds,
for they are the only ones who
will keep this lone soul company.
On days like these, it's easier
for him to just stay in the shadows,
he has, after all, been living as
one. A familiar shadow of his former
life before he had succumbed to
the circumstances that brought
him to this humble time in his life,
whatever they may have been-
drugs, loss of a job, mentally
unstable. But this man was- and still
is- a man. Although it may not seem
like it on this...
The red, white and black jacket hovered mysteriously outside my bedroom window, under the old tree. It had been there for about a week, and it didn't appear to be going anywhere any time soon. By the way, what's black and white, and read all over?
I asked my dad about the jacket, and he told me that it was something I'd just have to get used to.
"But why is it there?"
"It just is, son."
"Have you seen it here before?"
"No, I haven't."
"Doesn't it strike you as sort of... odd?"
"Not really."
Throughout the entire conversation,...
The conversation lasted two words: Why now? The blank stare that met Angela's question was all the answer she needed. The time didn't matter, it never mattered. All that he was concerned about now was getting to the engine room.
Without looking back, she spun swiftly on her heel and stormed across the deck to the lift, already standing open, waiting for her. This was the day they had been waiting for, and she would be damned if she would allow something so trivial as a fleeting moment of emotion overcome her and destroy all that she had trained for....
"I got a garbage brain," he sang as he swam.
"What?" she asked, spitting water.
"I got ninety six ears and ninety six eyes," he continued.
She knew she wasn't going to get a straight answer out of him and plunged down under the surface. She let the air escape her lungs as she sank deeper into the turquoise water.
A brightly coloured fish swam passed her. She wondered what kind of fish it was. She wondered why she hadn't ever been curious about fish before. Her lungs started to hurt.
She kicked and stroked and soon broke the surface....
I was playing basketball with Michael Jordan, Lebron James, Carmelo Anthony, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant. We were playing 3 on 3. It was Michael, Carmelo and myself. We were playing to 21. It was tied 19 to 19, win by two. We've got the ball up top, Melo checks it. I run and set a pick for Jordan across the baseline. Jordan slides off of me, while I set the pick. Kobe gets through pretty quickly, but not quick enough. Jordan catches it in the corner and does a quick turn around jumper. 20-19. Make it take it, so...