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...
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...
Only four days were left until the end of camp, and he'd resigned himself to his fate. He wasn't going to talk to the girl with the ponytail. He had run through the reasons why she would never see anything in common with him, and could almost recite it like a creed of self-defeat.
He saw her at the ridge, looking out over the farms in the valley below. Her headphones were plugged into her walkman, and she seemed completely at peace.
The tape player clunked to a stop. She sighed, took off the headphones and looked around. He realized...
The idea is to create a false memory. Get a pretty model, blur the edges, overexpose the film. You can also create that overexposure effect digitally. Have her smiling, playing. Give her something that evokes childhood. Red balloon. No, we don't want to be cliche. Green balloon. And make sure there's an overriding color scheme. Green. We don't see a background - nothing but light on the horizon. This is memory, and memory is supposed to consist of overreliance on symbols, strong images, single focal points. That was the summer when...
We hire the model. She's angry and unhappy the...
I felt a dim glow of satisfaction deep within my soul as the night turned into day. My dreams of before, now a reality. There was nothing I wanted...
But one thing... The one thing I couldn't have.
I believe in miricles as they happen every day around me, birth, growth, laugther and joy. I pray for a miricle now, even. Guide him, save her. I can hardley get everyones name into the list sometimes as the hours pass by.
But there is one name that stands out like a black print on a white paper. A name that still...
She sat in her car, staring up at the Motel 6. After begging her boss to let her off early, she almost wished he would have said no. If her boss knew what she was up to, he probably would have.
"I shouldn't be here," she whispered to herself, staring at the motel key Steve gave to her.
But she also knew she wanted to be. The same battle she has every Sunday night at about nine thirty. It's always the same. Leave work two hours early, come spend time with Steve. It's become as easy as blinking; automatic, and...
My head was pounding, I had too much at the bar during intermission. The lights go up, and that annoying guy, what's his name, is back at the podium.
"Welcome back everyone."
What was his name
"We are going to continue with the awards, and this one is nothing short of honorable."
I have worked with him for years. Carl? Steve? Mike? Fuck.
"And now we are going to give out the award for our employee of the year. This is nothing we take lightly, and we would like to thank all of our employees for the work they do...
How do you tell a child that it's over? How do you explain in short, fleeting moments that they have reached the end?
I was always so proud of this child. I hadn't known her for long, but when we found her, she was like a celestial reminder that good remained in the world and that we always have something to fight for. She brought us a reminder of innocence in our darkest and most twisted days, and for that I will forever be thankful.
I had loved watching her grow up. She would tell me tales of imaginary people...
I was stealthy. I knew my prey was crafty, so I prepared. Night vision goggles, sniper rifle, grenades just in case. I was stalking the elusive Reindeer through the forests of the Northwest.
Oh, but he was a crafty one, indeed.
He doubled back on me. I barely saw him coming. Who knew reindeers could fly? This one was wearing a blue cape, and its nose was glowing bright red.
I should have seen it coming. He ambushed me.
Then I saw the man himself. Santa. I thought he was made up. He'd been behind the ambush the entire time....
I'm dead. Really dead. Not in the "there'll be a twist at the end and I'll be saved" kind of way. Just dead.
Surprisingly, I don't mind all that much. It's much calmer out here in the abyss. There's a strange peace that comes with being nothing. Or, rather, not being. There is a difference, you see.
Because I am not, I am able to not be wherever I like. And I am not in the middle of everything.
While I was alive, I loved stories. Stories were incredible things. I would look for them everywhere-- music, movies, books, newspapers,...