This was the painting that sold for millions. I watched as the porters wrapped it up and carried it from the gallery to the awaiting truck.
The new owner transferred cash from his account, smiling, probably thanking God for his luck. I watched him shaking hands with everyone, swigging the curtesty glass of expensive champagne, posing for photos.
John Masters, the gallery owner, smug and insincere triumphant for once in his sorry life.
Not for long.
He paid me peanuts as a commission for this painting, unknown I had used special paint which would melt in due course and reveal...
It was the third day of my cruise and I was bored as hell. If I had to sit through another party on the deck with the awful music and the dull people in fancy clothes I was going over the side with no life preserver. I decided to walk slowly around the perimeter of the ship by myself instead.
Suddenly, I saw a Jack Russel terrier sitting on the railing all alone. I was seized with a crazy impulse. I looked around and saw no one; no one to witness the heinous act I was contemplating. With a twisted...
Half naked and desperate, the child climbed the thin bars of the door, her cage, staring at the world outside. Her right leg crooked over the horizontal bar as she tilted her body, dark eyes staring longingly at the world.
"Get down from there!" her father snapped angrily. "You're gonna hurt yourself."
"When can I go out, Daddy?" she asked, turning to look at him imploringly. "I want to go out! You never let me do anything."
"You don't want to go out there, babygirl," the man said gruffly. "It's a dangerous world. There are mean people out there that...
The young man ran toward the park building, surrounded by trees, bushes, and several high-rises that glowered down like overbearing siblings eyeing their sibling's latest suitor. The boy was soaking wet, his heart beat furiously in his chest, and his eyes were wide with terror. He knew they were still behind him. They'd already came after his mother, forcing him to leave her far behind if he wanted to escape with his life.
The boy's feet slapped against the ground as he approached the glass door. Yanking it open, eh rushed into a cool white-walled lobby where a handful of...
The city buildings are below and the windows opening to the living rooms are windows into the soul of the city. The bookshelves, the home libraries, glow with the artifacts of their souls. I scan the horizon for those pulsars of literature, searching for life beyond the automatic.
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.
Love Alisha
Tyler read the note his girlfriend had left tacked to the corkboard in the kitchen. "Fucking crazy cunt," he said to the empty apartment.
There was a party in the upstairs of the building. On the roof. It was my building too. I had lived there for many years. Paying rent, not having a pet (not allowed), putting up with all the noise and rubbish in the hallways and out. There was a lot of nastiness, to be sure, but it was my home. Come to find out, its the building's owners giving the party. A corporate landlord business that aims to put themselves first and the people trying to live in their wasted spaces last. The party was buzzing, I could hear the...
This girl was smokin' hot and carried an umbrella that matched her gown. She was on her way to a sumo wrestling match between her husband, Xiao and his enemy, Chan. She was worried for her significant other, for he has been training for this match for his entire life -- this was his one moment to prove himself in the ring. For weeks, she watched Xiao drink eggs for breakfast and squats before bed. That said, she was confident that he would prove himself. She was confident that his training was enough to overtake his enemy.
She finally reached...
Donna started twisting and the world melted away. Her socks moved back and forth on the ceramic floor. her elbows were tucked in tight against her, her hands almost parallel to the floor. The other dancers around faded and disappeared. The walls crumbled and let in the cool night air and bright stars overhead.
Then that fell away as well, and there was just Donna and the music.
Tears welled in her eyes but did not fall. She shook her hips. The tears dried.
The song ended and the world exploded back into existence. Now she could see Harry with...
In a world where walking was obsolete, Pat often wondered what the ground would feel like beneath his feet. Would it be spongy and soft, giving just a little with each step? Perhaps it was cold and hard, slippery like ice. Sure, hovering about everywhere was convenient and not at all physically demanding, but he longed for his feet to, just once, touch the earth below him.
Everybody knew, though, that if you touched the ground, you'd instantly explode. Pat didn't feel like exploding any time soon, so he just kept on floating. Damn those scientists and their exploding topsoil...