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...
Safura M Bhapavit had believed that the secret of eternal life had lain in discovering a relationship between religion and science. He had scoured his native India, from tropical south to mountainous north, in search of evidence that would lead him to the human being who most closely represented God, or Buddha, or however one choose to express it. The longing for this eternal life, Safura argued, must have its roots in the tangible and the real, despite centuries of confusion and myth.
He found Jane as he getting out of a taxi at Heathrow Airport, ready for the next...
He counted the cards in his hand, five: an ace of spades, a king of spades, ten of diamonds, nine of diamonds, and a two of clubs. His lips were terse and his eyes sunk deep into his head, staring at the hand he was dealt. Clearing his throat, he bunched the cards up, fanned them out, and bunched them up again, lightly tapping the small deck against the table. The game was poker, ace high, and John only had his land to back him up. John thought that if a man didn't have any money, well, at least he...
"I know you're up there," she screamed against the roar of waves crashing on the rocks. "And I know you can hear me. We have to talk, please come down."
A tugboat groaned out in the bay, and the gulls squawked overhead.
"It's bright enough today, you don't need to be up there.Please come down."
The wind whistled.
"Fine. Be that way. Make me stand down here and yell. I don't care. Actually, this is the perfect metaphor for our relationship. Me down here trying to talk to you and you boarded up in your useless tower. You think you...
Dark spires pierce the night, reaching for full moons and distant stars. It's more than most could contend with. We sleep, conjuring pistol dreams while the tall buildings and statues do the work of our desires of actively attaining the beauty that this world has to offer. Every day we awake to the soft sunlight shining through our windows believing that today is the day that we will quit our jobs and move to distant cities and start anew. But these thoughts dim as we put on our clothes for work and eat more morning breakfast and continue on with...
It was a vast open space. Where the distant hills cling to the horizon, and the blue sky above curves to fasten to the mountain tops below, and desert sand cloaks sheet metal on the floor, stretching as far as the eye can see. It was an illusion…
This is the place where all things die.
This is the place where it ends.
A man in a dark suit approaches me and shakes my hand.
"I’m glad you could make it."
As blood runs across the sand, and the sun drops, and red sky filters between the moments of openness...
Until now, she'd never thought of herself as pretty. Not in the conventional way that her sisters were. She was unfortunate enough to have her father's nose, as steep as a ski slope, and her hair wasn't thick and glossy as spun gold like her mothers, but black and frizzy.
Glancing at the man, she smiled coyly. Flirting didn't come naturally to her. In fact, social interaction of any kind had never been her forte. She much preferred the quietness of her attic bedroom. No company except for her cat Tabitha. She had been happy that way, for years. People...
Standing on the edge, my mind was white. No; it was clear. Nothing I had experienced in my 18 years was going through my head. Not my mother's voice, or the orange corduroy couch in my Aunt Lucy's basement.
And then I jumped. Rocks and crashing waves below this cliff in Martha's Vineyard, our family vacation spot. Rushing into my head were thoughts of my first kiss, first time, smoking pot under the high school bleachers... My dad's face when I learned to drive, my mom's when I crashed the minivan.
My white sneakers were about to get soaking wet,...
I was going to tell her the truth...honesty is always the best policy...right? But then I wasn't ready just yet. What would she think? How would she react? Would anything ever be the same?
"No. I can't tell her." I muttered quietly to myself. I hunched over another inch on my bar stool. I was alone although surrounded by patrons at the hotel called The Silent Sleeper's pub. The TV roared football overhead. I could hardley notice anything else in the room but the grain of the wood on the wooden bar counter in front of me, as I grew...
"Lorenzo, no!" King Tremain howled, his eyes blazing with the flames of anger and betrayal.
Lorenzo, a traitor to his superior acquaintance, wielded the gleaming sword, it's sharp edges threating to destroy the feeble man who lay before it.
Despite the cries of sheer terror that penetrated the air of the castle dining room, Lorenzo's mind failed to subvert its attention from anything but his original goal. 'Overthrow the king'.
He swiftly raised the shining blade above his head and in one final burst of adrenaline, Lorenzo brought it downwards, wholeheartedly piercing the King who lay helplessly