Once in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. She hugged her hat to her chest, and lightly tapped on the door, and prepared herself for the worst. Her lips were chapped and as cold as icicles, because of the cold winter air. When there was no answer. A tear drop slid down her grimy, and filthy face. She knocked a little louder this time, and when now one replied. She slid down the wall, sitting on the pavement. A man walked by, and spit on to the step in front of her feet. She...
Highrises and skyscrapers never scared her. Layer upon layer of people and things were a comfort; like extra blankets on top of beds in the winter. The noise of floors reaching to the sky acted as a lullabye.
So when he asked her to move to a place where the highest high was just as high as bird could fly, and the people were all tied to the land, she said yes but thought no. No I can not be alone. No, I need layers of people to protect me. No, I need to be up high, away from the...
The world was ending. Not in the sense of Deep Impact or Independence Day. No, this wasn't a big budget Hollywood thriller. Simply told, the world was ending because drinking water was drying up, the ozone layer was nearly kaput, and we genetically engineered vitamins out of fruits and vegetables for blemish free skin. The lucky who weren't dropping dead of dehydration were losing their teeth to nutrient deficiency and getting 3rd degree burns from the sun.
Years earlier, NASA had found a planet that might support life and as things became more dire on Earth, they spent more time...
The sheep were at pasture. The air was still and crisp, silent but for the rustle of leaves and the drift of a "baa" from the content grazers.
Restless, I turned my eyes to the mountains that were the backdrop of the field, letting my eyes rove over the gray craggy slopes up to the snowy white caps that scraped at the belly of the sky. I felt the chill creep up my spine.
Adventure stretched just beyond these fences. One day, I would become more than this, more than a humble shepard. One day, I would scale those mountains...
It was so completely and utterly disgusting. the boys were throwing the book round the room while she fumed and screamed at them. the other girls teamed up to stop them. after they were kicked out of the classroom and punished, they just joked around and acted like it was all fun and games. after that incident, that was where i stepped in. i went to the library and wrote down every book in the database that concerned dealing with bullying and peer pressure, then brought it to the teacher as a list of references she could look to. but...
Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up. She was 15, in a house full of her friends, and some 20 and 21-year-olds that were there for Ali's older sister. The hookah was on the table, the alcohol free-flowing, and she stood out to all the guys in the room. On;y 15, and they were already eyeing her. Zak, his younger brother, his best friend, and she was completely clueless. Kerri went upstairs to sleep around 2am and later found out she had been followed up to Ali's room...
Waves lapped at her toes as she stood in the wet sand and looked across the sound to the island. A small plume of smoke rose from the chimney, hidden behind black spruce and birch trees.
She could see the canoe tied to the island's dock, rocking gently with the waves.
The image of the waves coming in both directions unearthed a memory or feeling she had kept buried for quite some time. Tim's waves had pushed in one direction and her's had surge in the opposite.
"What was in the middle. What pushed them apart," she wondered.
Now she...
It was the ugliest building in the world, located in the festering pit of Birmingham. It was meant to be a shining beacon to all of the inhabitants; literally it was intended to reflect the sun into the slums and make the city a brighter place. The mutants that inhabited the cities ever-growing slums and shanty towns began to despise the monstrosity and watched those who frequented it with distrust, anger and jealously.
They had no idea what was inside its walls, and they would never find out.
The Duchess sipped her champagne slowly while the cameras flickered around her,...
The water was clear. It was really vodka in her glass, though. Tonight she was getting wasted, for sure. Today's class lectures and her shitty breakup with Owen had Tonya crying about every 20 minutes in her dorm room, and she would run out of class like she had to go to the bathroom, but throwup and sob for about 5 minutes and nonchalantly go back to the lecture. Now she was at O'Callaghan's downtown and her vodka on the rocks was getting the job done, for now. She liked drinking straight, it got her drunk faster. Next she would...
The floor lights illuminated her, a glowing angel against the grimy backdrop of the darkened stage. The crowd was quiet as she adjusted the microphone, lowering it from the previous performer. Her eyes opened wide, drinking in the dimly-lit crowd, her mouth parted and she began to sing.
My drink was halfway to my mouth when she released those first few notes and it stayed there, my arm unable to move. Her voice was hypnotizing, mesmerizing.
I floated up, her melody acting like a hook. I looked down and saw my body still sitting there, the glass still halfway between...