I look at the glistening gold clock hung onto the station wall. Time is ticking. So slowly I feel that time has frozen. I glance around me, people struggling to pull their trolley due to their 10 suitcases on them. Families excited to go somewhere different. I wonder where all these people are going. Is it to the grand canyon? Is it to the Middle East? Who knows. I look up and see my travel guide. All I have taken with me. We don't need the 10 suitcases or the travel itineraries. We don't need the unneeded stress of expired...
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...
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...
It confused them, the gnarled branch lying across rows of newly planted wheat. The tree had been healthy and the weather clear. A bob of bushy fur worked its way along the length of the fallen wood as a squirrel investigated the carnage.
Years from now, when the children had scaled the sheer rock face near their home, they'd think back to this day.
"And now where shall we climb?" the boy asked.
"There," the girl replied, a mountain peak under her finge
He stared at his reflection in the water for a long moment. He studied his eyes (the same dark brown that they had always been), the breeze rustling his sandy blond hair, the chisled, strong shape of his face. As he stared, trying to make sense of who was really staring back at him out of those deep brown eyes, the face began to change. The water that moments before had acted as his mirror now rippled and swirled, captivating his attention. He watched as the water changed his reflection to appear not as a young man with brown eyes...
He searched through the records, long dusky fingers flipping rapidly through file after file in the Archives. He kept going, past James, past Jenkins, past....there it was!
Private Justice Jernigan, 61st Georgia Infantry, Co. A. His hands fairly trembled as he pulled out the pension record, gazed at it, read it voraciously. There it was. Private Justice Jernigan, listed as "man servant" for William Jernigan. It was also noted that he was a confirmed soldier, having fought at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville before being crippled by a wound in his right knee. That confirmed the stories handed down by his parents...
Dearest Sarah,
I hope that all is well with our family. Please send my love to little Joey and his sister Louise. By my calculations, the temperature back home should have dropped significantly due to our efforts; there may even be snow. They tell me that I'll be allowed shore leave in a month, perhaps two; I look forward to seeing you then.
The light plays tricks on one's mind; we cannot look at it, only observe it through our computers, making it all essentially invisible. It strikes me as ominous that our enemy is so powerful that it is...
"This, class, is an example of a cemetery. Does anyone know what a cemetery was?"
"A cemetery was a place where bodies were buried up until the last century when death was eradicated."
"Yes. That is correct. It is quite sad, isn't it?"
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...
You know this comforting feeling of nostalgia? It always catches me up, when I look at old pictures, just like this. A life has been live - somewhere between the moment the picture was taken and this moment, right now.
With a picture you can breastfeed the burning desire to stop time.