The lunch bell rang. At 11:32 the wide wooden doors would open, letting out the throngs, the odor, the leaden feet. I stood against the wall, my heels pressed against the cinder block. There were the girls in braces and the boys with large pimples on their noses. There were skinny legs in miniskirts and protruding Adam's apples. I wrinkled my nose at the stench of body spray and scented lip gloss and listened to the crunch of paper bags.
I watched them, but they didn't notice me. They grouped around tables like lions around drinking holes, each one in...
I was playing basketball with Michael Jordan, Lebron James, Carmelo Anthony, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant. We were playing 3 on 3. It was Michael, Carmelo and myself. We were playing to 21. It was tied 19 to 19, win by two. We've got the ball up top, Melo checks it. I run and set a pick for Jordan across the baseline. Jordan slides off of me, while I set the pick. Kobe gets through pretty quickly, but not quick enough. Jordan catches it in the corner and does a quick turn around jumper. 20-19. Make it take it, so...
In hindsight, the solution was obvious. But then solutions always are when viewed backwards, from the end of the equation. It would be like saying I really oughtn't to have had that extra slice of cake, in hindsight I know that. But at the time, in the moment, faced with that cake all covered in icing and topped with cherries and accompanied with cream, the thick and runny kind, not having it wasn't an option. And then there was peer pressure and all of that complex mess to wade through. It had been the same at school, when she had...
You can't be a hero if you can't move your arms. You can't get the girl with a stutter like that. What can you do in your condition? What did you expect? How can you live without the means to earn respect?
Well, mister President. Maybe I won't be a hero. Maybe I will show you how a villain gets respect. Maybe I will let you watch. Show me what a hero is, mister President.
She stood there, covered in nothing but a crimson gown, shivering against the cold.
The rain fell down in a perfect arc around her, as the doorway spared her from the worst of the elements.
Glancing out, she caught my eye, and there was only one thing to do.
Or so I thought, but as I crossed the road, running to escape the never-ending sheetm with my coat over my head, I failed to see the bike that was heading, at speed, towards me.
A scream, a crumpling of flesh and metal and a release of the reason I crossed...
She'd have preferred the electric chair. The clinic's lobby was a stale tan color. It was April, and there was a Christmas movie on TV for Christ's sake.
Her name was called, and she went to sign the form, pay the co-pay, and was assured by the lady at the desk that this was indeed, confidential. She was asked if the man next to her was the father, or her boyfriend, or something. She lied and said no. He looked upset but ultimately should have been glad that she said no, he'd probably end up getting arrested for rape, anyway....
there once was a blank it attacked a man who had no hair. he was a very kind man but nobody could see hi. there are full of mysters in this world that nobody really knows. there was a dragon who attacked kenna boyer then kyle came to rescue her and they got married and babies. then lee Kamp got a divorce with his lady and married kyle and kenna was lonely. then kenna got together with a pink donkey his name was jimbo he loved to make shaped with hands and his feet were as brights as a hipopotimus...
The lamp wouldn't turn on.
Goddamn electricity company, Rob grumbled to himself, angrily flicked the switch a few more times just to make sure. This was the third power cut they had had this week, and it wasn't exactly the warmest of months to be sitting in a house at night. And without light flooding the streets and houses, the chance of an attack increased by about a thousand percent.
Night was falling, most people were already in their houses, door and windows securely bolted and nailed shut, wooden shutters and planks covering every possible entrance. Rob shut his own...
Vanquished.
That's how Cindy felt as she picked up the books she had dropped in front of her locker. The mean girls had had their say, and she was out.
Cindy supposed she should've known better than to strike up a relationship with Gary, the science room geek, as in the back of her mind she knew she'd wind up in social Siberia. Now even Brady, her football player boyfriend - ex-boyfriend, make that, had knocked the books out of her hands in disgust as he stalked off.
She sighed, knowing her days buzzing around as a queen bee were...
It was my "life's work," that's what they call such a thing, but it makes it sound so organised, like my life was something i contolled and I sensibly chose each morning to get up and expend my earthly energies on this tower. "You must have a lot of self-discipline" people say to me when I meet them at parties and we discuss our lives as though we see them clearly, as patterns of behaviour about which we can make broad statements. I try to answer, as best I can, saying something appropriately self-effacing.
What I'd like to tell them...