As he exited the train, he realized he had forgotten his bag. The Bag. As he rushed back onto the train to grab it, the train began to pull out of the station, and the bag was gone. Someone had gotten off of the train with it. As this realization hit him, he snatched his phone out of his pocket. It was his only hope. As soon as the Woman In Charge answered, he told her his problem. He could hear her quick tapping from her computer keyboard, as she told him, " Get off at the nearest stop. Turn...
I heard it again. "It's hell getting old! One, to say this is to show total disregard to the countless lives cut short never having the opportunity to experience all life has to offer living to an old age. Two, to say this is to show little or no realization that a lifelong of memories can only be gathered living to an old age. That's no hell to me. I will savor every moment. It sure beats the alternative.
The results were in. Now all I had to do was decide whether to go and get them. They wouldn't tell me over the phone, despite my rather pathetic begging. It wasn't done, it wasn't their procedure. It had to be done face to face.
I doubted that good news would have to be done face to face. If it was good news surely they would have said, "It's good news, you don't have to worry any more, you don't have it."
Because that was easy. I would be delighted, of course, and the person on the other end of...
You know how people always use that metaphor of how an iceberg shows a small portion of the story, but the ice travels much deeper underneath? I was quite literally experiencing that right then. Both externally and internally. My chest was burning for air and my body was thrashing up against the coarse underneath of the ice pool. I didn't care that my eyes were stinging or the water in my mouth was gushing down my throat. What may have been a beautiful glistening lake was now a dark trench of terror. I had never known what snow was like...
2070, by 2070 i want all the bad things to be gone. i want there to be a cure to all the bad things that affect our world. cancer, gone. war, gone. i think that by 2070 the world should just have figured all of its issues out and be a eutopia. by 2070 i want peace on earth, no more starving children, no more impoverished nations. but it starts with now, this generation. i feel like before now everyone has put issues off to the next generation. But it cant keep happening. by 2070 i want the children of...
It was a pleasure to burn.
Holding the papers over the flame and watching as the flames spread over each one. Swallowing the words and memories as it went. The demons danced in the flames until there was nothing more for them to devour. Until the fire had taken every last word. Every last sentence and turned them into nothing more than a pile of ash on the ground.
Each piece of paper a different memory. A different time, another thing that needed to be burnt away. Each strike of the match burst into a flash of bright light. Each...
The magic of it was so simple, so obvious that she found it hard to beleive that no one else could see it, that no one else had attempted it before.
Just step off the ledge and let everything fall away. Remove the shackles that are holding your feet to the ground. Let go of the mortgage payments, the deadlines, the constant bombardment from advertising companies telling you that you absolutely needed their product in your life.
Forget about the birthday cards you must send or the work emails you need to write.
Realise that they're not important, that none...
"Carry the wreath, Henry, your mother is waiting."
Father's terse words spoken from the side of his mouth, muffled by his coat's collar and the stub of a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. He fancied himself a small-town Bogart. He was the only one.
Two days past christmas and we're out before dawn, getting decorations.
"For next year. Don't worry about it," he says, pulling the flask from the inside pocket. "Carry it another few blocks and maybe I'll give you a sip."
He drinks and staggers and coughs. The butt falls from his mouth and I crush...
Birds have always terrified me. Sinister black eyes. The ability to fly. The fact that they evolved from dinosaurs and you know they are just waiting, biding their time until they decide to revolt and take over the world.
So, having to feed my aunt's cockatoo while she was away on vacation, was a constant struggle between fear and responsibility.
I would go to her house after school, and pour the seed or feed or whatever he ate through the bars of his cage. I then turned on the radio. The cockatoo apparently liked the classic rock station while he...
The daring were punished but Alexia hated living at boarding school. She slipped her feet out from under the blanket on her bed, already fully clothed. Quietly, so as not to wake the other girls, she walked to the window, grabbed a warm shawl to wrap around her shoulders, and flung her legs out over the edge of the window sill. She carefully propelled herself forward, flew gracefully through the air, and landed on the ground beneath her window.
A smile spread across her face as she began to walk away from the large brick building that had been her...