Kelsey had always hated Kent. Kent was a skinny, chaste, and weak man. His skin was light and ashy, his hair not blonde but not quite brown. His teeth could have been more white. She hated the way he talked, all whispery. His voice, unreliable. His feelings, pushing up and making this more of a life.
Kelsey looked in the mirror and hated Kent so much it hurt. She hated him with sorrow. She hated him with Rage.
She decided to kill him.
She took a knife in her left hand.
She held out Kent's right hand, as if showing...
Once in beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. Her eyes were rolled back in her head, studying the minute details of the back of her scull, while her mind twisted through the rails of reality.
One moment Beijing, 2010. The next moment Cairo in the 1940's, then London in the Victorian era, fast as electricity moved down her synapses and shattered through her mind, she was gone again. The great australian plains. The Transiberian Rail. The nineteen hundreds, the dark ages, the Triassic period, the great black wasteland that existed before existence, and in...
The viel of morning haze parted and she could see clearly now their large felt wings beating against the breeze. Pressing a hand to the headphone to try to pick up a sound, however faint. Quiet now, her breath held tightly. "Damn wont the wind stop just for a second." Finally, and she was not sure if it was even being picked up by the recorder, no time to check. Might miss my chance if I fiddle with it, I just hope its on. The sound was so soft it might be imagined. A voice, then a response. So small...
The disco ball was turning. I couldn't believe it. The big night had finally arrived. The day I had been waiting for for four years: My senior prom. I had gotten the nerve to ask the homecoming queen, Jill, to the dance. I remmeber I was so nervous when I asked her. It was during 4th period English class. My teacher was asking us to do some stupid thematic connection activity, and I leaned over and said, "Hey, Jill, umm....would you...." She looked at me like I had 1,000 heads, and they were not handsome heads. I started to falter....
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...
He was standing on the sidewalk below, jumping up and down. A passer-by might think he was crazy, but she knew better. He always did things with good reason. She smiled at him as she walked by and murmured, "Hi." He looked around like a startled deer caught in a floodlight, but she was gone. She had dissolved into the doorway.
Maybe he's really happy, she thought, as she walked softly up the stairs, careful not to wake the sleeping house. Sometimes, when she was happy, she felt like doing that. And she felt like never, ever, ever stopping. Maybe...
Spinning.
As I drift towards the ground, I spin and the world spins around me. The blues and greens and browns flash past, a kaleidoscope around the carousel of my descent.
The spun silk canopy spinning with me and giving an orange glow from above as the Sun's rays find it in the blue, blue sky.
The Earth rushes up, faster now. Still spinning, I begin to tense. Remember the instructions.
Relax.
Let your legs go limp.
Tuck and roll.
The spinning stops with a thud.
I knew that I could rely on her. No matter what the task, no matter how impossible the time frame or the scope of the task involved, she would get it done as quickly as humanly possible, and generally with a smile on her face, although sometimes she could look a little harrassed when I told her things needed to be done immediately. Producing 175 photocopies of a document which needed to be physically taken to six different areas all within 45 minutes and still whilst answering the phone and dealing with enquirers had been a little bit unreasonable, I...
She'd always come running when I called. I couldn't resist her blonde hair and silky skin, or the fact she was always willing to sleep with me on summer and winter breaks from school. I'd come over in the morning; sometimes she had just woken up. We'd go up to her room, with lime-colored walls and rainbow-striped sheets. Entangled, entranced, and full of ecstasy. She'd get me a glass of water after we kissed after sleeping together. I hid my bike behind her house in case her mom came home unexpectedly. Our first time she was 15, and I was...
Goodnight!
I said that to him five hours ago and I have still yet to join him.
Damned insomnia.
Sucking the life from my brain, the energy from my soul and making me want to twist the necks of birds as they mock me with their dawn chorus.
How did I get here? Consorting with the godless hours. Joyless hours offering endless opportunities to think. To think about the past, the grey future and the uncertainty of existence.
I click the remote onto channels spewing out drab stories or, in some cases, none at all.
'Closed' it says on the...