I took a ball, and threw it against the brick wall, to have it bounce back. I threw it again and again, to have it come back, back into my hands. I thought about my decisions, about how I threw away my future, and my life. He told me to do it. I know he did. I blame myself, not him. I threw the ball again, and heard the loud crack of it bouncing of the wall. When I hurled it the next time, I threw it as hard as I could, and rocketed back to me, through my legs,...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. She gazed upwards towards the empty whiteness where the sky used to be. Outside, the streets were filled with people doing the same. Cars had screeched to a halt. Things were dropped, and dog leashes let go of.
The sun, the moon, the stars, the clouds - nothing was there. Only, they weren't looking just at the nothingness. All eyes had narrowed to the one dead pixel. Hanging in the sky, like a tiny afterglow of a tiny what-used-to-be.
It was dark, cold. I felt the wind, colder than ice, blow into my face a large number of sharp ice crystals. "Where am i?" i thought. I walked down a hall, made completely of ice. The air was not only cold, but had a bitter smell to it: like torture and an evil queen. I walked into a throne room, by the looks of it, anyway. The only spot of color in the room was the bright yellow hood the person standing before the queen wore, and it was quickly fading. The first thing i noticed about the room...
Fault. Always so unclear.
Perhaps the fault was mine. Perhaps I shouldn't have pushed so hard. All I wanted was a taste. Just a glimpse of what she was thinking. Was I really in the wrong for that?
"Look. Just... Tell me what's wrong."
"I don't want to."
Obstinate. Here I am, just trying to figure out what's wrong with her or if she's okay and she doesn't want to share with me.
"You know you can tell me."
"I can't."
"I'm not going to judge you for anything, you know."
A shrug. Too bad, she's saying to me. You...
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...
, he assured the frightened convenience store clerk. The first thing was potato chips. He needed potato chips RIGHT NOW, he told her, or he would literally explode, because there were bombs strapped to him.
Don't worry about the bombs, he said again, trying to calm her down. But get me those potato chips quickly. I want the deep-fried sour cream-and-onion flavored type, he said, speaking slowly and enunciating so that there would be no screw-ups.
He had the advantage. She would be forced to retreat behind the counter, retrieve the bag of succulent potato chips that he knew she...
The dapper man picked up a penny. He inspected it, rolling it over, back and forth in the palm of his hand. satisfied, he pocketed it and kept walking down the street, a whistle blowing through his thin lips.
He stopped at a newspaper stand and debated over the local or the national paper. He glanced from side to side down the street and asked the man working there if he had anything more adult.
The clerk gave him a knowing nod and reached under the counter. The dapper man pulled at the neck of his suddenly tight shirt. He...
I lay siege to it. This was war and a fast and furious assault seemed the surest course. There was a front to push forward, barriers to overcome, landmines to be defused. I was young and relentless and eager; I couldn't lose. After every foray I watched the scaffolding rise again, higher and higher and each time I tore it down, waiting for the walls to fall. Eventually I tired of the advance and retreat. New orders came. I couldn't win this battle and there were other wars to fight.
Years later I returned to that once fragile country. A...
That fucking cat. How is despised that insignificant ball of mutualized space.
How is its calico and limber body silently creeped around corner, caused my jaw to clench and my palms to quiver. I would do anything to take that rodent and dismember it's jointed body.
Don't get me wrong I am not one to be murderous or even harmful for that matter, but my hatred for that that fury thing lingers in every moment of its presence.
Why couldn't she just leave it to suffer that gloomy saturday? The pound was stale and seeped with death, just where that...
The drive had been long and hot, and Mac's head barely cleared the top of the steering wheel. Betsy was being an incorrigible fuss, and Mac was silently fantasizing about slamming on the brakes and shoving her out of the passenger side door.
Maybe it was the hat.
He asked her, begged her not to wear the hat, but she knew it would get under his skin like nothing else (except maybe singing show tunes as loudly as possible, so she popped it on her head with a smile and hopped into the truck without saying a word.
That was...