As I look into the sky, the moon rises from its slumber showing its beauty in the night sky. The stars sit close to the moon, closer than before. As the lights in all the houses turn off and the children hop into bed, I see a star. A start like no other. Speeding like lighting towards the moon. I question myself, 'is it a star?'. The 'star' hits the moon spinning it off track. I look down at the wharf, the water surrounding the land has frozen. The tides no longer come crashing in. I stand and stare at...
She normally didn't speak up. She was the quiet, reserved type. The type who'd sit at the bar with her friends, and just silently listen to the conversation around her.
It was Julie that got her frustrated, though. Not just frustrated, angry. Julie was talking about the camp she'd sent her son to, one of those camps that promotes a more 'traditional' lifestyle. They advertised it as being 'moral' and 'healthy'.
The young woman had no children of her own, she was far too young for that. She worried that she was wrong for telling somebody else to raise their...
The children were not at school. They had better, bolder, brighter things to be doing. The teachers didn't notice. They never did.
They ran out while at break, amidst the confusion of supposed bruises and teases and stolen lunches. The gates were easy enough to get past. Each girl's hair was neatly done up with a hairpin, after all.
The sky was bluer once they got out, it seemed. So they ran, ran hard, ran free, ran wild. They quickly enough leaped through the confines of urbanity and into spaces never explored before, wild forests filled with strange creatures. Each...
Heaven; such a harmonious place.
With luscious trees and elevated mountains.
A lighthouse standing tall in the distance;
An lingering canoe floating in the shimmering lake.
Billowy clouds soaring across the sky.
A car driving down the road.
God is in presence;
We are in heaven.
Elspeth closed her eyes and desperately tried to focus on the frantic noises coming from her headphones. The general static briefly gave way to a hideously drawn out scream, followed by a voice she recognised as belonging to the captain of her unit.
"Fire at will! That is an order, sergeant! They're coming in!"
The note of panic was unmistakeable.
When Elspeth finally opened her eyes, she knew why. The sky was filled with terrible, shrieking pink wings, and every piece of air seemed to want to attack her. Summoning her last reserves of strength, she desperately raised her plasma...
Every day, the old man walked his old dog in the park. A chain fence separated the park from the road. Also, every day, a squirrel would come down out of a nearby tree, and run along the top of the fence. He came for the dog. Chattering, squeaking, he ran back and forth, incensing the dog. This drove the old mutt absolutely batshit. They had a conversation:
chatter chatter chatter
ROO ROO ROO
chatter chatter
ROO ROO
every day it was like this. The squirrel was doing it to torture the dog, you see. As the years went on,...
A breeze is a current of air
A portent that hasn't a care
For the cold that it causes
...
..
Please forgive me these pauses
The author was killed by a bear
I met my wife in an elevator, stuck between floors. We planned the rest of our lives while we waited for rescue. She wore plaid; me, my typical blue jeans and T-shirt. She was coming from work, me from school. I seem to recall it was something in her eyes. The way they watched me shift, the way they followed the movement of my lips as I explained why I was still single at 30. The deliveryman pretended not to notice us, and we thought that was the funniest thing. He stood under 5 feet tall, and for over 3...
The seven of them gathered around the long dinner table and silently shuffled the serving platters clockwise. Mechanical arms held, then spooned and dropped food, taping the edge lightly against the plate. Then back in the dish and passed the person to their left, and they received from the right.
Pitchers of iced water sat sweating in the middle, surrounded by short glasses, and borders by salt and pepper shakers and piles of napkins.
When all the plates were filled and the serving dishes stopped moving they leaned their heads down and a silent prayer ran from the moving lips....
Scott winced as he saw the woman spread the fingers of her left hand on the table. Of the standard complement of five, she had only her pinky and thumb remaining. The others appeared to have been cleanly sliced off.
"Ouch," he said, taking notes on her chart. "What was your occupation?" he asked politely, trying not to let the sight bother him.
"Data entry clerk," she said in a laconic, bitter tone.
"I, ah, yes, I can see how that would be ..." Scott coughed to disguise his confused verbal fumbling. He wrote some more, primarily as an excuse...