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...
I open my eyes and see a light.
The sky is bright and everything seems dull.
Thats how he felt.
He was diagnosed with a bird desease that kills you at the age of 3 years old.
that was the last time I ever spoke Timmy.
Framed by white-washed plaster walls, she was a sharp contrast to the beige and grey of the street surrounding her. She reached up and brushed a stray lock of black hair from her forehead, looking over her right shoulder down the street. She was waiting, and her eyes scanned the oncoming traffic carefully, searching.
The young man across the street had stopped walking when he noticed her, a sudden burst of brilliant red against the subdued building. She never looked over at him, never stopped looking down the street at the oncoming mass of bicycles, cars, carts, trucks, and people...
I remember when it started. We were playing cards, as we had done for years. It's a a simple way to pass the time when visiting your grandparents in the country. The comfort in the shuffling by sturdy hands. Methodical. Solid. Dependable.
"I don't seem to remember how the game starts. Refresh my memory."
Confusion was set deep in those smiling brown eyes.
We made it through that game, but it was the last game. Forgotten card game rules progressed into forgetting how to car and confusion over items.
I visit her in the nursing home, wishing I could pull...
Billy was steadfastly unimpressed.
"Can we go home now?" he asked.
"But, Billy, don't you want to see the top of the beanstalk?" Sarah asked her son. She was confused. Why didn't he like the things other boys liked?
"No."
"Why not? Isn't it cool and -"
"It's a phallic object from the a fairy tale written by the unwitting supporters of the patriarchy," he interrupted.
Sarah hated this. Being lectured by your own sever-year-old was the worst. "Billy, quit saying silly things," she scolded. "It's just a beanstalk. It's supposed to be fun. Why can't you enjoy anything in...
," chuckled Doctor Disaster. Twenty years of supervillainy was finally starting to pay off. He adjusted the dials on his cheese-ray to provide maximum transmutation output, then settled in to wait.
When the Moon was fully transformed into a large ball of cheese, the change in tidal forces would wreak havoc on the coastal cities and infrastructure of the modern world. Billions would suffer; unless, or course, they acknowledged Dr. Disaster as their overlord.
There was only one small obstacle for him to overcome.
His archnemesis, Improbable Man, would be here soon. There was no way Disaster could think of...
Time.
Time is everything. It allows you to understand what happened to you, and why.
In a minute, two, three. She understood.
She understood more with each minute than the minute before.
They were separated because it was too dangerous for him to stay. She was protecting him, she was doing the right thing. Or at least, she was trying to convince herself that it was the right thing to do.
Time. She thinks about all these years they spent together ; All of these things they accomplished.
And she felt pride in her sadness.
They were finally together, but...
I'm trying to hang on, really I am. My arms are tired and my muscles burn as sweat and tears find their way into my eyes, making them sting. "Hang on," you say. What if I fall? What then? Can you catch me if I fall? I think I might slip. My fingers are striped red and white from gripping this rockface for such a long time and my head is spinning. I can't make sense of anything for one horrible moment and then I am surrounded by water. I realize that I have fallen into the ocean. The last...
Absent. Gone gone gone, baby gone. She's gone again. She's away. She's fled, she's left the scene. She's vanished. You want to call the cops, hire a bounty hunter, marshal the town, grab the pitchforks, light the torches, whatever it takes, to drag her back. You would do so much, you know you would.
It's the future you can't get a hold of. You know the past and you want to scratch the eyes out of the present, but you don't want to see what's ahead. Just bring her home. This is all. Anything now, you'll do anything. Come back....
She made pie again. She never lets me have any, but this time she made one huge mistake: placing the pie on the windowsill. Quiet as a mouse, I sneak over to the window and hide in the bushes as she looks around for me. When she doesn't see me, she shrugs and turns away. Fast as a rabbit, I jump up onto the windowsill, knock the pie to the ground, and quickly eat. The old lady peers out her window and shouts at me. I'm probably going to go to bed without dinner, but it's worth it. I got...