I'm in love with a robot. I know, I know, that sounds strange. But I am. It's name, or at least the name I gave it, is David. That was the name of my boyfriend. He died a few years ago. I designed David to be exactly like him. I love David, I really do. Although we cannot do anything physical, my heart is not longer broken. I feel...full again, full of love and emotion. I'm happy with David. David doesn't know he's a robot. He looks like a human, he looks like David. He talks like Davis, his personality...
The girl with the blond pony tail sits down on the grass with her fluffy pink skirt creating a cloud around her little body. She bends down and cups her little hands to the ground. Gingerly, she peeks at the treasure in her hands, lets out a shriek and runs to me. "Mommy! Mommy! Look at him!" Her little arm is thrust out to me and she lets me peek inside her hands. "Isn't he cute, Mommy?" I smile and tell her that the frog is very cute. Seeming satisfied with my answer, she runs back under a large tree,...
"Adam! Give me the Pelican! Now!" John half screamed half sobbed. "It's mine!"
"No mine!" Adam clutched the Pelican to his chest. "My turn!"
"But mommy gave it to me! My Pelican!" John grabbed for it. "Mine!"
Adam would not relent. "No!"
"I'm gonna tell mommy that you took my Pelican!"
"Boys!" Both men looked up. "You are 30 years old. Adults! You should not be acting like 3 year olds!"
Both men hung their heads. "Yes mommy..."
"Now Adam. Give John back his pelican. I'll get you your Teddy bear, alright?"
"Yes mommy..." Adam slowly gave his brother back...
One minute she was on the page of a manga novel and the next she was standing in the rain. I stared at her from my seat in the cafe. One minute I was reading about her and the next I was watching her loo around, confused. I jumped up out of my seat and raced outside. "Sumi! Sumiko!" She turned to look. It was her, I was certain. Sumiko, from my favorite manga. She was not of this world. "Sumiko, I am here to help you..." What else could I say? She was lost in the middle of the...
"Ice Snakes! I will not let you beat me into the Olympics!" Woolly Mammoth shouted as he watched the Ice Snakes perform their gymnastics trick. He was shushed by the judges. "Be quiet or you'll be disqualified." The Ice Snakes smirked as they completed their routine. Woolly Mammoth was next. He stepped up onto the trampoline and stated his name. "I am Woolly Mammoth." He started his routine. He flipped, jumped, and twirled. He blew away the judges completely. When it was time to announce who would be going to the Olympics, "Polar Bear, Sloth, Penguin, and Woolly Mammoth." The...
It was the fall that surprised me most. I had never been a graceful person, and I was no stranger to the more than occasional stumble and bumble, but to actually lose my balance, to land hard on my rump, feet splayed out in front of me with no chance to catch myself, that was a surprise.
Luckily, I didn't land on my trombone, which was strapped to my back in a relatively unprotected cloth gig bag. Trombone players are marginally useful as it is, and trust me, NOBODY needs a trombone player with a flat bell or bent slide....
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. She held a bowl in one outstretched hand. Her eyes were studying the gravel on the road, not rising to the gaze of passersby who occasionally dropped a coin into her bowl. Her mother was dead, her father was missing, she had no siblings that she knew of, she had only a red gown and a bowl. When the bowl filled with money at the end of the day, as it often did, she would take it to a nearby shop and exchange it for rice...
It was the fall that surprised me most. One minute you're standing and the next you're plummeting towards the earth. Time seemed to slow. I counted the stories of the building as I whizzed by them. Twenty, twenty one, twenty two. My last thoughts probably shouldn't be counting.
I thought my life was supposed to flash in front of me. I closed my eyes for a moment but nothing popped into my head at all. In fact, I was slightly irritated that I had stopped counting. I was probably about forty floors up. I should have paid more attention in...
Jolene woke slowly, feeling extremely cold and uncomfortable.
She was indoors, but lying on a cold, carpet-less floor. It was dark, save for a glimmer of light peeking through the outline of a door.
She couldn't remember how she came to be where she was. This realization frightened her; it was not her home, nor any place she knew. She got to her feet and tried to open the door.
It was locked.
A sound of sliding metal; light came through a grate near eye-level. "I see you're finally awake," she heard, in a voice so heavily distorted she couldn't...