The mail box never had anything I wanted so I went onto the next home. Usually I picked up a few interesting pieces from No 6, it was a busy household. But no 4 only ever contained a thin airmail so I knew there wasn't any cash. Until last Sunday that is. Brown envelope, thick. Tore it open around the corner of the block, $2,000.
I never realised the significance of what I'd done, not that day, nor that week. But first week in February I knew I was in trouble. The house had been under surveillance. Not by the...
Decked out in a tight green speedo, Charles swung open his screen door, strutted down the three concrete stairs into his dilapidated back yard and was instantly wet.
The rain occupied every inch of sky. Somewhere there must be sun, but not in Indiana. Charles watched the clouds slumber in their beds, unmoving. Now was noon though, and soon would be two PM. These were prime tanning hours, and how, how, did Charles need a tan.
Hosts of elder-cruises were always tan, and this being his first elder-cruise, he was going to be a tan host. As an elder himself...
Bobby had lived in his imagination as a child. Within the universe of his mind, he was an action hero, an iron-willed daredevil. He could meet any challenge, snatch victory from the jaws of any defeat, bravely pull off any stunt.
Now that he was older, he was learning more and more that he would probably never trade tracer bullets with South American guerillas, or infiltrate the secret Appalachian hideout of a band of communist child kidnappers, or balance on the hood of a car, guns blazing, while pursuing Somalian bank thief pirates across a perilous frozen lake.
But maybe,...
One misty morning, the green-clad man woke up to his usual alarm clock. He looked out his window to see the sun shining heavily. "Jolly good! I can finally get a tan, and women will find me attractive!" He exclaimed as he rushed out from his covers to get dressed. As he was walking out the front door, he heard an unfortunate newscaster announce, "Well, if you're planning to go to the beach today, you might want a change in plans. Turns out lots of rain is headed in only a couple of hours. It's a good thing I already...
Dear friends:
I am standing in the field. The field where he died. The field where, for a time, I wished I had died. Sometimes still do.
This photo he took of the field was humbling. Ground-level. Weeds blowing. A branch sticking up. Forked. On that day he was forked. And I was blown. Blown flat.
Shit, guys, that sounds so dumb, doesn't it. I meant to write it on a postcard. I meant to get this photo printed -- Snapfish or something -- and have them sent to me glossy. And get one of those fine Sharpies and scribble...
Wine
cat food
Ben & Jerry's
pay the neighbor kid for mowing
TV dinner
AA batteries
new shoes for girl's night out
stop by the oil change place
Lean Cuisine
carrots
new lipstick
haircut @ 3p Wed
Salmon
baby red potatoes
condoms
clean the house
Steak
lettuce
lawn mower
clean out other half of garage
Beer
Doritos
upgrade cable package
mow the lawn
Hydrogen peroxide
ice pack
makeup w/ heavier foundation
dentist appt. Mon @ 1p
Rat poison
Shovel
Tarp
Remove car dome light
Wine
cat food
Ben & Jerry's
Pay the neighbor kid for mowing
It was the quiet way Fron did the simple things - anticipating a glass of water, settling to a joint task, silently prompting something urgently forgotten - that Wilhelm noticed more than anything else. She would just eye smile at him when he, yet again amazed at her casual thoughtfulness, would gratify his mutterings. As if words were not necessary.
It was as bewitching as it was uncanny. He felt she could pluck a dropped desire out of the air, well before its longing weight would shatter it on the hard stone floor of the bakery. Slowly, quickly, her careless...
"Remind me why I'm doing this again?" I asked my sister as I folded the paper.
"Because you love me."
"Right," I rolled my eyes as I finished the fold. "Done."
I showed my handiwork.
"That's suppose to be a paper crane?" My sister questioned. "It looks like a crane that has been run over by a steam roller."
"I tried," I said as I added it to the tiny flock of paper cranes we had be making for the past half an hour. "Again, remind me why we're doing this."
"Because, in myth, if you make a thousand paper...
Marie Antoinette viewed the four candles on the cake. Four years. Had it really been so long?
She remembered the first time she saw the little girl selling flowers in the street. She had sent her servant to purchase a bunch, and the look of pure joy on the urchin's face had melted her heart. So much payment for such a small thing as money.
And yet she knew the importance. Marriages were made for money, Kingdoms were allied for gains in power and wealth. The day to day drudgery of the lower classes was all for the sake of...
Jack had checked every store. He'd gone to every hardware, garden or nursery store, and then he'd gone back.
They gave him the same spiel everywhere he went. "No seeds, dahling," they'd say. "The apples had no seeds this year."
Despairing, he sat down at the wooden bar, rested his elbows and called for the tender. "Gimme a hard cider. You're best stuff."
"Sorry," the tender said, laying her voluptuousness on the bar across from him. "No apples this year, means no cider. No apples last year, means no cider. No apples for five years, no cider. Get the picture?"...