She could tell I was faking it. She can always tell when I'm faking it. Something about the way my eyelids droop slightly, the way I chew at my bottom lip before I talk.
"It looks lovely."
"It doesn't. You're lying." Somehow, she always knows.
"Okay, it doesn't. It's a hideous dress. But you do. You always look lovely."
"Creep." She smiles, and swats at me with the scarf she's about to wrap around her shoulders instead of a coat.
I love the way she looks when she gets ready. How she frowns at the mirror when she puts on...
The wind blows between my toes. It tickles the little hairs on my big toes and reminds me I forgot to shave them. Those two little hairs on each big toe make me feel like I'm never totally girly. All these scars on my legs, too. The scar from the broken beer bottle my dad left in his car. Bad memories attached to that one. Eleven stitches, and a trip to the beach after where I couldn't get my leg wet. Those aren't the bad memories tangled up with that scar. The beer bottle, the alcoholism, the drugs: the father...
"Hello, that was quick. Only 40 minutes on hold…"
"How can I… help…you today?"
"I stepped on my wallet and cracked my credit card. I need a replacement, please."
"Are you the primary card holder?"
"No. That's me wife."
"Can I speak to the p…"
"She's at work. I don't have a job."
"I need to speak to th…"
"You didn't last time… it took an hour of me convincing you I'm authorised on this account, but…"
"I need to speak to the primary card holder."
"But I'm authorised to access this account! Last time I had to talk to...
My feet ached, but it was well worth it. Standing in line in the freezing cold, clutching my ticket with the number 134 on it, I think I had a pretty good chance this time. The one hundred and thirty-three people in front of me were all bundled up too, scarves wound around their faces against the blowing wind, hats pulled down low on their faces. We all had sneakers on, waiting for the doors to open so that we could stampede into the store and wrestle with each other for the units the store had stocked. I looked at...
I was mesmerized by the number of mirrors it took to cover the surface area. I began calculating in my head, when suddenly my arm was yanked forward by a woman wearing enough hair spray to suffocate the entire discotheque. Her smile was wide and gregarious and I counted the teeth exposed by her ruby red lips. She shouted something at me, leaning her head in a coy yet inviting manner. We stepped on the color-changing tiles and I estimated the surface area by counting the squares on the perimeter. The beat increased and my heart pumped faster to match....
The cord wrapped around the foundation of the building and led into the hedges separating the two parcels of land. Thick as a forearm and coal-black, it seemed oddly out of place way out here in the Yukon. He follows it through the hedging, sacrificing the soft underskin of his forearm to the barbs and branches which leave a series of shallow scratches, which soon seep small droplets of bright-red oxygenated blood.
It is overgrown past the shrubbery, with wild grasses and weed growing archlike over the alien wiring. He concludes it must have been here for some time, though...
The giant knelt, and threaded the palm trees through his fingers. Lifted his hand slowly, snapping the thinner branches, but not the strongest, fruit baring limbs. He cupped the six or seven coconuts he pulled free and shook them.
The giant's thumb flicked the coconuts into his mouth one at a time. The shells crunched weakly between his teeth.
He finished his handful and set about feeling around the tips of the trees for another. A monkey watched him and sat there trying to figure out a way to profit from this situation, without
Peasants. They wouldn't understand. Or perhaps couldn't. Yes. I like that. Their brains too small to grasp the magnitude of this installation.
My art has always... eluded those without intellect.
For example, to the untrained eye and mind, my first installation looked like a series of bricks, forming a wall. If you didn't notice the mortar, it looked just like that. A wall. "Oh, hey, is this the wall guy?" That's how the peons remembered me. The wall guy.
My next installation wasn't much better. Televisions playing to televisions, broadcasting video of televisions. This was before Facebook, even. Don't tell...
The beach holds the sand of the future, that he had always been told. Now he rode beside it along with his true love, she of the long brown hair, now setup on a bun to make rideing easier, and thoose fantastic green eyes that told of emerald skies.
They rode now, they should speed up. Soon they would be hunted. Her family would come after them soon. That he of the family on the north side of the island and that she, Johanna of the south side of the island had become lovers what not a good thing.
The...
Knives had always fascinated her. Not in a violent way; she didn't want to use the knife on anything more gory than chicken or steak. But the feel of a really good quality knife in her hand, the shine of the metal, the balance, the tang running into the handle - all of these things gave her a curious satisfaction. She spent hours in Debenhams and House of Fraser testing various knife sets. Her favourite, yes she had a favourite knife, was a butcher's knife. The long, wide blade just screamed power and efficiency at her. A paring knife was...