"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...
Dear Diary,
I'm SO sick of everyone going on about how their lives are such a bowl of cherries! I am SO not going through rainbows and lollipops right now. i am about to face one of the toughest decisions of my young life. My life isn't a bowl of cherries and no one else even tries to care. it's just " ME ME ME" all the time. Like my best friend. All she talks about is herself. how she's going off to camp and ontario and stuff and how she got a new baby cousin and stuff. finally, i...
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
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...
After the snow melts and the grass starts to grow back, she takes her car and drives out to the country. If she keeps going, she'll find a soybean field left empty and filled with wild prarie grass. She parks the car, gets out and stands in the middle of the field.
She can see for miles and miles. The whole world is sky and grass. She can smell manure when the wind blows.
She lies down in the grass to sleep. The earth is warm and soft. She is sinking into it like a seed. Ever since her family...
It had been three weeks now, to the day, that Mira James had been absent from class. Mrs. Pendleton sighed with regret as she rubbed Mira's name off of her desk. Truancy was a sad reality that she was powerless to stop, and the school always needed to make room for new students.
She rummaged gingerly through the shelf, searching for the pile of junk that seemed to accumulate in every seventh-grader's desk. It would all be in the trash soon, leaving room for the next student's pencils, stickers, and other belongings.
It was empty. Clean, even. With a frown,...
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...
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...
It was midnight in the Temple of the Light, the sun was shining, and the Guru Akiva was smiling up at the man with the gun.
"Go ahead, child. Do it."
The man glanced around. Nobody to see him, tall, trench coat, barrel of the revolver pointed at the serene little monk as he sat, lotus-style, in the pavilion.
"Nothin' personal, old-timer." he managed to grunt. He didn't usually speak to the mark, but this guy, well, he figured the old man deserved an explanation. "The Council wants war, you see. The Temple, yer planet, it's... uh..."
"Sacred. Yes. You...
"It's called a goldfish."
"Goldfish? Not much of a name."
"That's right. Wasn't much of a fish, either. They used to be so plentiful that we kept them as pets. Put them in bowls."
"Used to be?"
"That's right."
"So you kept fish, but you didn't eat them?"
"Not only that, we fed them."
"You had THAT much food?"
"Yes. Yes, son, we did."
"That must've been swell."
"That's right. It sure was. Careful, now. Don't fiddle with the cords, keep the net still. We don't want them to know we're up here. Mama needs us to be brave and...