The thing about mermaids is, well, that they aren't.
You're thinking seashell bikinis and fish tails, but that isn't it. Not at all.
My cousin Marjorie, this is back in '30, mind you, and the turn for the worse had been taken by all of us. She kept her things, her jewels and her dresses. They became her scales, her fins.
She decided to become a mermaid in the same way that some of us choose to marry. It was deliberate, it took forethought. She knew that she would dive beneath the waves to never return. Perhaps she would give...
The weather today has lifted. The sky is blue. The sun is shining. It is supposed to be 21 degrees. It feels like it. After days of rain, days of cold and grey, this is more than just a slight relief. My mood has lifted. My spirits are soaring. I feel lighter, almost as if I could float away on the breeze. Extending my arms, I test them out. Can I fly? No. Shame. It would have been nice. Different. Exciting. An adventure. Still, I have just returned from one, and that did necessitate flight, albeit in an airplane.
The...
They were trapped for seven days. The airlocks were blinking green and somewhere in the deck below, the supports creaked and machinery rumbled. My little brother continued playing his hand-held game, while the rest of us tried to make contact with other ships.
We were floating above the 3rd moon, it's deep northern crater eying us like an angry cyclops. We had barely made it through the atmosphere before the alarms went off and the ship stopped. Somehow, we had been flagged with contraband and the authorities were on their way up, checking through the nether regions first.
A message...
I held it at arm's length. Then I let the bell pull go, and somewhere deep within the old house a distant bell rang. The House had sinister rumours surrounding it. Some said it was Death's Door itself.
When the quiet aged man answered some time later, he just chuckled at my Halloween costume.
"I've got a Knock Knock joke for you." he sighed, "Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"DEATH…"
"Death wh…"
It seems HE doesn't like being disturbed, but does have a sense of humour.
I'm not sure what's wrong with the site today, but it doesn't seem to be working for me. When I click for the prompt, the clock doesn't appear. Talk about a pile of rotten potatoes.
The gate closed behind them.
'And stay out!' shouted the old man. He sneered and spat on the ground.
Billy spat back at him through the heavy iron uprights of the gate. A bubble of saliva struck his tie, but he didn't even flinch.
'Stupid old goat,' snapped Billy as Dan stepped backward shaking his head. Old Man Barnes might be a stupid old goat, but even Dan knew that kids like them shouldn't talk to men like him that way. Dan's dad always going on about how Old Man Barnes had fought in all the big wars and was...
Lost, without a hand to hold. Lizzie slowly sidled her fingers into the palm of Elder Barnes. He placed both hands on her soul bumps, feeling the hairy base of each above the fine stitch work, and the subtle movement below the skin. This act of passive acceptance of his touch was a necessary part of being his student.
"Tell me again of the Biclops." she asked. His fingers moved away from her head, more quickly than customary, forgetting to reciprocate. She understood the snub. He was not letting her feel his own soul flaps. He was angry.
"The Biclops...
"Come here often, do you?" The old man said. He was sitting on the iron bench waiting, like me, for the bus. His clothes were a little ratty and he smelled faintly of moth balls. I didn't know what to say to him being as this was my first time here.
"No, sir. You?" I replied, awkwardly.
"Been coming to this stop for, oh, must be twenty years now." He said, shifting his cane a bit. His dark glasses hid his eyes and I wondered if he were blind.
"Ah...well..." I trailed off. I've never been one for socializing with...
A small woman in her mid-20's sits in a doctor's office staring, seemingly at nothing, right in front of her, as if peering deep into herself. Her eyes, drooping at the small corners, glistening slightly as they search from left to right and then from right to left. A deep sigh lodged in the cavernes of her being finally escapes.
The door opens and in shuffles an older man, gray speckled hair, deep wrinkles on his forehead and around his eyes from squinting at translucent sheets held up to lights, his glasses resting on his nose several inches from his...
I rarely watch the news.
Except for that one time when I did turn on the news to catch breathless commentary of the desk crew as the news chopper puttered over the train tracks and there was a man standing on the tracks. The man wore black, his face draped in black and he held a sword in his hand--oh not just a sword, he had one of those Samurai Katanas aloft.
At least I think it was a Samurai Katana, my only experience with those was what I saw on "Kill Bill" and the katana letter opener I had...