My singing was awful. Didn't matter as the audience were drunk, I could see Lorna sticking her tongue down John's throat as the light swept over the audience. They didn't seem to care that anyone might notice and tell John's wife in a text during the interval. After my horrendous attempt at Billy Holiday I heard a voice in my ear, it was a child asking me to talk to someone called Betty who had red hair, an addiction to pickled eggs and had three cats called Tom, Dick and Harry.
She was sitting in the last row and only...
The light was bright. This made a change from the usual dreary greyness of the sky. I walked along the street whistling to myself, this was the first time I'd been outside in the sun for what felt like months. I could feel a light breeze caressing my face as I strolled into the local park, leaves rustling in the wind, some falling to the ground around me, dancing in sync with the music I was humming in my head. I smiled to myself as birds darted back and forth across the beautiful blue sky.
I found a nice spot...
Private Morlane glanced at the watch that he'd taken off and left on the small table by his cot, rubbing his sleep-weary eyes as he noticed what time it was. Fifteen minutes until dawn, or at least until when dawn was slated to be, according to all of the records that he had read over the last few mornings.
The last few mornings had been early ones. They were camped next to a large farm, with a broken-down wooden fence surrounding the grounds, where a large rooster loved to perch at sunrise and crow so loudly that every living thing...
One scoop chocolate, one scoop blood.
I went inside the intensive care unit and felt the humid air. Everyone--mum, Paulie, Randy and grampa--was there. I approached dad's bed and leaned my right ear to his mouth.
He was asphyxiating, and there's no doubt he's going to get through another day. Yet, his words echoed through my head like a whisper resounding inside a cave.
I told him I just did the regular errand and took care of some things for him. He stopped.
The mob held torches like flags, upright and proud, ready for battle with the onion factory. Sons, mothers, daughters, friends, marched on toward revenge. They threw their torches onto the large building, sending smoke signals for miles, saying "we're in charge here!"
For weeks, the town smelled like onions. At first, people sniffed their clothes to make sure it didn't come from their home cooked meals "People" here meaning the people who didn't boycott onions altogether. Most people substituted elephant garlic or onion powder, or just went without the taste. One girl started vomitting at the sight of onions altogether....
I'm dead. Really dead. Not in the "there'll be a twist at the end and I'll be saved" kind of way. Just dead. And it's absolutely nothing like I expected.
In all of the near-death experience stories I was told they talked about the light. So much so that I thought that I should walk into it, if only to see what was on the other side. Only there was nothing there, not as far as I've seen anyway. There's just the light.
I keep thinking that if I keep walking, maybe something will appear. But I've been walking and...
Monica Albott had never been beautiful.
Sure, she had been cute, pretty even, but never beautiful. She said this over and over, because she believed it and because it was true, but all she ever heard was, "oh Monica, you're just curvy!" and "I wish I were you!". Nothing anyone said ever helped. And so slowly, little by little, the hamburger she at on Friday's for dinner became bread and lettuce, then a tomato and vinegar, then nothing. Her usual coffee in the morning became skin milk and no sugar and her usual snack after school became a salad instead...
I like collecting lots of hats
And placing them on heads of cats
They aren't too fond of wearing hats
They take them off, those little brats
Everyone was on board for the show. They had their fly gear and their hats. I, of course, forgot my sunglasses.
"No problem," mama said, "just squint!"
As we lined up, I squinted at the audience. It never ceased to amaze me that the entire population of a town would stop what it was doing to watch our show every week. But they did. All fifty-four of them, including the dogs.
I was getting antsy. This week, I was the leader! Never before had a child led the show! I wasn't nervous; there's no room for nerves in show-biz. However,...
She nearly disappeared so quickly it was like she was never there, but for scent of her perfume. I knew it was her. All those years, and she still wore sweet almond oil. She was the only woman I knew who wore it.
I followed the scent, staying well back, not wanting her to see me; not yet. Oh, she thought she was safe. She thought I'd forgotten her, or moved on. She thought that now, in this new city of millions, I would not find her.
She was wrong. I have followed her. Every step she took, I was...