Goodnight…
The cracks of light from the dusty attic had faded. Even through the lid of this chest, it seemed obvious that evening had fallen. Why had the young master not returned? Why was I so thirsty?
I'd not wanted to play the young master's silly game of Hide and Seek. He'd insisted. Just after his gentry friends had laughed at him, when they'd spotted the way he looked distractedly at me cleaning the grate. His high and mighty friends had laughed and joked the way the Butcher's apprentices did at market day.
The young master seemed upset and shot...
She should have been writing. Instead, she watched the time slide away from her.
5'44". 5'32". 5'11".
What was this? she asked—not herself, but God, the heavens, the hall monitor, anybody but herself. Was this paralysis?
No. This was a choice. And even though she closed her eyes, she still couldn't get away from that.
4'09". 3'58".
Why not write? There was the prompt on the page. She could do this. She was good at this. She always had been, always, always. Write on command. Paper comes back; mark at the top.
She didn't work hard for years and take...
Pension. Never thought I would make it this far. The job was ridiculous, stand there, make sure the machine hit the same spot every time, stop the line when it missed and clear the jam as quickly as possible to get the line running as fast as you can.
I never thought of it as a career. I guess I never really thought of anything as a career. It paid the bills, put food on the table and clothes on the kids back. It help us make the house payments, the car payments, the TV payments. It was simple enough,...
I will put my fingers together and pull the grass up from the roots. I will do it before my mother comes outside. If I don't she'll ask "what have you been doing out here all this time?" But if I do, I'll have something to show for myself. I'll give her the stalks of grass as if they are flowers. She may thank me, but she more likely will wonder why I bothered to dig up the good grass.
I will move away from home one day soon. I will plant a garden where I live. I will make...
"Mary?" a middle aged, crows footed woman queried as she stepped over the threshold.
"Mistress…" the young maid gestured her in, both blushing. Somewhat flustered the farmer's wife surveyed the room.
"Tom!" she blushed on blushes. Something the old woman had not thought possible. Interest upon Interest. Clearly no Pythagorean shape would ever do this web justice.
"I haven't said naught, Po… I mean, Mistress." the plough boy blurted. He was good at blurting, the witch noticed. It was good he had found what he was good at, at such a young age.
"Meg, I need your help again…" the...
The fetid winds drifted heavily across the abandoned battlefield. Stench and Decay and the futility of it all. To our protagonists it was a bounty of untold riches. Coin and Cloth and untold amounts of scrap metal to be melted down. To the pickers and eaters of the dead this waste of life and treasure might feed thier kith and kin for many days. Wherever the Gods of War traveled, they were circling with unnatural patience.
Sweating, her false horn started to slip, inch by inch down her forehead. "Damned glue! They said it would last 3 hours!" She lifted her nose and tried to balance the horn. "I hope no one notices."
She gathered her courage and stepped into the room, nose in the air, eyes darting from face to face. "Do they see? Will they notice?" Blinking greetings at those around her, she forced herself to smile. Better h
Whenever the mailperson knocks
They deliver to us a new box
I don't know from whom
But I wish for their doom
On all of their houses, a pox
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...
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