Swing.
Pump your legs, stretch your shoulders back, breathe the joyful rush of air, and swing.
Lift your front leg, lean back, transfer your weight towards the ball, and swing.
Grab a partner, shake your hips, move your feet, and swing.
Mind your temper. Think back to happier days: swing sets and baseball games and high school dances.
Be calm. Forgive. Consider the consequences. And if that fails...
Say your prayers, keep your dignity, savour that final sensation of the rope around your neck, and...
swing.
His life was on the line.
Strung from tree to tree, across the back yard, his priorities blew in the wind. There were his coat and slacks, accompanied by an assortment of lively, but respectable, neckties. There was his underwear. There was his hockey jersey.
There were his one-year-old's Big Boy Diapers, and his wife's sweaters, and his dog's blanket.
And there was the note.
He slowly, thoughtfully pulled in the line, taking the items down, one by one. When he reached the paper, his heart caught in his throat.
"If you had another chance," it said to him, "would...
Six minutes...
Was that really all he had left? Three hundred sixty seconds? Well, less than that, now.
He looked into the eyes of his family, gathered around him atop the hill.
What was a man supposed to do in a situation like this? Pray? Meditate? Impart wisdom? Plan some last words? They'd have to be really special... You only got one chance at Last Words.
He thought for a moment. Two hundred seconds, now.
He nodded imperceptibly, straightened his back, and reached for a pair of scissors. With a confident, even snip, he pulled away a handful of hair...
The wagon was now about 100 feet away. I was rooted to the spot with fear. Perspiration ran down my face and my heart was pounding in my head, I was shaking and powerless to move.
I looked at my son who was stood just a few yards away, His face full of fatigue and fear. I thought I could hear his thoughts..."this is hopeless," we can't do a thing and there is no hope.
If only someone could come and help I thought and screamed it inside a hundred times.
I don't remember the trip to the hospital.But, I...
This was it. Their wedding day. As she walked down that aisle, she felt more like she was walking toward a cliff, with a river full of vicious pirahna at the bottom. She took his hand as the priest started the ceremony. she wondered what she had done to deserve this. It hit, then, like a bolt of lightning. It wasn't her. It was Luke. he'd tricked her at the restaurant, paid the waiter to ask her if she wanted water just as he popped the question. She'd replied to the waiter, and next thing she knew she was walking...
She'd have preferred the electric chair. She'd have preferred anything really, hanging, lethal injection, even one of those weird medieval punishments like hang, draw and quartering. Anything to get her out of this tedium.
The irony was that she'd chosen this. Chosen to run, the alternative being prison or worse. But wasn't she already in prison? Stuck in this dark, damp room, determined to live out the rest of her days without ever seeing the sun. Actually, it was probably worse than prison. At least in prison there were other prisoners to talk to. Here the only human contact she...
In the darkened room, the bishop waited, staring out of the window into the dying sun. In the half-light, the Gothic buildings of the Old Town appeared as if bathed in blood. They would be soon.
The princess would come. Oh she might have sworn an oath of loyalty to her brother but in the end words were meaningless. Actions were what really counted. And in a kingdom where son could kill father, could sister not kill brother also?
She had already proved her ability. It was well known that she was one of the most able poisoners in the...
"Should I do it?"
"What if I am found out?"
The struggle raged on in Wendy's head. It had all been too much for her. She had lost her job just the month before. Now she was struggling to keep the strands of life together. There was no food in the refrigerator, bills were piling up, there were too many empty wine bottles and worst of all, her friends no longer called her.
"What can I do," she asked herself. "There's just no other way than this."
Sitting on the kitchen floor in front of the oven, she struggled with...
It was tragic. He'd just been gathering cotton for his sister's dress, just like she asked him to. He'd gotten tired, and made a sort of bed. The bear had smelled his dog treats that he always kept in his pocket, and decided that the entire package would be tastier. the bear had taken him in his claws, then realized that it's victim was still breathing. So it'd thrown him against the tree, then started ripping out his intestines. When his sister found him, he was a bunch of bones. The only thing left was his heart, purer than anyones...
"Hestan... where am i?" said Vive as she came out of anesthesia. "You're in the hospital. You collapsed in the park three days ago. The doctors say that a clot developed in your aorta and you went into cardiac arrest." said Hestan, handing her a book. She smiled, then opened it and read for the next hour. A nurse came in and injected another anesthetic into her IV. two minutes later she dropped back into sleep. Then a doctor came in and said "Her heart is fine, but we still don't know what caused the clot. She was perfectly healthy,...