Es ging alles furchtbar schnell. Ein Kreischen, ein plötzlicher Ruck. Irgendwie schrien plötzlich alle durcheinander, ich glaube, ich hab auch geschrien. Aber so ganz sicher bin ich mir nicht. Meine Ohren fühlten sich an, als seien sie in Watte gepackt worden.
Absurder Weise gefiel mir dieses Gefühl und es wurde noch besser. Diese Schwerelosigkeitskammern, die man immer in Astronautenfilmen sieht, wirken bestimmt so ähnlich. Irgendwie fand ich es schade, sowas noch nie ausprobiert zu haben.
Alle verloren den Boden unter den Füßen und die Umgebung begann sich zu drehen. Wieder ein Ruck. Es war zu Ende. Glaube ich zumindest. Ich...
I couldn't sleep with her next to me. Her body was cold, hard like marble, but also soft -- like frozen meat. That's all she was now: meat. The light was gone, and I could not sleep curled up next to my dead sister.
I needed to sleep. It would be at least another day before we made it to the border, maybe even two before we hit the safe house. Sonia would start to stink by then. And I would lose my mind if I didn't sleep.
Still, her body next to mine reminded me that it was only...
Norman was a doctor. He was a doctor because he was good at fixing things, and at some point in his life he determined that the most important things that needed fixing were human beings. So he became a doctor.
He looked rather doctor-ish, in his trenchcoat, his traveling case of medical supplies and his pattern baldness. He was friendly, having the bedside manner that everyone expected of a good doctor.
The day that the sun became sick, people all over the world panicked. Some rioted, looted, killed one another, for in a world that was nearing its end, one...
"Where am I?" asked Jolene, as she took some hesitant steps toward the elevator. "Am I on the moon?"
"You are not on the moon," was the response. The voice seemed to come from all around her. "You are on a spacecraft. The Earth as you know it is uninhabitable."
"What? Why? What happened?"
"You will find out later," it said. "Take the elevator to the highest floor."
Jolene entered the small enclosure and pressed the button marked '35'. There was no 36.
"God will ask you a series of questions," the voice continued. "If the answers are incorrect, he...
She didn't look at him. She couldn't. "Look at me!" he shouted. She didn't. She couldn't.
She did.
Then she did again.
This went on for several hours.
"Stop looking at me!" he shouted. But she didn't not look at him. She couldn't not.
Then she didn't.
He was always looking at her. It was a condition called Iseezyaz, which causes the poor soul to stare at the person closest to them for all of infinite eternity. "It is perhaps the most unsettling, and boring disease known to mankind," Dr. Jesus Katmandu, discoverer of the disease had said upon the...
Billy was steadfastly unimpressed.
"Can we go home now?" he asked.
"But, Billy, don't you want to see the top of the beanstalk?" Sarah asked her son. She was confused. Why didn't he like the things other boys liked?
"No."
"Why not? Isn't it cool and -"
"It's a phallic object from the a fairy tale written by the unwitting supporters of the patriarchy," he interrupted.
Sarah hated this. Being lectured by your own sever-year-old was the worst. "Billy, quit saying silly things," she scolded. "It's just a beanstalk. It's supposed to be fun. Why can't you enjoy anything in...
The Earth hung there in the window, a massive disk of blue and white fixed against the uniform blackness of space. The sun's light illuminated the nearer half of the globe; through the clouds Jolene could see a glimpse of North America.
"What is this?!" she demanded, her fear magnified into true panic. "What is this, some kind of trick? Who are you? Answer me!"
"It is no trick," replied the computerized voice. "I am someone you know well, but I must not tell you now. There is not much time; you must do exactly as I say."
"What? Why...
"If you say so," I said, feigning indifference. It was best not to commit to something that would go south in microsecond, which I suspected would happen with Jacob's escape plan.
"Let's go over it one more time," he said excitedly. "At 2100 tomorrow, I'm going to shank Billy in the kitchen. The guards will come running to take me away to solitary, like they did the last thirteen times."
"You don't have anything to shank with," I said, annoyed at his overly dramatic air. "All we're allowed are sporks made of recycled corn, or whatever this shit is." I...
The warm breeze touched her face, sparking memories of his fingertips and how they would brush her hair from her eyes in their moments of tenderness. She remained standing still, her eyes closed, for some time.
Eventually she opened them and looked down the grassy hill to the town below, the tall ships in the harbour, the people bustling on the docks. He was there. Somewhere.
She could see his ship off in the distance, it's distinctive sails billowing in the wind. Glancing back down at the dock she wondered when others would spot it.
After what seemed like an...
She stood there, covered in nothing but a crimson gown, shivering against the cold.
The rain fell down in a perfect arc around her, as the doorway spared her from the worst of the elements.
Glancing out, she caught my eye, and there was only one thing to do.
Or so I thought, but as I crossed the road, running to escape the never-ending sheetm with my coat over my head, I failed to see the bike that was heading, at speed, towards me.
A scream, a crumpling of flesh and metal and a release of the reason I crossed...