she kept bird feathers in an old mason jar beside her bed. every night she would pick one, and blow sweet, freshly toothpasted air through the meat of it. sometimes dust would fly away with the wind, other times a few clingy strands of the feather would lazily float through the air. every morning, she would pick one, and slowly stroke her face with it, making soft rotations until she felt alive again. she says it stopped the dreams from coming real. one day, i worked up the nerve to ask her, "how do you pick the feathers you do?"...
his father painted the top of the lighthouse himself. with the last concise stroke of the red paintbrush, his father had a concise stroke of his own, and slid off the roof to his death, colliding headlong into the rocky ground, and tumbling into the choppy water. his body was never found, though toby often imagine a blue man, with nibbles taken out from fish schools, and skin as loose as kelp on his bones. with equal sincerity, toby imagined that his father had not died at all, and was merely hiding in the system of caves eroding into the...
It was foggy, full of promise for a wet and drizzly day.
As she looked out to sea, deliberately pushing away the gloomy thoughts threatening to take hold, her thoughts wandered to those out there.
Not the ones who still had blood pumping round their bodies but rather those who never made it back to dry land.
Boys and men lost, loved by mothers and sweethearts. Trapped in the wrecks of ancient ships that were now just tourist sites for the seasonal divers.
No such visitors today. Summer was over (had it ever really arrived?) and a new season was...
He ran into the room, his heart pounding, and his clothes soaking wet.
"Mummy, Mummy!" he yelled, his face flushed and eyes gleaming with excitement.
"What is it, sweetheart?" I asked, my heart in my mouth, fearing the worst.
Surely nothing terrible had happened in those few short minutes since I'd turned my back and left him to his own devices?
Unconsciously scanning his body for weeping wounds, gaping gashes or odd shaped bones like a Men in Black zapper I began to relax.
"What's happened now?" I said, smiling at my golden child.
"Mummy, I rode up the hill...
Not that he could fell it, but judging from the way he staggered with every few steps, his legs hadn't healed completely. It was likely he was setting himself up to trip and collapse again, unable to move, but he knew he couldn't stay any longer. He tried to make his steps as steady as possible, but with no percerption of how much weight he was applying, he was at a loss to gauge if he was accomplishing much, and in the back of his mind simply waited for the tell-tale crack of bones re-fracturing, and plummet into the grass....
And then there is the approach of Autumn and September impatiently tapping at the window, intimidating August, chasing it away. I reach out my hands in an attempt to catch hold of it, but it is already overshadowed by distance, one step removed. Only yesterday it was April and there was the whole of Summer; it was a time of promise and hope. I naively believed that I deserved it, that I would be delivered unblemished months. It was such a bad winter, so very long and cold.
But here I am on the edge of the season, dragging so...
A Sad State of Affairs
It is three o’clock in the afternoon and she has kept the same position since breakfast, writing in her journal, nursing each fresh drink, drawing it out so that her budget (small) will see her through until she is forced to give up her seat. She is in no hurry to leave, having nowhere else to go, no pressing appointment – except with home, and the house is depressingly quiet and yet still too full, inhabited by a long line of hours waiting impatiently to be filled, the space between now and then too vast...
I remember the smell of wet snow on a blinding morning. Squinting through glare and steam. Battleship twigs wobble in a frozen puddle. The neighbor's bell-bottoms dark blue to the knees. She sank in a soft mountain of snow, but extracted herself with the confident strength of the Bionic Woman.
The crows were flying silhouettes, Japanese ink on a rice paper landscape. The country was preparing for our spectacle. There would be battleships in the harbor, fireworks from the torch, old songs that would not die.
But on this day, in the insulation of a winter morning, we weren't thinking...
I don't know when I stopped believing in unicorns and rainbows. But I know I was a kid. A very troubled kid. Life wasn't as easy as it should have been for a child. Everything was bigger and scarier. Especially the things and the people that were supposed to make me feel safe and protected.
Home wasn't safe. I thought it was. I thought we were the Cleavers. My parents were perfect. My mother worked hard. She kept a beautiful home and prepared perfect meals. She kept her kids in line and made sure we were all just right before...
Baby, it's just one of those things. You dream of hexagons and get triangles. You hope for a bit of moonshine on your paperback and a black cloud splits her in two.
You concentrate on windows and carbon paper and a pigeon drops dead on the ledge. It's not the city or the suburbs. It's just everything.
Me? I work in a cubicle. That's the shape I'm in.