Hard to think now, gazing into her eyes as we lay side by side, that we'd only met on the train an hour ago. I'd been standing at first. She sat with a mother and two small kids, chatting away; she'd been so gentle, loving, playful with them. Occasionally, she'd look out the window. Several times she caught my eye in the glass, and smiled at my dimmer reflection. When the family got off at Bristol I sat down, the carriage empty now. We chatted about our lives, her boyfriend, my wife and grown up daughters. A generation gap meant...
"Come here," I whisper loud enough for her to hear me.
She gives me a look and laughs, tilting her head up to the sky.
"Kay"
The bark of the palm tree leaning over the ocean against my hand is hard but smooth.
Like the shore's winds blew away every crack and bump.
"Here," I pat my lap as I prop myself against the tree.
Mocking a shocked look, she kicks the sand up so it sticks against my wet foot.
I stare down for a moment as she comes to settle on my lap.
Her hair smells like salt...
Rudolph ran as fast as his four legs would carry him. He had run out of fairy dust over a remote forest, and unfortunately it was deer season.
The celebrity found it hard to blend in with his shiny nose. In fact, it was damn near impossible. His snoz glowed like a blinking beacon, one the hunting party was only too glad to follow. He heard a voice, not far off, call, “I see him over here, boys!”
Damnation, but they were close!
Rudolph searched the area. Could he pull the ol' mud over the nose trick again? No, who...
“You’re looking down in the mouth.” Teddy had said. Earnest waited. He knew more was coming. More was always coming. Teddy sidled up to it.
“Bill and I were just saying… ‘Ernie is looking *decidedly* down in the mouth.’ he said to me.”
Earnest, who *decidedly* didn’t like anyone, least of all Teddy, calling him Ernie, sighed and waited some more.
“You need a pick me up. A tonic. Bill and I both use Blinko-wide-awake(TM)… and you can get 5% off. Just tell ‘em I sent ya…!”
“Are we done he…” Earnest started to say.
“Remember, that’s Blinko…!” his work...
I held it at arms length. A scruffy business card in battered Russian. Something like “путешествие во времени”
(“puteshestviye vo vremeni” in my mother tongue. It had been a long time. I was rusty.)
“So, you’re telling me th…”
“That time travel is possible. Probable. Inevitable. Yes.”
“Ok, old man. I’ll give you a beer. Spill…”
“Well, Sonny… that would be a waste of good beer.” The ‘old man’ smiled. “Yes, yes. I know what you mean.” He shrugged.
“We know the universe is expanding, right? And that expansion is accelerating, yes?”
“Dark energy.” I snorted.
“Precisely, and no one...
It comes from fearing science.
In America of 2025, the faithful had won. No one believed in evolution. No one believed in vaccination. No one believed in soap.
The foreign countries had taken to calling them "Potatoes" because they were white under the thick film of dirt that comes from refusing to wash.
The potatoes were in a panic. Some potato, venturing beyond his or her front door, with a long lost telescope discovered in a storage room, had pointed it at the sky and seen something move. Watching further, the potato did a bit of empirical deduction and derived...
The drop all went wrong. I told Marsha not to get the police involved but she was too scared to think straight. Joshua had been a special baby after five failed IVF attempts. It wasn't his fault that his parents were so rich or stupid as to allow a nanny to look after him without checking up on her properly. She seemed so nice when they met in the park, soothing the baby during his bouts of excessive screaming. Autism. She seemed to instantly recognise the shrill pitch. Told us it ran in her family. He wasn't really a baby...
Rose wished she'd never agreed to that picture.
The look, the provocative stare, running her hands through her hair like that? That wasn't her. How did she expect to be taken seriously as an author when her picture looked like an ad for those 1-800 numbers, the ones they put on late at night with the skimpily clad women.
Maybe she could play it off. "I write humor; it was a joke!" she'd claim. The truth was, authors got paid almost nothing to bare their souls to their readers. It didn't matter if it was humor, scifi, or even detective...
I have writers block.
Urggggg.
Okay, I should probably explain myself. I am a writer.
Well its more like I would like to be a writer.
Unfortunately, my brain does not possess this talent and I am here, stuck in a coffee shop because I heard that's where Joanne Rowling wrote "Harry Potter."
But, now that I look around I can't help but notice the clear boundaries between strangers in a coffee shop, in which only waitresses can cross. Even then, for a short period of time.
Maybe half of us here are on either our laptops or cell phones....
My nails had been long. I'd given up biting six months ago. But ever since I tasted his blood I couldn't stop putting my fingers into my mouth, chewing the skin, licking up drops of redness. Hoping it would satisfy my craving.
It didn't.
I kept looking at necks. Middle aged triple chins the type with thick white hair growing under. Women too scared too pluck them out. Or too blind to see.
Throbbing Adam's apples on smooth soft skin. Younger boys looking into my eyes, misreading signals. Lustful.
My history professor, all nose hair and stubble. Wondering if there...