A dapper man picked up a penny. He tossed it the air, but it fell. He never caught it. A spankled girl kicked up her skirts. They tangled about her legs, and she tumbled. A tired child opened is mouth. He cried out, but no sound came. No sound came. Sometimes nothing falls. Sometimes nothing lands. Sometimes nothing comes at all.
It is useless to try to explain that to the Thing. They don't understand cause and effect, you see. That is another dapper man, Commander Hollis, trying to explain. They don't understand us, and we don't understand them. The...
"Looking at things changes us so it is impossible to look at anything the same way twice," said Foley.
I did a double take and looked at him again. He had changed: something was sprouting from the top of his head and his eyelids appeared to be melting.
"Is this me or you this time?" I asked him.
He said nothing, but gestured upwards, extending a single finger to the sky above our heads. There was the moon, a milky smudge behind the racing clouds. Suddenly it came into full view and it had changed, too. The moon would never...
"Oh, do come for dinner!" she purred. "Is there anything you don't eat?"
"Well ... quite a few things," he said. "I hate to be awkward, but I don't eat cars ... dustbin lids, flower pots, hurricane lamps ... old rope ... generally anything in the mineral category. Although I do drink mineral water, of course," he added.
"I was thinking, anything in the more animal or vegetable category?" she laughed.
"Oh, um ... rhinoceros, lion ... elephant ... panda, any protected species, I suppose, on ethical grounds, of course," he said.
"So anything within reason ..." she began.
"People,"...
She didn't look at him; she looked past him, half closing her eyes as if basking in the sunlight. She was really trying to cut him from her vision altogether, the better to scry into the future he was pulling them towards. This had been his idea, his romantic idea: "Let's hire one of those rowing boats and take it down the river."
The top of his head dipped in and out of her frame of vision as he pulled them through the water.
"Tell me if I'm going to hit anything," he panted. "I can't see where I'm going."...
One of the things about Seaburn beach is the dogs. The dogs go wild on the beach, their little eyes pop out of their heads with excitement. Many of the people on the beach have packs on them, hairy little muts discovering their inner wolf. Sometimes a dog will jump up at you, almost knock you flying, and the owner says,
'Sorry, he never usually does that.' Well.he does, of course. I didn't see the dog concerned. I didn't even see the horse. You wouldn't think I'd miss it.I'm picking up sea glass, eyesdown turned, I hear yelling, I ignore...
If money was the root of all evil, then wine must surely be a close second.
Jasper gazed through the rosy depths of the wine glass in his hand, observing the scene beyond with quiet detachment. Wine had always mellowed him, left him with a feeling a pleasurable distance from his surroundings, as though nothing that happened would effect him at all. He remembered his girlfriend's anger at his apparent coldness when she informed him of her condition, the way she had yelled and screamed and beat her fists against him as he silently took in her news, analysed the...
The lights fled all over the world; it seemed as if the whole was stars. Everything blended into the night. All people could was stare admire beauty beyond imagination. The night didn't seem like the night; it looked something else. Something different. Blues were covering uo the black. Black was covering up the blue. But everyone didn't notice, because beauty is all they could see. A lady stood in the balcony, which would be one of her only moments alone looking at the beauty. All she could do was, and admire she did. Her eyes seemded glow in astonishment, but...
He set the plate before her. It was barely covered, a thin, fatty slice of what looked like baloney slapped alongside hard, molding bread. It had been arranged carelessly, lazily, and the boy snarled at her before he left, sliding the table back with his exit as he walked away, back into the kitchen. Sighing, Alina pulled the plate towards her chest, her elbows banging against the table as she slid the meat off the plate and diligently placed it on the bread, bracing herself for the stale taste as she chewed purposefully. The apartment was empty, the walls barren...
“Send me a picture.” he’d said. Well, typed. It was that kind of initial flirting request. She had responded with a
:-)
a
:-P
and a
<3
and then, eventually, with a selfie.
Analysis of the GPS data encapsulated in the header file, compared with a record of CCTV locations, and her smiling face as a search parameter from stored footage, provided her entry point to the location. Cross-matched with the stored WiFi coordinates her smart phone had used to send the file, the exact location was confirmed. The “Le Poursuivant”
Inspection of the blurred background of the photo matched...
It had to be the bumblebee parachute. I wanted one with Hello Kitty on it but Al said no. Black and yellow clashed with the sky. That was important.
Good choice, given the photograph above. Man, I thought Lady Liberty's presence was so commanding that she'd always be the focal point. Not true. It's me and Al in our parachutes.
Yep. We landed on Liberty Island and there's a whole throng of well-wishers around us. Someone asks if someone watched that old David Copperfield special where he made the Statue of Liberty disappear. Nuh uh. That was a long time...