Absent. That's what mom has been for the past three years since the day the front door slammed shut on her and the four carrier bags of belongings. That's all she took, her makeup and her best pair of shoes. Crocodile skin. Horrid looking things but they seemed to mean more to her than the family.
Kathleen, the youngest still kept an eye on the front path most evenings just in case mom returned. Rest of us knew that very unlikely as her latest boyfriend had been very rich and mom had always been a gold digger.
We lived with...
I'm dead. Really dead. Not in the "there'll be a twist at the end and I'll be saved" kind of way. Just dead.
I suppose you want to know what happened. It was Geoff. In the bedroom with a vase. Not a very imaginitive death, really. But there you go. I went from a person to a statistic in the blink of an eye.
Dying is an odd sensation. Like when you're really drunk or hungover and the room spins when you sit up. It's just like that. I watched as he ran around wiping up the blood, hiding the...
In hindsight, the solution was obvious.
It was staring me right in the face the entire time but for some reason I had a hard time coming to terms with it.
It wasn't really his fault, in a way I guess you could say it was my fault. I was the one who always wanted to try new things and that night, he had been nowhere to be found. I jumped in with both feet, never once thinking about the consequences.
It was easy for me, I had no ties to anyone or anything. Well except for him.
He, on...
The sweetest honey was the one they daubed on his lips.
This wasn't really torture; not in the traditional sense. Instead of pain, he was given touches of pleasure.
Simple pleasures - gentle whispers, the smell of bread, the touch of soft wool against his cheek.
After a few days, he wondered if they really wanted him to talk, or if they wanted him to stay. If they wanted him to remain there, relying on them, content to be with them until the end of his days.
To call him a pet would be too extreme, but the principle was...
They were trapped for seven days. The airlocks were blinking green and somewhere in the deck below, the supports creaked and machinery rumbled. My little brother continued playing his hand-held game, while the rest of us tried to make contact with other ships.
We were floating above the 3rd moon, it's deep northern crater eying us like an angry cyclops. We had barely made it through the atmosphere before the alarms went off and the ship stopped. Somehow, we had been flagged with contraband and the authorities were on their way up, checking through the nether regions first.
A message...
Joshua parked in front of the iron gate, irritated at this sign, just one of many from his absentee father. He was never there when he needed him. Where was he when he was six and skinned his knee riding his first bike? When he brought home his report card? When he needed help getting into college?
His father wasn't there when his mother died. Where was the hand of the older man when he needed comfort, standing at the grave of his closest family on a deceptively bright and sunny day? Where was he when the accident took his...
"I'm with stupid," she said.
I looked away. It wasn't the first time she'd said something like that about me. I knew that because it wans't the first time she'd said it right in front of me.
So I just looked away. I had a Pepsi can that I jiggled, and sometimes raised to my mouth.
We walked around the arcade, with her twitching her behind, trying to look like she was hot shit.
Why she needed me along to do that, I don't know.
Unless it just made her feel better to have someone to feel better than.
I...
I jumped. Yes, I jumped into this fiery ring with full knowledge of what I was doing. I couldn't help myself. She was a wonder to behold. It didn't matter that she was married. It didn't matter that she had children. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. Her hair was the most wonderful shade of honey-blond. Her eyes were liquid pools of green fire. Our passion knew no bounds. We lived in a world made just for us. But like all things, our world had an end. She was married. She had children. They were beautiful...
Mistress Pog looked round, surprised by the old woman's prescience. Mortals were so impressed by what could be achieved with good hearing, and actually listening.
"Will! Did you follow me?" she stabbed an accusation at him like hog's fat hitting a skillet.
"No Pog, I have… unfinished business of my own with Old Meg" he said quietly, fingering a small bottle shaped lump in his purse.
The farmer stepped lively into the now rather cramped hovel. There didn't seem room to fit any air in the room. That or the witch wouldn't need a fire to roast a rabbit, from...
I held it at arm's length. Then I let the bell pull go, and somewhere deep within the old house a distant bell rang. The House had sinister rumours surrounding it. Some said it was Death's Door itself.
When the quiet aged man answered some time later, he just chuckled at my Halloween costume.
"I've got a Knock Knock joke for you." he sighed, "Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"DEATH…"
"Death wh…"
It seems HE doesn't like being disturbed, but does have a sense of humour.