"Goddamn it." This is what the cop said when the door first opened.
"It's not what you think. I can explain. See, we were playing a game. Hide and seek sort of thing, and things got a little out of control." He mumbled and shuffled, which the cop always took as a sign of guilt.
"Okay, we need to get him up off the floor. An ambulance is on its way. And you --" The cop pointed at the mumbler. "You need to come with me."
Mumbler shrugged and kicked at the table leg. "I didn't do anything. It was...
The new pope looked down on the moving heads, waving arms, heard the cacophany of sound, brass bands, singing in a multitude of tongues, watched the fluttering flags in the wind, saw the dark sky illuminated by millions of cell phone flashes as his followers took their shot of history. All around the world people watched tv, heard his first words, the blessing, the prayers, the gratitude.
I knew that it was a day most of them would never forget but gradually the magnificence of it would fade in the same way my memories faded of my father, the strong...
When I was young, I would sneak out onto my roof with my father's cigarettes and chain smoke. They knew I did it. They found the butts on the ground in the yard. But no one said anything.
I sat up there, puff puffing away, texting a girl I thought I could never out grow.
"Run away with me," she said. I wanted to. I almost did. But I was almost done with my senior year of high school. Things were okay for me for the first time in years.
She never forgave me for saying no. The last time...
Drudgery of the everyday. There's really nothing else to explain it. Banality of sadism. John, standing at the dump, Alka Seltzer pill wrapped in a piece of bologna for the birds. Has he ever thought what a bird might feel while its innards explode? That's not really the point. He wants to know if it can work. If he can leave a wake of destruction with nothing but everyday objects.
He watches the bird gulp down the bologna and retake flight. He sees it hesitate, and pop, it falls from the air, guts hanging out of its mouth.
Adam, working...
I really don't remember how exactly I got to this point, but I'm here, so I might as well just deal with it.
"We should really head back now. It's getting too dark."
"No, let's stay. I'm sure the sun will come up every second now."
"Are you serious? It's..."
She couldn't read her watch. It displayed just symbols, like mine. They must have broken when we crashed onto that sidewalk. We're unstuck in time now.
"Isn't it late at night? The sun's not gonna come up for another few hours."
"No, it'll come up. You'll see."
We waited for...
Her first Christmas back at home was a terrifying event. Someone named Aunt Martha kept hugging her, crying. She said the strangest things. She asked Shelly, "Do you remember me? You were just a baby the last time I saw you." Of course not, Shelly wanted to say. I couldn't possibly remember you if I was a baby, she thought. But this woman obviously loved her, like all the other people here.
Not like he loved her, but they did. They tried, bless their hearts, but it wasn't the same. They told her he was bad, that he took her...
I am in love with a coffee machine. A robot that makes coffee. I am giddy about it my mornings are filled with percolating robot joy. I have placed the coffee robot on the side of the bed that I don't prefer to sleep on.
The girlfriend side of the bed.
The coffee bot is not my girlfriend she is not even a girl. I can not fuck her - she is too damn hot for that. But I don't mind if she watches my touch myself. That seems okay or well not okay okay I mean you know okay...
We are plagued, wretched, cursed...
doomed to be followed by the multitude, hounded by paparazzi, our flesh peddled to feed the teeming multitudes who wish to consume every morsel of our existence.
Our every action scrutinized, our every facial expression or turn of phrase. Is it any wonder we act so... so... is it any wonder? Put any normal person under this sort of microscope, they would doubtless appear as insane as ourselves.
Of course, there is the whole nasty business of inbreeding. Keeping the gene pool pure? Hardly. Rather limiting it to royalty has caused countless genetic problems; our...
Cal reckoned he had it all just about figured.
Darlene, the victim, had spent some time with the cult back in '07. In November of that year, she split, taking with her something the cultists valued - valued a whole hell of a lot.
That didn't sit well with the Parler Jamais folks, so the sent a couple of guys over here to do her in. As for the recording, well, it was probably just to intimidate other cult members or something.
It ALMOST fit the evidence perfectly, but there were a few details that kept tugging at the seams....
Jason could barely make out the piece of ocean where she had sunk beneath the waves.
Bitter tears coated his cheeks and he tasted salt as he gazed across the water to where he had last seen his dearest love. He had taken her for granted. He realized that now. He had never given her the attention she needed and deserved, and now he had lost her forever. He wiped his reddened eyes and pointed to the approximate spot of water where he'd last seen his beloved classic red Camaro. "That's where she sank," he told the insurance adjuster, sniffling...