Vanquished.
I was confused. This isn't how I expected the novel to end. Who committed the crime? Where was the last chapter with the explanation, the satisfying ending the reader could ponder on when the final lines had been read?
This book looked identical to the others in the bookshop the next day but twenty pages were missing at the back. I was waiting in line to exchange the book when I had a strong mysterious feeling not to.
Returning home I sat on the battered red leather sofa and opened the last page again.
More words than I expected....
I'm not sure how it will end between us. I am not sure about the middle. I can't even promise that I'll remember how it began.
But what I can promise is that in years to come, your friend or your girlfriend or your child will ask you to tell the story of us. and when they do, I can promise you that you will smile.
I won't matter how it ended or how it started. In that moment, you'll pause, and smile because you'll remember the bit that made it great in between.
"She was an optimist" You'll say....
It wasn't easy to stack the gold bars in the cellar. Very heavy. I kept one in my bedroom so I could look at it whenever I wanted. Part of me was trying to warn there was something strange going on, another (the greedy part) knew that it was synchroncity that worked this for me.
Cousin Marty told me about the new shop between the Chinese Grocery store and the old-fashioned chemist. Strange as I'd never noticed the shop even though it was supposed to have been there for the last month. Marty showed me the rare whisky he'd bought,...
his is what it’s like when you get lost. the thorns of red vines stick into your fingertips as you try to shield your face. your feet kick up the smell of old leaves, and it makes you think of suburban autumnal piles, of the hot cider that your father always made you. it’s strange to think of it now. you’re so far in, working your way towards the belly of the beast. what was waiting for you there? you stop for a moment. you are having queer thoughts. it’s then you feel the change. your hair is the color...
Darling, I have done this to you
but I've done this to the rivers, too
I have ravaged mountainsides and
leveled acres of forest
I have seen your look before
in the wildlife of the eroding canyon
in the shattered shy, the moon and sun
sharing the shrinking space.
Find something to do
and do it
before I ruin that,
too
They did not know where they arrived, the landscape was strange and different. The last days was mixed up as the food on the lifeboat had been gone for quite a good while when they finally reached this shore.
Maybe they where in the afterlife, he had no idea and neither had Marc that was with him in the lifeboat. Marc was one of the sailors on the ship that he was traveling with, hunting for inspiration to write new rhymes about ancient mariners.
Now in this shipwrecked state he somehow had saved pen and paper. So important for him,...
Listen to the sounds that the butterflies make. Listen what they say when they communicate, as they talk to each other, their little butterfly whispers, back and forth, their conversation. Through these special headphones, you can for the first time hear the conversation of the butterflies.
Sadly, twenty seven years ago was the last time we saw real, live butterflies. The great butterfly passing of 2017 was a hard, lonely time for human beings.
But thankfully, forward thinking scientists recorded every sound, every movement, every bit of data they could about 2102 different butterfly species. And now you, through the...
Vanquished.
She looked at the body of her enemy lying there on the floor. She knew she should feel a sense of triumph, but instead there was only sorrow. Sorrow for the lost years, the million memories that would never be, the milestones both present and future that would never be shared.
For you see, the dead body belonged to her mother.
Her mother had run out on her father soon after her birth, and the girl had wondered all her life what it was like to have a mother. Someone to make sure her hair was perfect on picture...
"Dammit it's cold today." Bard pulled his hat further down over his forehead and huddled into his fur. "This shit just ain't worth it, Jake." The mule nudged his shoulder and tugged on the lead. He knew where warmth was, as well as his grain.
Man and beast drudged along the logging trail beneath the cold, thin light of the winter sun. Behind them clouds piled up over the horizon, snow dark and ominous. Bard could hear the wind starting, a distant rush of sound bending tree branches and pushing the storm closer.
"Two more miles and we're home," he...
Fireman? Firewoman? Fire...person?
Esme sighed as she approached her firetruck. The trouble with magic, she reflected, was that while it got you where you need to be quickly, that sometimes meant that you skipped over important parts of the path.
It had been a simple enough spell of purpose; she paid her fifteen hundred dollars, and in return she got given her perfect career. The career that she would enjoy the most, be most suited for...the career that would make her happy.
Purpose was a popular spell-type, and it had definitely resulted in a happier populace, but no one had...