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...
Yeah yeah. We're here. Uh huh.
Well, we had this idea. Not totally sure it was smart. Yeah. Timothy is looking at it right now. No, no, it's a black flag. Pirates. I know. I know. I told you we weren't sure. How did they react? Not well. They kind of ... panicked, I think you'd say. Jumped over board. Uh huh. I think if we were starting from scratch we'd probably think it through a little more closely. No I know. The problem is they thought were were the pirates. Well... Okay, let's agree to disagree. Yes it was...
The wizened beast crawled across the savannah, dragging the old cart with dilapidated wheels. The grassland swayed, tickling his nostrils. He made his way to the coffee table after pulling his head out of the carpet.
"Daddy, you can't stand yet! You are supposed to be pulling my wagon!"
"Daddy needs his coffee, son." The man scratched his stubble and his backside, retaining the mannerisms of his cattle form. The child scampered around the couch, catching the beast at its watering hole.
"Alright, back on the trail. Where was I heading?"
"Oregon trail. You have dysentery."
"So to the toilet...
"Well shit, that didn't work," the conductor said.
He walked around the wreckage, pulling out passengers. Women, mostly. The men waved off his advances.
One gloriously attired woman emerged from a smoldering welt of torn metal as though she were departing at Poughkeepsie. Nary a scratch or displaced hat-feather.
"You are the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on," the conductor thought. What he said was, "Ma'am."
The day was still high above them, children kicking rocks along the tracks. The conductor scratched under his hat and wondered, well what the hell now?
A man sitting in the...
OK guys. Calm down. Yes, I am standing on the edge of a cliff. No, I am not contemplating suicide.
For a start, my life is worth living. I have a new girlfriend, a great job, an apartment with a mortgage and a loving family. I don't drink and I only smoke after meals.
So, what am I doing here?
I am thinking of my future and of the choices I need to make. Like today, when I phoned my girlfriend (gorgeous, blonde and randy) and she said she thought it was time for commitment. But am I ready for...
I'm in luuu-uv with a ro-bot
An' I just can't stop
Got a feelin' he's a bad lot
But he gets me over the top
It was loud. It was *bad*. It was everywhere. It was augmented by neon lights in rainbow colors and, somehow, the voices and laughter bouncing off all the hard surfaces in here.
So, this, apparently, was a bar.
"Relax," Maya muttered at her side. "You look like a nun in need of Ex-Lax."
"This isn't what I had in mind," Elizabeth hissed back. "What the hell in the phrase 'a quiet night somewhere' made you...
Modelling had never been her idea. The vacuous stares, the hours in front of the mirror. Was it her fault her proportions were perfect for summer dresses? It was a life she escaped the moment she fled her mother's house.
She didn't pick the color of her hair. It didn't come on a shelf, stinking up the bathroom with it's noxious fumes, attracting evil eyes from other women who thought they knew what she was like simply from the glow of her yellow hair and the swing of her hips?
The pitch of her voice wasn't her fault. How did...
I...
I...I'm not sure what to say.
Lola.
God. Just the name. Just reading the name - a word, really and I'm gone. Just gone.
Do I actually remember her anymore? Sometimes, I wonder about that. Sometimes I think that what takes me away, what takes all ability to think or feel anything beyond the word, the name - LOLA...isn't really her at all.
There's this insidious thought that it's not her at all, but just what I always wanted her to be. And wouldn't that be the final victory? That I'm tormented by what I tried to make her...
"Vanquished, you say?"
He murmured it, holding up the worn little book in the dusty light, crooning to it. He held it gently, but peculiarly—*that* wasn't the way her mother had told her how to hold old books. He held it like a creature, like it was a little, wounded thing in a forest.
She darted back behind the end of the shelf as the strange man stiffened, and held her breath as he slowly turned his head to look down the aisle. His eyes were wrong. His clothing was wrong, too, she knew it was older than it should...
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...