"I never asked to be a hero," Fred screamed. "As a matter of fact, I was supposed to be the villain!" Fred grabbed Judy before Punch was able to stop him.
"Fred...what is your goal, what do you think you can accomplish by scaring Judy?" Punch asked calm as the dead wind that laid heavy against their skin.
"I want to obtain the Marionnettes. I want to be free to wake up and pull the strings of life without being looked at as someone who will save mankind," Fred said as he let go of Judy. His hands white with...
She could tell I was faking it. Unforgiveness. Ten years working at the lab, overtimes, ruined marriage, kids that pretend I'm not their dad, ulcers. I hated her for joking around, waving the scalpel, accidentally killing F7, our first subject to live beyond three months.
In human years he this was equivalent to 20. Tall, dark haired, extraordinarily strong. Yes, he was ugly, but this was of no consequence. We had all grown to love him. .
Sonia, my assistant ran out the room instead of trying to save his life. Couldn't look at me. Knew I would never stop...
"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...
Penelope loved the fountain, loved the way the water sprayed, cooling her in the hot sun, making her clothes cling as she called her joy to the heavens.
"What are you doing?" asked the man in the blue uniform.
Some sort of park official, thought the girl. "Nothing. Just enjoying the water."
"This isn't a waterpark, you know," said the man, a note of disapproval hanging from his lips like a dangling cigar, ready to drop and burn.
"So?" she asked. She kicked up a fine spray as her feet pattered against the thin layer that had built up over...
It was his favourite shirt. But in the rush to leave, it had been forgotten on the line. She stared at it every day from her window. Today it was an especially bitter reminder as she stood at the window, mixing up a batch of cookies.
The cookies were for her son's funeral. The son who had worn that shirt day in, day out, until the day he left. The son who had climbed that tree as a boy, played hide and seek in that yard. The teenager who brought girls home to kiss behind the big tree when he...
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...
The room was dark and hazey that morning. Im sure the night before that had been filled with booze, girls and college antics was the cause of the dry, drpessed feeling.
My proffessors voice piecrced like a knife in my skull as he said "You have six minutes to write a story. GO!" My hand gripped the chewed No. 2 pencil as I scramble to write everything about nothing.
My mind raced at the pace of a hungry slug as I stamered to think of somthing to write.
My writing skills are poor, I have limited ideas and my grammer...
reminded of yesterday
time and syllables
on the bus
greening the escapades
sifting the aftermath
reliving just before
loving the waters
time on stop
bridging the gap
minding the openness
all says go
the road to
The gate closed behind them.
'And stay out!' shouted the old man. He sneered and spat on the ground.
Billy spat back at him through the heavy iron uprights of the gate. A bubble of saliva struck his tie, but he didn't even flinch.
'Stupid old goat,' snapped Billy as Dan stepped backward shaking his head. Old Man Barnes might be a stupid old goat, but even Dan knew that kids like them shouldn't talk to men like him that way. Dan's dad always going on about how Old Man Barnes had fought in all the big wars and was...