The desert rose would always grow.
It knew nothing of circumstances beyond its control. Nothing of bodies drying in the sun, baked by heat on the hot sand. All that mattered was the sun and the wind and just enough moisture to survive.
The girl turned, picked the pink blossom, and tucked it into the soldier's kaki colored uniform. The color clashed happily with the washed out surroundings, almost as much as the smile with which he repaid her small kindness.
It was difficult getting to people to understand that actually you wanted to be in the cage. That the cage was the safest place at the moment.
The rest of the world had gone mad - or at least, it seemed that way. Maybe the world had always been like this, maybe there had always been something in a stranger's eye, maybe there was always something in the rain that made it taste funny.
Maybe the drugs were wearing off, maybe he was finally waking up to the reality. Or the drugs were taking effect, maybe he was devolving (he'd...
"Come here often, do you?" The old man said. He was sitting on the iron bench waiting, like me, for the bus. His clothes were a little ratty and he smelled faintly of moth balls. I didn't know what to say to him being as this was my first time here.
"No, sir. You?" I replied, awkwardly.
"Been coming to this stop for, oh, must be twenty years now." He said, shifting his cane a bit. His dark glasses hid his eyes and I wondered if he were blind.
"Ah...well..." I trailed off. I've never been one for socializing with...
Finally I had reached the moment that everyone could only dream of. As I stood in the white room, memories of the past kept going through my head. All the choices I had made to get to this moment; all the things I didn’t do when I could; all the things that led me here. When she walked in, my thoughts ceased. As the angel in white was walking towards me, tears began to fill my eyes with a smile appearing on both of our faces.
“Sorry I took so long to get ready.” Her hair was grey and...
When Martin stood there in disbelieve, but she was deadly serious. "I understand that you have every reason not to trust me here, Martin, but I'm not kidding. If I bring you to the camp, you will never get that chance again. Your teleporter will be gone forever. So please, do what I told you. And come back." Martin thought about his brother all of a sudden, and how he always pranked him into doing something stupid. He felt the little scar on his index finger, where his brother tricked him into touching mom's iron. And he also thought about...
PUNCH
Graham Pererson was a murderer. He killed people. Often.
Under the guise of a little old man he scoured the late evening streets for his victims. He carried a small bag and a walking stick.
He had a nicely worked out system which had, to date, never failed him.
And so tonight, April 1, he locked his door behind him and headed towards the suberbs.
They were starting to head home in groups of two and three from their nights of debauchery. He hated them. All of them.
A young woman seperated from her group and turned a corner....
"Jesus Christ! Where am I now?"
As Martin gazed into the vast ocean in front of him, the broken teleporter still beeping in his left hand, he realized, that getting home might have just become impossible.
He tramped down an empty highway for hours, without meeting a single car, until he reached a gas station. Inside, there was no one. He went around the cash register, took out some change and dialed his brothers number from a pay phone next to the candy isle. It rang. "Come on, pick up." Nothing. He let it ring for a couple of minutes...
Good night…
Good morning…
Good afternoon…
Chet had to find his own fun while working as a department-store greeter. Sometimes he said “Good evening” instead of “Good night” to the fancier-looking customers. Sometimes he said it to the disreputable customers, too, but a bit sarcastically, to see if they’d pick it up on it. They usually didn’t.
Every now and then Chet would greet someone with the wrong time of day. “Good afternoon, sir,” he’d say, as the sun was peeking over the mountains. “Good night, ma’am,” while the sun was burning hot overhead. And usually people just continued on...
The hillsides have been finger-painted
with Larch trees turning yellow
like smears from a child's hand
that Mother Nature will bleach away within the month
I stare, thinking there must be a pattern to it.
Birds eating seeds from cones and dropping them in flight?
Early colonizers after a fire?
Unwilling to believe in beauty without structure and reason
Dusk arrives with its gift of quiet
As if hosting it here in this small moment of time required recompense.
A perfect moment of stillness
before I turn to go inside and life's motions begin again
You know damn well the head is in the box. You know damn well how this movie will end. But her legs are across yours and she shaved. They're smooth like you could have only guessed, because in winter she was all jeans and tights.
You've been hovering with your hand on her knee and she's so into this damn movie that you've seen one hundred times. She hasn't mentioned that she thinks about sleeping with Brad Pitt, but you see the way her eyes get when he comes on screen. She has yet to give you those eyes, but...