I step back and look. It seems complete.
Ms. Johnson comes over and looks at it. She barely glances before saying, "Wonderful, wonderful. Fantastic job." She's forgotten my name again. I doubt she'll ever remember.
I leave it on an easel and walk out of the classroom. No one looks back at me. No one calls my name or asks me to meet them at their lockers. I keep walking. Soon I am beyond the reach of our cloistered middle school existence into worlds beyond. High schoolers pass by. None of them look at me either. They have their own...
I had finished drawing. The picture a beautiful representation of her body. I told her that I was done, she decided not to put her clothes back on. I twisted the drawing board around and she smiled. I smiled in turn and told her it was an excellent drawing, and she was an excellent model. She blushed. She said it was my turn and I was confused. She emphasized a bit more and I knew. She asked if I was uncomfortable doing so and I told her no. She took a blank piece of paper. sitting there naked made me...
Malcolm's coo became a cry. The big hands came, to sweep him up, into the dark, cradled, into the big arms. And his cries, despite himself and the rage that swelled within him, subsided.
The big arms swayed, the soft sounds soothed, and Malcolm rocked, he swum, he spun. His arms too small too tired, his legs useless and swaddled up. He liked the rocking, it eased the ache of his anger. It reminded him of the wheel.
The spinning wheel of endless endless, the wheel of flame, where his candle was relit, where his heart was reforged. From the...
"Two-thousand-seventy bottles of beer on the wall, two-thousand and seventy bottles of beeeeeer. Take one down, pass it around, two-thousand-and-sixty-nine bottles of beer on the waaaaaaaaaaaaaaall."
Johnny steps down from the stage to thunderous, silent applause. A few faces are comically stunned. Most are arranged in various expressions of disgust.
I'm sure the patrons of the Poet's Society were hoping for better lyrics from the Frontman of the Year. I walk hurriedly to the publicist to begin my explanation. Should I go for the cancer, the break-up, the drugs, or the booze option? I'm sure that's what everyone's thinking anyway....
Despite the obvious instructions, the young boy turned from the class prompt and began scribbling furiously on the sheet of lined, college-ruled paper. First an eye, then another. Two ears — no, wait, make it three — and a cruel mouth. Fangs and something like a tongue, long and sharp and forked. A ferrety neck protrudes awkwardly into shoulders and a pair of thin, hairy arms extend from these.
He squints with intention, his hand begins hurting from gripping the number two pencil so hard. A messy hand and another goes onto the page. Four fingers on one, three on...
Private Morlane glanced at the watch that he'd taken off and left on the small table by his cot, rubbing his sleep-weary eyes as he noticed what time it was. Fifteen minutes until dawn, or at least until when dawn was slated to be, according to all of the records that he had read over the last few mornings.
The last few mornings had been early ones. They were camped next to a large farm, with a broken-down wooden fence surrounding the grounds, where a large rooster loved to perch at sunrise and crow so loudly that every living thing...
She paced the living room. He would be home soon, and she had no idea how she would answer his keys in the door.
She had spent week thinking of the words, only to lose them now. Her hands were clasped as if praying were something that would work now.
"I have to do this," she thought to herself.
"I have to do this," she said to herself.
The car could be heard pulling into the driveway. A car opens. It shuts.
She freezes. Hands down at her side. She stand amongst their furniture, their pictures, their nick-knacks.
She stands...
Plain Jane never shone so brightly as when she held a pair of knitting needles in her long slender hands.
Her aunt had taught her the craft, hoping to initiate her into the family business, but eons later Jane still only filled in when the older woman was forced to take a few days off. Jane couldn't blame her. Holding that much power in your hands was intoxicating. No wonder she never wanted to retire.
Still, progress and time marched on, the strong became weaker, and the elderly were superceded by their more youthful contemporaries. When Jane suggested destinies be...
I am plastic.
Three years ago, I went to Hawaii (a big rock in the middle of the ocean) with a rock on my finger. I came back with sunburn, razor burn, and a too-tight gold band that cut my finger right below the big rock.
Two years ago, my birthday present was breast implants. I guess they look okay. After I healed, we had sex and he said, "Huh, they don't feel so great. Look nice, though."
I'm here, I guess. I don't know if I ever was. I've been wearing lipstick since eleven and stuffing my bra since...
Six minutes. You wouldn't think it a long enough span of time to affect anything. Anyone.
And yet.
It's time enough and more to change your life. My life.
We were given six minutes. The span between one time slot and the next.
Six minutes to explain.
Six minutes to speak.
And I couldn't. There was nothing I could say to erase what I did.
So.
I kissed her.
Again.
And this time she melted into my arms.
Wrapped hers around my neck.
And for six minutes it was perfect.
Bliss.
Until the buzzer rang. And someone rapped on the...