It was within reach.
She just had to keep walking.
The key was to never stop.
Her heart was beating.
Her breath caught in her throat and she choked back a sob.
It had to be here.
Her arms were outstretched as she fumbled through the forest, moving as quickly as she dared over the treacherous ground.
Her shoulders shook as a her fear racked her whole body.
Her back stayed straight and her chin stayed strong, even as her spirit faltered.
They would not have lied to her surely.
They wouldn't have been that cruel.
They couldn't have been....
then the cold
A wet cold that moves through you that clings to your insides
A cold that whispers soft and true
_You will never be warm
Smile and huddle and see that here too in this fog, this unrelenting mist that covers everything
Here too is warmth, here too is a God
“Over here! It’s over here! I’ve found it!” yelled James, pointing frantically at the area to his left. “Honestly, there’s gold over here!” The shout seemed to fall on deaf ears. After months of searching the island for the treasure, and getting nowhere except lost, no one got too excited about so-called finds anymore. They would wander over in their own time, and usually they would kick at the jewels lying on the ground, or in the hole, or under the tree roots and declare them to be fake.
James, as the youngest on the expedition, still held out hope,...
"This wise guy can't use sign language or nothing?" Sandon, Cal's partner, said in disgust. The mime was placing his palms in the air progressively higher, which communicated nothing of any obvious value.
Cal sighed, looking down at the high-tech surveillance equipment lying on the table. Equipment the police department could never have afforded. "So, what's the deal then? You some kind of spook, or are you just a pervert?"
He gestured to the pile of tapes. "Look, we got you, son. You've recorded that lady do it with her john every night for the past month. We got all...
He was on edge today, I could tell. The whole drive over to the crime scene he was quiet. He is never quiet unless is trying to solve a case in five minutes, his ex-wife is being a pain in his ass or some thing more sinister was on his mind.
We crossed the holographic police line. It recognized our badge numbers and IDs instantly. These things save so much more time than that old, shitty tape we used years ago.
He knew who to talk to, and walked right up to the officer in charge.
"We got this boys,"...
She was twelve years old and had blood red lipstick. Her face was flushed and her hair tangled. She knelt at the bottom of the door frame, holding her red gown to her shoulders so that it wouldn't slip off.
Her father would pick her up soon. Relish over the money he made today. Not ask her how her day was. Ignore her fidgeting and discomfort. As long as she kept her customers satisfied, her dad was satisfied. Or rather, his drinking addiction was satisfied.
She wrapped her arms tighter around her legs. Someday she would get out. Someday she...
This dream was better than waking. Like many others-- She was there. She looked different in every dream, talked different, had a different name; but she was the same person every time. She was an aspect of me, who I wish I could be, who I knew I never could be.
Except in the dream. While I was still the awkward, shy man I always was, in my dream I could share dinner with a woman who had all the qualities I wanted. She could talk without feeling nervous. She was ambitious, no regrets of /not/ doing something. And, of...
When I was 12, I went to sea. I went to sea to see the sea. I had yet to see the sea until I was 12. Then the sea I saw, and the sea, she saw me.
We hated each other.
I had romanticized the sea, reading stories and poetry and all the great paintings of roiling waves and citrus sunsets, and salty captains and scruffy sea dogs. It got so I could smell the sea without having smelled the sea. And I couldn't wait to see the sea. So I went.
The sea, she was not pleasant that...
I hid behind the low, green trees. Gunshots scream as the team squatted behind the sandstone houses. 'RUN!' The chief yelled. I turn and sprint, confused. Then I hear it. We won. The sound of the biggest bomb i've ever heard beamed. My body went cold. The ground shattered underneath my toes. I see red from behind the houses. We won. Jumping in the back of the truck, hearing water and crashing objects. The feeling missing something appears. We counted the soldiers. 3 missing. We lost.
There was a stage. A microphone. A guy with a guitar and another at a piano. One spotlight trying to mark out everything up there and missing the edges. And that was it. If the audience in the jazz bar had been expecting anything more, anything grander or, well, jazzier, they were disappointed. Most were. It was a good place to be disappointed in.
It was a good place to spend money when it had nowhere else to be spent too. That’s mostly what these people were doing. Spending money that they didn’t know what else to do with. Spending...