"Who are you?" Gene didn't want to know the answer, but hurled at the woman sitting across the cafe table regardless. It was because of her that he was alone, it was her fault his wife no longer slept at his side.
She sucked at her cigarette, delivering her answer on a ribbon of viscous blue smoke. "Heather. Who're you?"
Gene, ever the copywriter, bit his tongue as his mind snatched the apostrophe from her words. 'Whore' he wanted to scream at the girl who shared the bed of the only woman he'd ever fucked.
'Liar,' the little voice in...
Travel light, but take everything with you. Pack your life into a suitcase. Compress a room of memories, dreams, nightmares, hopes, pain and happiness, take the few essentials and clear out.
That's what this feels like. I have to choose which of my memories are the most important to me. Pack them away into a suitcase and walk right out that door, never again to see the ones I left behind.
Clothes. A necessity. As many as possible-- I might not have the money to get more for a while.
Toiletries. Also a given.
Books? Well, with three shelves filled,...
Once he had left it because absolutely clear that I missed him. Before he had left it wasnt so clear. Not at all. In fact, I had fully expected to breathe a sigh of relief once the door closed and I never had to look at his face again. Once it actually happened it was different. Much different.
It made no sence. Well, maybe it did. I had never been very nice. To him, I mean. The times I had snapped could be counted on my fingers. One two three four five six...
He hadn't left any of those times....
Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up. "Everybody take a good long look at these" she exclaimed.
Jeff turned around to see Samantha holding a rat in each hand. She was smiling for some reason. And then it happened. The rats smelled a rat. That's exactly why Samantha had brought them. She knew if anyone could sniff out the rat that was most definitely sitting somewhere in the class, it would be another rat. (To catch you up, someone told the teacher that Samantha was cheating off of...
Meteorites struck a Russian town today. I wondered what I'd be thinking if they hit the place I live. Probably not worrying about my hair as I am today. Nor whether to meet up with the unsuitable man that I know I shouldn't ever see again. Nor would I procrastinate yet again over finishing paperwork and chores. None of that would matter. Only survival. Family. Are they ok? None of the mindless timewasting unimportant trivia we are all obsessed with would even cross our minds in that situation.
It reminds me of the time I was stuck underground in an...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway.
Two weeks ago, she had rebelliously boarded a ship from the island of Taiwan, left her grandparents who had raised her, and traveled back to China to find her parents -- who she wouldn't have recognized at all. She had been sent off as a baby during the Civil War; no sane Republican would have wanted their children brought up where intellectuals like her learned mother and her professor father were being publicly humiliated, abused. It is why she, as a baby, was sent away in...
We had our pet unicorn stuffed today. Oh people will tell you it's odd to stuff your family pet. A bit grim. A bit strange.
My aunt Gemma said we'd turn up on one of those hoarding shows, pointing out the rows of stuffed cats and rabbits to the audience.
I don't think it's so strange. Captain Bluebell gave us years of enjoyment. I remember when we first got him. The way he couldn't quite walk yet. He wobbled around, smashing all of the china we kept on pedestals. I don't remember why we kept over a dozen vases on...
Monkey banged into the table leg. The box hesitantly tipped over, shortening its shadow. Small waves of wine sieved through the table cloth.
"That fucking dog."
We laughed, watching our evening sink into the carpet.
We were too high to be drinking anyway.
Memory...
I forgot her face. How black were her eyes?
Was her nose long? Was her hair black?
No, I can't remember, I only remember that she was there, in my life.
A random memory hit like a lightning.
I have her snap in my laptop, or in was it in my personal file in flickr?
I try, with possible passwords...Wow ! After years, did I regain my memory? I wonder.
I open the personal photos in the flickr file.
I find her name there and eagerly click it and this image comes!
Memory lost again...I lose!
The sun brushed against the back of her neck as she walked towards the corral. Her hands fidgeted with the rope, looping it and unlooping it, her fingers running along the rough hemp braids, pausing at the bands of electrical tape marking hand holds.
Gus held his hand out to help her up onto the fence as she reached the edge of the corral, a smile splitting his tanned face. "You ready?" he asked, his voice a hoarse rasp.
She nodded as she reached the top of the fence. Inside the corral, her horse stood saddled, its side pressing against...