Hush the forest. Hush where the bear was, the deer have been downed. Hush my screaming heart.
In the kitchen where I am carried after my father's death, I ask for one shortbread cookie filled with jam as my mother Connie smiles around like the carousel she is of feelings. I want to sit in the dark corner and think about the bear mauling him. My father Claus, lying on the needles and still.
I ran into the woods and Meryl knocked me out. Unintentionally, I was fighting him as I would a bear. He cried onto my suede, he...
She blew out the candles on her birthday cake, and the world we knew was extinguished. The next day, streamers and half-deflated balloons still taped to the walls and ceiling, Dad came home and pulled Mom into the kitchen and they spoke in whispers.
Jenny looked at me and snuck up to the television and turned down the volume, so we could hear was they were saying, but Mom knew and stuck her head in and told us to go down to Grandma's for the afternoon.
We walked down the block, turned right at the corner store, left after two...
"Your team is to find the contact code-named Scurvy."
"Scurvy? Boy, he sounds pleasant."
"Actually, she's quite humorous and accommodating. You'll understand when you meet her."
"What time should I set out."
"Now."
"Great, thanks. I'll take my own rig."
At 0800, I landed on the beach where Scurvy was waiting for me. She didn't seem particularly pirate-like in any way. I handed her the documents, she scanned them, then threw them in the air and set them aflame with a snap.
"So why do they call you Scurvy?"
She stopped mid-stride and leered at me. Hilarious, indeed.
"We've got...
Everything was going according to plan until that Saturday morning.
Birds chirped and the sun gleamed and glistened over the water. Laura had been in love with the same guy since her middle school years. His name was Joe-a funny, outgoing, loving, handsome, man. It was her senior year in high school when she found out that she would be the mother of his child. And until this Saturday morning, he had said that he loved her and that he would never leave her side.
The ultrasound appointment came, which he agreed to join her in, that morning at 8...
Balanced on the line, he told her again, "Put it down!"
Regan the vampire could not move closer. For the first time in his long life, he was powerless. The girl tricked him by her unnatural beauty into drinking the potion. Standing on the narrow path dividing the graveyard he could feel his life ebbing away before she had even touched him with the metal spear. He prayed to his god, unanswered as he predicted.
Just before she pierced his heart she whispered 'I love you but I have to let you go'.
He took his last breath and inhaled...
afraid I can't follow the prompt
it's entirely outside my area of expertise
guess I could make it all up
but that's not my thing today
thought I would be writing truth
and deep strongly held beliefs
but the prompt about news reporters
and grabbing for glory
doesn't sound like my kind of story
glad for the time limit
as it ticks away I think
at least I will not be verbose
and yet there is something
I really wanted to say about
praying for peace and going to war
and fighting terror with terror
that niggles at my gut...
Rain poured down, next to her, the doorway shielding her. She clutched her red gown as she huddled down close to the ground. The tears wouldn't stop flowing. She was terrified. Elsewhere in Beijing, a man was looking through his house. Calling a name, begging for his daughter to come back.
The girl in the red gown knew what he was doing. She was trying not to care. She was not going back. Not after what he did. Was it right, what he did? What she did? She didn't know. Nobody would know. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She...
I'm with stupid. It's Jerry's favorite T-shirt. He wears it all the time. It doesn't matter where we're going, he'll wear the shirt. Church, court, the museum-- he just shrugs his shoulders and gives me that grin when I ask him not to wear it. The more inappropriate the occasion, the more it seems to spur him to wear it.
Jerry's never really cared about impressions, that I get. But he also doesn't seem to get that I do. Sometimes, I think he gets some sick pleasure out of watching me squirm while he's talking to a prospective client at...
"Okay now, keep steady on the horse." John heard these words and almost groaned with pain. Oh, wait, that was because his horse was trying to run away and bucked up into his crotch. He'd learned to ride one damn day ago and was still hungover from last night's king cup of peach-mango margarita.
"Calm down," she said, "you look stressed." No crap, John thought. He looked at the crowd of people across the water, just standing on dry land, in their bare feet and loose white clothing, chatting and smiling. A few of them were even holding their own...
She kept her eyes down, on her shoes. People brushed past her, maybe impatiently. She didn't move, she didn't walk.
She waited for someone to take her hand, to try to talk to her, to lead her away. It didn't happen. No one looked at her. Nothing happened, and she heard nothing. Better that way, because how could she explain anything?
Making the decision, she walked over to the bench, sat down at the very edge, across from a display of vacuum cleaners. Still, she stared at her feet.
Without warning, he was standing in front of her, cheeks still...