There's somebody standing in the corner of my room.
Did you not hear me?
Let me say it again.
There is somebody standing in the corner of my room.
A blonde little girl sucking her thumb and staring back at me with these big brown eyes. She wears a ragged green dress that she held fisted in the hand that wasn't in her mouth.
"Hi," she muttered around her thumb. "Someone told me you could help me."
I stared back at her dumbstruck with my jaw on the floor. After I picked it up I asked, "Who exactly are you?"...
"Pegodi? Pogado?"
Sneering, Jess looked at Adam and asked waht the hell he thought he was doing.
"That thing there, out on the water. What's it called?"
They both turned and stared out across the man-made lake. No more than two feet deep, and even less than that if you counted the layers of garbage and duck shit on the bottom.
"That building," Adam said, pointing. As if it wasn't obvious enough, sitting on the dock, the second man-made structure in view.
Jess exhaled and told him it was a pagoda. He snapped his fingers.
"That's it. Wow," he said,...
butterfly is my name, butterfly is my code name is what I mean. Small 'b'. Serial number 123456123456. One day I will be allowed to see green hills and blue skies but for now I am living under fluorescent light in the bunker I get told is home. Did I tell you I am an alien, accidentally arrived here ten of your years ago and kept alive, miraculously, not sliced up like my companions for the delectation and curiosity of the military and scientific communities.
One day I might be free to fly away like my namesake.
My wings are...
I have come to dread the raven's caw that signals moonrise. It is the dread noise that warns me of worse to come, when I can feel the change come upon me. I beg this of the sun, do not set, do not leave me. Leave me alone with myself and the thing that I carry within me.
This is my anti-aubaude. Leave me with the rest of humanity, walking on two feet. Leave me to tools, to society, to love and all the rest that makes us man. Keep me from hunger, keep me from rage, keep me from...
She cradled the faun's head as it mewed pathetically, legs shaking as it attempted to get up.
"Shh," she cooed to it softly, running her hands down it's glossy coat.
"What is it?" A small voice spoke behind her, making her turn and open up her arms to the small girl stood nervously at the edge of the clearing.
"That's a baby deer." Another voice answered, the familiar form of her husband appearing behind the small child. "It's the first one I've seen for around forty years."
"Are they from before the war?" The small girl asked as she approached...
The disco ball was turning, splattering little dots of light around the room. James waited patiently in his carefully thoughtout position directly above it. He needed to wait until his target reached the invisible X directly under the big rotating ball of tiny mirrors. His fingers ached but soon, he told himself, soon he would have satisfaction. The man in the suit coat was nearing th X. James positioned the knife next to the rope that held the disco ball. The man was on the X. In one swift motion, James cut the rope and watched as it fell. There...
The moment she walked into the room, I knew I was in for a wild time. Dressed to the nines, head to toe in the most wonderfully tailored bespoke suit, wingtips made from the most exquisite black leather.
She wanted me to find her sister. She had gone missing months back, and recently, the client found evidence that she was still alive. The police didn't want to look into it, said that the case was closed. The sister had ties to the mob. I got out my gun, and went to the hideout she told me about. Apparently, they were...
He sat down at his designated desk, amongst the 45 other students in the room and used his #2 pencil to tear the the prompt book open along it's perforated edges once the clock started. The first thing he noticed was the first page of blank lined notebook paper that had been supplied, on which he was expected to write, according to whatever prompt the state board of education decided appropriate that year to judge a person's worth in two and a half hours.
He looked on the opposite page for the prompt which would decide his future. Nothing. Another...
For some reason, I couldn't stop staring at the picture. It was... gorgeous, sure. The colors were somewhat exaggerated, leaving me with the sick feeling you get when you eat something that's got so much sugar in it, it might as well be syrup. The writing at the top is what really got my attention. I never really understood the whole point of Christ.
I mean, here we are, a bunch of people living on this planet that God created, and we're all pieces of crap destined to go to hell because we're just that bad. And along comes Christ...
It should have been romantic, this sunset beach stroll. His back was to her as he stood, ankle-deep in the surf. Beyond him the pelicans flew low over the water as the sun set. But he collected shells along the beach like they were nuggets of gold. She had watched him study the circles of leftover life all day, the top of his head getting sunburned at noon.
She wore a wide-brimmed hat, even now, even as the sun slipped beyond the horizon. The hat was as practical now as the diaphragm she had tucked away in her suitcase, still...