Swing.
I would sneak out my window at night when both my parents were asleep. I'd walk the block and a half to the schoolyard, sit in the middle swing of the playground and sing to myself until he got there. Then he'd push me gently to and fro while we talked about the day, about tomorrow, and the tomorrows after that.
Swing.
We met that way for a year until his parents found out and installed alarms on all their windows and doors. They thought it was drugs, or teenage trouble he was after. But it was just to...
The mob held torches like flags, upright and proud, ready for battle with the onion factory. Sons, mothers, daughters, friends, marched on toward revenge. They threw their torches onto the large building, sending smoke signals for miles, saying "we're in charge here!"
For weeks, the town smelled like onions. At first, people sniffed their clothes to make sure it didn't come from their home cooked meals "People" here meaning the people who didn't boycott onions altogether. Most people substituted elephant garlic or onion powder, or just went without the taste. One girl started vomitting at the sight of onions altogether....
They crouched to peer beneath the stairs. Michelle lay there in a drunken, unconsious heap.
"Ok, how are we going to get her up to bed?" sighed Peter.
"You're going to carry her." said Natasha, flatly.
"No, not again. I didn't move into his houseshare just to spend my Saturday mornings carrying my alchy housemates around". said Peter.
Natasha turned towards Peter and said in a hushed tone, "She's not alcoholic, she's just not over Steven yet".
"He dumped her 2 months ago!"
Suddenly, there was some movement beneath Michelle's still body.
Peter and Natasha peered beneath the stairs again...
I sat near the stall where they sold jade jewelry, waiting for Hestan to finish buying a years worth of magnolia tea from the stall across the way. I lifted my delicate umbrella to sheild me from the blazing sun overhead. I looked up at the gorgeous architecture perched above me. I loved China. The elegant sweep of each roof enraptured me. When i asked why they were like that, the woman told me that evil spirits could only travel in straight lines, so it could ward them off. Hestan walked toward me, his bag stuffed with 5 sealed jars...
Fault. Not a good word. Not a pleasant word. It conjures up the idea of blame. If someone’s at fault, someone’s to blame. The same thing.
Plus it makes me think of faulty. Broken. Useless.
Like you, really. It’s your fault. You’re faulty. It’s not me, it’s you.
I can tell you now I never appreciated the blank stares, the monosyllables, the selfishness, the way you sit there every morning drinking your coffee and reading your paper, or tapping away at your laptop, or doing whatever it is you do with your phone. Facebook, maybe? Or are you on Twitter?...
She'd have preferred the electric chair. She'd always been a fan of electricity. She recalled the first time her mother had given her a knife and set her down in front of the light socket. "Go on...Stick it in there good now honey" her mother had told her. And the jolt. Wow. Margaret knew exactly what she wanted to do with her life from that very first light socket. Electricity would be her calling. And boy did she answer that call.
As a young girl she would put on shows for the kids on the block by hopping in the...
Giving in wasn't an option, but there was little else she could do.
"Ok, ok," she told the young galant with the sharp blade, "take whatever you want. Just don't hurt me."
The rascal had a look in his eye so sharp it could cut glass. "What I want, my lady," he said, drawing the space out between words to give them import, "is you."
The young woman's eyes widened, her ruby lips opened, but words failed her.
Reaching down, he made himself ready for his reward; then laid his hands upon-
her chastity belt.
Freed of the constraints of...
They would never stop.
She used to love the sight of birds on a rooftop, electric wires, even clotheslines. She used to feed them in the park, throwing crumbs and other leftover sandwich bits to the flock that would land on the concrete and nibble at her feet. But they were not content.
They wanted more.
Soon, she noticed the flock flying behind her car as she drove home from work, the store, the school. They would line up behind her like children behind the Pied Piper, only these children had coal black eyes and hearts to match. They were...
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,...
She peered over her laptop screen, wishing that during her youth she had plucked her eyebrows into a thin line like her mother's - they always managed to make her look more stern than she every really was.
Right now, she would have given anything to be able to pull that off.
Somehow she'd managed to get the class quiet and at least convinced them into acting as though they were doing their work. But it had been a hard battle.
It wasn't that she viewed her entire career as a teacher as a war, just this class, and a...