It was an early morning. Anna was going for a morning run around her block. She was always found doing something worth while. She had always enjoyed looking at books about other countries. She had an infatuation with countries that had different letters to English ones. She came across a book on the ground, with funny, squiggly letters that Anna recognised to be Chinese writing. She flicked through the pages and found something that really interested her. It had birds, letters, photos of females and males and clothes that looked ancient.
She tried to decipher what the writing said over...
The first few days she hadn't noticed the bars. She'd noticed very little about her surroundings other than that they were wrong. As her head became less fuzzy and she began to understand why they were wrong, that this wasn't where she was supposed to be she tried to learn everything there was to learn about this unfamiliar environment.
It was on the tenth day that she'd counted, that the sun shone for the first time. Whereas it had looked grey and dreary outside, the glowing sunlight made it look full of possibilities. The bars were on the inside of...
Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up.
"Malcolm, what are you doing?" The teacher frowned slightly.
"They're not freaks," she said, quiet but emphatic. "And they're not faking for attention. It's not a disorder, and it's not an illness. It's just a way of being."
The words had been running through her head for the past twenty minutes as the teacher had started talking about gender identity disorder, in which people didn't identify with the biological sex that they were born into.
"I'm sorry, Malcolm, but it's in...
The dream had been wonderful, yet it would never be real: she knows, even as she wakes, in the taste of bitter almonds at the back of her throat.
She tries to still herself completely so she can relive it in the morning haze. There was a boy-- no, a man-- and he had called her somewhere, taken her somewhere--
She breathes. In, out. In, out. Maybe there's something in dreamcatchers after all.
There had been a man in the dream. That is certain. There had been a man in the dream, and he had--
The fan drones incessantly. She...
The pain was gigantic.
No, no wait, that wasn't the right word. What was the right word?
Around him people were shouting, shells were exploding, shots were being fired. But he was oblivious to that.
All he could do was lie there and try to find the word.
Someone was saying something close by. "You just hold on in there Billy, you just hold on, y'hear?"
Billy? For a moment the name didn't mean anything to him. Then he remembered that it was his own.
"It'll all be okay, you'll be okay." Another voice was talking to him.
Of course...
All I could do is stare. Rendered speechless by the impromptu, silly dance, I stood on the curb and crossed my arms across my stomach, a half smile curling my lips as I watched the motley crew before me dance and sway. Hands clapped above faces masked in what I could only describe as a mask straight from the Happy Mask Salesman from the Legend of Zelda.
Well, at least there was some bright spot to this dreary day. I swayed my hips to their chanting, to the low beats of their music as they moved, tapping my fingers rhythmically...
It was foggy, full of promise for a wet and drizzly day.
As she looked out to sea, deliberately pushing away the gloomy thoughts threatening to take hold, her thoughts wandered to those out there.
Not the ones who still had blood pumping round their bodies but rather those who never made it back to dry land.
Boys and men lost, loved by mothers and sweethearts. Trapped in the wrecks of ancient ships that were now just tourist sites for the seasonal divers.
No such visitors today. Summer was over (had it ever really arrived?) and a new season was...
Mr. Floppers was clearly possessed. He watched little Billy eating his breakfast, his beady black eyes cold and unfeeling. Billy had felt uneasy ever since his father shoved the still warm plush body into his arms a few days ago.
There was something not right about that bunny. Not right at all.
At first it was little things. The staring. The unmoving frown. Then Billy noticed the bunny seemed to move from where he'd placed him.
Last night he'd had a nightmare in which his fluffy companion crouched over him, opening his mouth to reveal a set of cold white...
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...
She slept in the open air, in the windy hills, on a soft pillow. She was covered in the blankets of her mother's mother. She sang God's songs. When she played music, her hands made the strings talk and her voice accompanied. From atop her hill no one could hear her. The would hear her one day. She spoke God's words. When finally she slept, she would always dream. New songs would be woven in her head, on that soft pillow. Her message was the word of God and when she came down off this mountain she would save her...