Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. The boy standing across the street couldn't help but notice her. He thought she looked a little curious as to what he was doing just standing on the other side of the street.
He totally forgotten the reason himself. He couldn't wrench his eyes off her no matter how hard he tried.
Her dark brown hair ran down her sides like silk, ending where her waist begins. The crimson red of her gown brought out the tan of her skin, and fit just lovely on her...
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...
I held it at arm's length, pressing the butt of the gun into my shoulder. It was heavy and my muscles screamed and burned with the weight. "Almost there," I thought to myself. A strand of my hair fell into my eyes but I ignored it and kept my focus on my target. Carefully balancing my weapon, I raised a hand to still my partner walking behind me. Three of my fingers held up for him to see.
Three.
Target in sight.
Two.
Ready.
One.
Run.
We ran across the bright grass, firing endlessly in the direction of our intended...
Of course, Heather was twisted. Everybody knew this except Gene, so of course he was the only one who ever professed his love to her. Except Heather wanted to leave him for just this reason; who would act unabashedly and intentionally weird if she did not want to be loved for it? Heather, certainly, wanted to be loved for who she was.
The two of them were watching TV. Good-natured, his loopy grin a chipper wave at the world, Gene turned to Heather and said, "Darling, I will make you a sandwich! Stay put, don't move a finger." She looked...
I met him on the beach. He sat, fully clothed, legs ajar with a cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth, ash dropping sullenly, almost petulantly into the faded crotch of his blue jeans. His eyes were a-glaze, his raybans askew and he hadn’t seem to notice me sitting down beside him.
It was night. Behind us various Reggaeton tunes blared from various speakers, set outside the rows and rows of cocktail shacks at the side of the beach, all selling cheap and strong and just how we liked to drink it. The sky was jet and pinpricked with...
The lamp wouldn't turn on. But it turned on yesterday? She checked the bulb, but it wasn't there.
"What the fuck?" she noted, as she glanced around the room. This was instinctual and odd as she knows no one else is within 25 miles of this cabin, the middle of nowhere in South Dakota.
"If I didn't move this bulb, no one could have," she debated aloud to herself. "There's no one else here but me, unless..." she muttered, her voice trailing off in a way that she tried to prevent from sounding desperate, to prevent herself from scaring herself...
The wagon was now about 100 feet away. I was rooted to the spot with fear. Perspiration ran down my face and my heart was pounding in my head, I was shaking and powerless to move.
I looked at my son who was stood just a few yards away, His face full of fatigue and fear. I thought I could hear his thoughts..."this is hopeless," we can't do a thing and there is no hope.
If only someone could come and help I thought and screamed it inside a hundred times.
I don't remember the trip to the hospital.But, I...
The voyage was all fun and games until the iceberg came.
Nobody had invited the iceberg, and it seemed to show up out of nowhere. One moment, Rockwell was painting the dog on the banister, the next, the iceberg was full frame in the painting, like someone who hasn't noticed that you're taking a group photo and decides to walk right in front of the camera.
There was no use reasoning with it. It was obstinate, unmoving, rather dull to boot. At dinner that night, the usual good cheer in the ballroom had evaporated. Everyone was silent. The old colonel...
In the harsh twilight, he knelt and dug.
In the bottom of the phoenix-grave, he spread the spores that would feed on and support the beginnings 0f all life.
In the sharp, glassy soil, he placed the seeds of a new planet.
In the unmeasured, empty space of an hour, he changed the course of the universe.
In the flat gray expanse of weathered silicates, three thousand potatoes rested.
In the dead methane-carbon dioxide atmosphere, the harsh actinic sun slanted down, undimmed by ozone.
In the cool, moist air of his time machine, he left the dawn of the world,...
The cold bit at her toes. Pulling them to her body, she peered over the top of her blanket. The world was beginning to come alive. People hurried on there way to work, lights flickering on across the pale grey skies.
It was an odd time of day; it brought with it relief and pain. She was glad of the sound, the sights of other people. The nights grew monotonous, full of nothing. Every minute seemed like hours, every hour like days as nothing but black emptiness stretched out before her. As day broke, cutting through the darkness, she often...