I knew it would be two foggy to see the dock from the top of Crescent Hill but Grandfather had insisted, and so we went. It took nearly an hour by carriage but we had a grand old time. Millicent Hedgegrove was with us. I knew that she had been sweet on Grandfather but never really wanted to admit it. Mother and Father took turns laughing at the antics of Celeste and I and fussing at us for being too silly.
The carriage could only take us so far and then we had to climb the half mile up...
Well, it's not everyday that you actually get woken up by a ghost that you didn't believe in, but there it was (he?) - a fuzzy apparition perhaps imagined more than actually manifesting before your shimmering eyes in the night (shimmering to eyes as tinnitus is to ears) - and the thud of the door as it fell from it's hinges to the floor. It (he) was assumed to be the grumpy man who lived 89 years alone in the old house, leaving crates and crates of dusty homemade wine in the basement, bottled in old milk bottles stopped with...
Old Joseph "Moonshine" Clark was sitting in his tattered wooden rocking chair facing the door, sleeping. The beer he'd downed an hour previously was good stuff and he was sleeping it off. He awoke suddenly. There was a scratch at the door. Then another scratch. And then the house erupted in nails-on-chalkboard scratching sounds, all over the place. As the symphony of scratching grew louder and louder, Moonshine shivered. Adding to the terrible noises was a new, more heart-wrenching sound- the plaintative crying of a baby. Moonshine groaned. He'd known somehow that they'd do this, try to drive him mad...
There's somebody standing in the corner of my room. He just stands there in diffused light - brooding and making no noise.
Oddly enough, he makes no attempt at escaping. Perhaps its because I stapled him to the dresser drawer as he had refused to have his picture taken.
He looks so much better in person anyway...
In 1921, he flew from the Great Rift Valley, along the trails left by the ancient Martians, to find the Temple of the Sun. It was buried, like so much else on Mars, in red sands over the course of millennia, but that meant nothing when you had a native to escort you to their ancestral home.
"So, how can we breathe here?" Pete asked the small, silver creature before him.
It sat in the biplane, strapped in, looking ridiculously small in the pilot's seat. "Air bubble," it replied, fiddling with the dials.
Pete had never flown in a biplane...
"Which way to Omaha?"
Paint flakes blew in the wind. It smelled like gas. Anna's hair was matted; she could feel it knot further. She had nothing; the pockets of her pants were empty except for lint and paint flakes. And one quarter.
The men here knew nothing except that a woman, however unattractive and hagard, was standing in front of them. Who cared where Omaha was, anyways?
"You want some money, sweetie?" One of them whistled. "Ain't no one givin' you money in Omaha."
She rolls her eyes and walks away. Dust settles in the space above her clavicle....
Memory...
I forgot her face. How black were her eyes?
Was her nose long? Was her hair black?
No, I can't remember, I only remember that she was there, in my life.
A random memory hit like a lightning.
I have her snap in my laptop, or in was it in my personal file in flickr?
I try, with possible passwords...Wow ! After years, did I regain my memory? I wonder.
I open the personal photos in the flickr file.
I find her name there and eagerly click it and this image comes!
Memory lost again...I lose!
The pistol was cocked, ready to go. Its bags were packed, you might say. Its shoes were on, and it was at Grandma's. Its teeth were brushed, its coat on and backpack packed. With bullets.
"Reach for the sky!" Criminal Pete shouted, holding the pistol from the previous paragraph at the unsuspecting victims.
"Okay, okay," the unsuspecting victims all said in unison. They all reached for the sky at the exact same time. They were synchronized mug victims. It was a living!
"Stop that, it's creepy, like dolls or clowns," Criminal Pete said. It was a bit creepy, but less...
The wind blew across the plains, picking up clods of dirt as it ran past, and I gripped my son's shoulder, as if by some instinct. Soon the dust would blow through the cracks in our log cabin, and the kitchen -- the tiny corner we called the kitchen -- would soon fill with what looked for all the world like soot. That we could take. The ground and the wind had been trying to kill us for years. We were used to it. But lately we'd had to contend with spiders. Tarantulas. Tough sons of bitches that put their...
The hunter followed, exposing himself. Edwin noted his height and confident stride. Their battle would be violent and difficult; but only if the hunter could catch him first.
As soon as he cleared the crowd at the train station he broke into a run, dashing past street vendors and through alleyways, zig-zagging across the city in an attempt to lose his pursuer.
After ten minutes, he paused at the mouth of an alley, leaning over to catch his breath. At the other end, a car went by ... then another ... then the hunter's silhouette appeared again. Slowly and deliberately,...