Potatoes.
That's all the six year old girl would eat. And it seemed that no matter what else I tried to serve her, potatoes was it. She wouldn't try anything else. Wouldn't look at anything else. All she ever wanted? Potatoes.
"Honey, what are we supposed to do?" I sighed, sliding into bed that night. "We went out to the Olive Garden. And she asked for potatoes!"
My husband chuckled a little. "Well, look on the bright side: at least it's a vegetable she wants. Could be worse."
"This is bad enough! No protein! No grain! Heck, even sugar would...
"I won't," I said. And she turned and walked away. The generals and lower officers, in turn, followed.
I was alone in that room with the future. I'd only known vanishing past and pounding present. I didn't know what to do with myself. I started by counting my breaths and guessing how many I'd take in a minute. I tried thinking about tomorrow but couldn't. I could only picture a towering wall made of brain matter.
I thought, "Maybe I should've" and stalled again. I closed my eyes and thought about nothing, not knowing I'd sleep soon.
Which watch are you watching?
Which way are you talking?
All the boys
And all the girls
Will never cease their marching.
Is waiting the answer?
Or being a dancer?
Twirling
And chasing
A garish romancer.
It's better to be
Alone in the forest
For there you can see
Who
I was eating hot dogs on the dock. No problem, right? But this dude comes up and starts buggin' me, so I tell him to step off.
He Won't leave me alone, so I had no real choice but to grab the knife out of my jeans and stab the dude in the chest. Three times.
Police arrived soon thereafter and decided it would be much easier to just feed me to the sharks than put me through the system....
Lucky me
The sheep were at pasture.
It was 0300 and the troops were restless. They wanted action, not this placid chewing of grass. Every day was filled with nothing but chewing and the occasionally terrifying sheering.
The ones that came back from the shed came back wrong. Nude and shivering, wild looks in their eyes. Year after year. Jimmy couldn't take it anymore. When they came for him the last time, he ran for it. He chewed and bit and growled his sheep growl.
He didn't come back. That night they looked in when they saw the soft lights come on...
I'm dead. Really dead. Not in the "there'll be a twist at the end and I'll be saved" kind of way. Just dead.
Yeah, wasn't that my typical luck? My day in and day out? Slipping in and out from the friggin' jaws of death like a suicidal mouse playing with a cat? If this was what the rest of my life, which, granted, didn't look like it was gonna be very long, was gonna be, I wasn't so sure I wanted part of it. It got damn old, damn quick.
I'd faced down a lot of things in my...
I was on my way home from the party of the year. I was dressed up and driving across the wooden bridge over the deepest part of the river. Then suddenly, CRASH! My car was flying out over the river. Then I was in the icy cold water. Bubbles exploded from my nose and mouth. My body was so cold I couldn't move my sinking arms. The heavy black marble sized pearls around my neck felt like a chain weighing me down. My eyes open in shock took ink only darkness...and my own shadow.. cast into the sandy floor of...
I sit high in the tree above the water. Watching. Bapa sits in his little green boat rocking gently in the water. The sight is a familiar one for me. I have been watching Bapa fish and gather since I could climb the tree. I close my eyes and listen. Bapa's voice floats through the warm sticky air and up to my perch in the tree. His voice is deep, warm, and smooth just like the water. when he is in his boat, I don't worry about him. Mama died when I was born and most of the time it...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. It was not that she was frightened - no, fear was something she found rather useless - but because she knew with an unshakeable certainty that if she wandered onto the street, she would be eaten by a vampire.
The house beyond the doorway was no better, on account of there being a ghost lurking inside, the type that would drip ectoplasm on her most horribly before devouring her soul.
This girl, then, was at an impasse. She could neither proceed nor retreat. Go out, the...
The sistine chapel didn't look quite right. From the ground of the chapel, it seemed very tiny. Almost insignificant. He tried to appreciate the art hovering above him as the tides of tourists pushed him out of the way, the tour guides spoke loudly about Saint so and so, and the priests shushed the crowds. It was all overwhelming so Jim left with a feeling of disappointment.
When he finally emerged from the museum, he looked around the streets. He could walk around to St. Peters Cathedral but he knew it also would be overrun with loud tourists. He couldn't...