The wires passed from hand to hand in the complex trading ritual. THe boy watched raptly, taking his training with the serious concentration of surgeons and chess-masters.
"You wrapped the wrong red and pulled the wrong green," he noted to his papa in mixed Spanish. The wires were then braided into his hair, the auburn hues mixing with the artificial Christmas tones.
"The day your hair grows out of these strands, you will have all there is to desire in this world. On that day, you may cut these colors and move on to the next."
The tea kettle screamed...
It was a cold day in May when Saffy and Blaze visited the zoo. They weren't too keen, but the weather was adverse enough to prevent bikini clad beach visits.
Saffy perked up when she realised they zoo had lots of tigers in residence. They trailed around behind a school group. Twenty or so seven year olds trying to behave in a way that kept their friends entertained, yet the teachers happy. The zoo was better than being cooped up in a classroom anyway.
Blaze said, "come on Saff, let's hear what this keeper has to say," as the twenty-something...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway.
My lost daughter. Well, actually that isn't who she was, but as soon as I first saw her I convinced myself it was. I always do.
So far there had been sixty five possibilities.
John, my second husband was a patient man. Had to be. He was rich so indulged me. Paid for our trips round the world whenever there was a possible sighting. Gave me hope when everyone tried to convince me it was time to grieve, not continue searching.
Suzie would be fifteen now....
The girl looked at the crowds of people, like a flow, massive and unbearable, pressing in on her. The car sat in front of her, a dent in it's front bumper. She looked at the red gown hanging over her shoulders and puzzled to herself. I thought this was blue.
There had to be a better place to be. A sweeter smelling place.
Come with me, the voice said.
She looked around, her dark eyes narrowing. Her nostrils twitched, sour, offended. Something made her head pull back and away. Sulfurous.
Come with me, the voice said again.
Against her better...
Sasha stretched as she woke, the cold early morning air stinging her skin. Looking around, it took a moment to figure out where she was. The woodland near the playing fields. She had never come out this far before. She should hurry back before anyone realised she was missing. There was no way she was going back to see Dr Williams again. He gave her the creeps. There wasn't anything wrong with her anyway. She knew her parents despaired at her stories, but they weren't just stories. Why couldn't they see that? They were every bit as real as she...
In hindsight, the solution was obvious. They had sat there for nearly half an hour, staring up at the stars. She'd tried to figure out why he was so quiet. He'd picked her up at 7, right on time, survived her dad's "look of death", and taken her out on the river in his boat. Now, sitting on the little sandbar, the remains of their picnic sitting in the basket beside him, he'd gone silent. She wondered if she'd said something wrong, something that made him regret ever asking her out in the first place. Or perhaps he was bored;...
The dapper man picked up a penny. Having stopped, he was hit by an unsuspecting driver who failed to see him get skewered by the starting handle from the high cab of the grocer's van. At first I smiled for having placed the coin, specially bought at auction 68 years from now. And then… absolutely nothing happened.
When SciFi authors tell you of the Grandfather Paradox, don't believe a bloody word. I'd spent a fortune, and most of my adult life pushing the boundaries of Quantum Symmetry, SuperStrings and a host of other areas of Science and Technology. All for...
Whatever made me want to be here? The thump, thump, thump kept repeating, as one song blended into another.
"This isn't music." I muttered to myself. Then I turned to glance across the bar and realized the "music" didn't matter.
There she was. She smiled at me, and I felt alive again. As she wandered my way pushing through the packed disco, I felt a nervous excitement begin to grow in side my stomach. I wished I'd had fewer Millers that night; I didn't want to sound wasted when we began talking.
"Hey there," I began.
I am different.
I know it.
They know it.
They being society.
In our society, we are to dress the same, act the same, our names are the same, and the only thing different about us is our eyebrow angles. Strange, isn't it? I know there are a few like me in the world, but I don't know where. When I was very little, my parents lived on the edge. They would be different, and the society would scold them. When I was three, they were to be killed. Before my parents died, they decided they wanted me to stand...
"I'm a monster," said my son, dangling my old Nikon camera behind his back.
"I can see that," I said. "What's your special monster power?"
"Scary faces!" he said. "I can make a scary face that makes you make a scaredy face!"
I instantly put on a poker face. "I'd like to see you try."
He puckered his face for a few seconds, then went, "Graaahh," and screwed up his eyes and stuck out his tongue.
"Eeeeeeee!!" I cried, opening my eyes and mouth as wide as I could.
As smoothly as a three-year-old can, he pulled out the camera...