The ground was cold and he could feel the pigeons surrounding his pack. He had half a sandwich in there and they tried in vain to pick it out from beneath the clothes.
The sun was rising and in the distance, he heard shopkeepers opening up as workers trudged through the streets on their way to work. He sat up and stretched with a yawn. He would have to find a shower. He had gone a good four days without one and the smell was starting to bother him. Maybe he would spring for a hostel. Clean sheets and running...
Ow! Stop it, that hurts.
You would think that, blasphemous man, it's only a shot.
Can you hurry it up? I have a meeting with some blah blah executives at noon.
Sure. Say, would you be interested in our new drug?
Eh, what is it for?
It's a brain enhancement drug. You will be the smartest man in the world, Mr Blah-Blah.
Yeah! Sounds fucking great! Eh, what are the side effects though?
None at all! Just sigh right here and we will administer the first dose.
Sure, but shouldn't I go over this with my usual doctor?
No worries,...
It approached.
It was too bright. Light wasn't meant to be frightening, but this one was - it was too bright, and there was too much there, it meant too much.
Easier to turn away. But that wasn't an option anymore; there were other powers at work here. There was no escape route.
Everything was happening too quickly. No time to work out what to do, no time to even begin to create other options.
Just the light. The light and the fear. And the horror that was approaching.
In a rush, in a horrific scream, bathed in terrifying light,...
I watched as the creature - the whatever it was - floated on the soft breeze towards me. It had wings, but it didn't seem to want to use them, gliding through the air instead. As it got closer, my nerves started to act up.
I hate insects.
I hate anything with more than four legs and I'm not that keen on anything with more than two, if I'm honest about things.
I felt cheated as I watched it. The first sunny day in weeks, and I had a chance to enjoy it, sitting in the garden with a book...
"The McDonald's Arch Deluxe. Thee layers of disgusting terror."
The ad flashed by on the R31 bus, and I quickly completed it in my mind. Damn those people. As a vegan, I feel these ad execs should not be allowed to penetrate my air space.
Before I was strong-willed, such an attempt used to stand a chance at luring me from my modest, then-vegetarian diet.
Now, it had the chance of an earthworm in a swimming pool.
At loss of time and options, and very hungry for no apparent reason, however, I stepped into a nearby Burger King and ordered...
When I woke up this morning, I knew it was going to be a good day. No groggy moans coming from my body as usual. A little tense in the hips, but nothing a good stretch won't fix. I got up with my girlfriend and made for the breakfast cereal. I worked on my cover letter for a new job application and my girlfriend made the breakfast. "I sure hope this works," I say as I hit send. The job is a definite, but I got into some trouble with the law a while back and my newly acquired bad...
Spinning.
The tiny clockwork bird danced (for want of a better term) in a circle, twirling, singing out its jaunty song.
She sat, watching it sing out its tune, listening to the unique tinny sound of the music box - there was something about that music, that paticular brand, which brought her back to childhood. As a child she had watched the bird, watched it in her mother's palm.
Her mother had, briefly, convinced her that this was a real bird, that this was what happened to them when they were caught, tamed. That you could teach them these songs,...
Another Friday, another week gone.
I've been keeping track in my head. There's this week, then Finals week. Then there's Spring Break, Prom week, AP Test week, then two weeks of nothing before Graduation day.
I've been fighting with myself. Do I leave? Do I stay? For the longest time I've been wanting to leave and never look back. To leave this school, this home, this city, this state.
I've been mad at myself. Because only recently have I started noticing him. I've known him since middle school, but it's now, Senior year, that I realize I want to be...
He ran into the room, his heart pounding, and his clothes soaking wet. The worse part was not the attempt on his life via drowning in ice water. It was not that he was probably on the verge of hypothermia like this. It was not that he had lost Labyrinth to the bottom of the lake. It was not the twitching brow and veiled contempt Solaris was expressing from him dripping water on his floors, mixed with his concern for his overall state of being, because all that could be fixed with a towel and a day of work.
No,...
Whitechapel 1888. There was blood on my pillow again this morning when I awoke. My landlady has already been asking too many questions. It is time I moved to another residence.
I am looking forward to reading the newspapers today to gather the latest opinion on the terror in their midst. My good friends have been spreading rumours in many quarters so there have been a myriad of possible suspects, including those in very high places. The police are far too stupid to know where to look. I take especial delight in fooling Inspector Abberline, who should never have been...