Deep beneath our feet lies a maze of tunnels, crypts, secret passages, large and small pipes, cables, each layer added over the centuries dependent on current needs. For most of us we would only consider water pipes from the bathroom, utility wires, sewage. Our ancestors needed secret ways to travel undetected, our enemies wanted places to hide.
Jim looked down at the blueprint of the basement, the house renovation had taken far too long. The cellar in the right hand corner didn't seem to exist anymore all he could find was a rusty metal trunk full of strange photos, black...
his father painted the top of the lighthouse himself. with the last concise stroke of the red paintbrush, his father had a concise stroke of his own, and slid off the roof to his death, colliding headlong into the rocky ground, and tumbling into the choppy water. his body was never found, though toby often imagine a blue man, with nibbles taken out from fish schools, and skin as loose as kelp on his bones. with equal sincerity, toby imagined that his father had not died at all, and was merely hiding in the system of caves eroding into the...
I am really nervous. It's there. Looming. And I feel like if I move it will know, and everything around me will crumble.
So I wait and I wonder. Why I came. Why I am still here. Why there aren't forces out there that could rectify what is clearly the most dire of situations.
But I know there are no such forces. It's just me. Alone. Except I am not alone. It is still here. There. Moving closer.
I know there are only two choices: stay and await my ultimate defeat. The ultimate death. Stagnation...darkness. Or move closer to it,...
A few words was all it would take.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard as I thought my plan through. I'd managed to hack into her Facebook account without much trouble. Who knew she still loved that old childhood pet enough to make it her password? It was too predictable.
I focused at the task at hand. She'd be home in a few minutes. I didn't have much time.
"Thanks for a great night sexy. Call me again anytime you're free. Next time I buy.''
That should do it. I hesitated. I'd hacked into Lauren's account, knowing that if I...
"Wait, so he hit you?"
We had been over the story several times by now, as Carl sat down bringing a fresh round of amber colored liquid in pint glasses.
I ignored his question as I tried to figure out if this was another IPA or something different.
"Yes," I said, snapping back to reality.
"Damn dude, that fucking sucks," Carl said taking a sip of his beer.
I shook my head in agreement. Took a sip. It was the IPA. Damn that is a good beer.
"Yeah, he just snapped after I told him he was being an asshole...
If humans are mostly water, what happens when you remove it?
This was the idle yet macabre thought that raced through Remdrick's brain as he performed routine maintenance on his vehicle. It may not have been the most current model, but Remdrick's needs were few. It needed to be space-worthy, it needed to have ample power, an electronic library, and living quarters sufficient for him and his pet. Though if she died during the nearly 120 year-long trip, he wanted a way to preserve the body- it would be nice to bury Mildred on the new homeworld. As things stood...
The gate closed behind them. That is what George wanted me to convey to his grieving son. I did not understand what this meant but it is part of the course of being a messenger for the dead. You don't really know the significance of what you are being told.
The worst part of all this was trying to tell people their loved ones want to them to know something. Many will be very rude to you, others will ignore you. The part of it I dislike the most is when you know they are so vulnerable they will misinterpret...
Bobby had lived in his imagination as a child. Within the universe of his mind, he was an action hero, an iron-willed daredevil. He could meet any challenge, snatch victory from the jaws of any defeat, bravely pull off any stunt.
Now that he was older, he was learning more and more that he would probably never trade tracer bullets with South American guerillas, or infiltrate the secret Appalachian hideout of a band of communist child kidnappers, or balance on the hood of a car, guns blazing, while pursuing Somalian bank thief pirates across a perilous frozen lake.
But maybe,...
Dancing, the camera so close, so infringing on the intimate margin between her face and his chest, she tore her gaze from the lens. Awkward, having two camera men so near.
She turned in his arms, leaned towards him and he lifted her by the waist, and she lifted her leg, forming the shape of a four.
On the stage again, the cameras rushed with her as she leapt across the stage. When she stopped and stood to her toes, a camera met her at eye level. She looked directly into the lens.
"Oh." The man's left eye, peeking from...
The disco ball was turning. Who knew there were real discos anymore, with real disco balls?
This was my seventh time coming here in three weeks, all because of her. It was the same story every night: I walk in, I see her, I sit, I do nothing. Why do I do nothing? She paralyzes me. She paralyzes me but she doesn't see me. Or so I thought.
--
She's back. Again. Seven times. Seven nights of coming in, seeing me, sitting, and doing nothing. Why does she do nothing? It's clear she sees me. It's clear she wants to...