.. 2080 ... 2090 ... 2100. 2100 NE Swenson Avenue, that was the address. Harold was certain of it. He could almost feel an unnatural attraction to the simple white door with blue finish that innocently faced the street, surrounded by colorful flower pots.
A hesitant step after another, his heart pounding, he approached it. His thoughts were hundreds of miles away, in his home country, where his family was held hostage. They were watching his every move, listening to his every breath. If he failed, his wife and children would die.
His hand rested on the doorknob. The windows...
Fred wanted the puppets. He wanted all the puppets, man. If Fred couldn't have puppets, he'd be a miserable SOB. All he could ever think about was puppets. He wore his socks on his hands. That's how much he loved puppets.
So when he saw the Punch and Judy set on ebay, he knew he had to act. Problem was: Sylvester Stallone was coming over for lunch. He'd slaved for hours over the meal (pickles on rye bread. And figs.) He wanted to impress Sylvester Stallone with stories of how he rubbed Cheez Whiz into the hair of his buttocks,...
Hugging her knees, Tanya stifled another sob. Her face felt swollen and sore, yet numb from the pain. Sitting in the pitch black, the only light coming from the oven which was still humming beside her. The lasagna she had been making for tea splashed across the floor and up the walls.
She could hear Tim banging upstairs, the slamming of cabinets in the bathroom as he got changed. He couldn't go to the pub with blood on his shirt, could he?
Tanya knew she would have to clear up the mess at some point, but for now she was...
The dapper man picked up a penny and found a little hole. The hole was smaller than the penny, but larger than a dime. The man, dapper and penny-wise, bent down on dapper knees, head bowed, right eye squinting into dime-sized hole.
"Dimes, dimes, dimes! Mole men flipping dimes, muddy mason jars tight with dimes!"
He wigle
Let me tell you a story or a hero named Sam. He was quite a character, as he worked as an Ambulance driver. His goal had been to be a doctor, but his villain of a college professor had failed him, and squashed that dream. He had hitched a ride from a paramedic one day, and he had gotten a job as the man's assistant. Since he had the credentials, Sam was already qualified to become a paramedic. He enjoyed the job, knowing that he could be vital to saving another person's life, and that was alright for him. But...
The garage was stacked to the ceiling with boxes, the U-Haul ready to cart them away on that windy Tuesday morning. I was wearing sweatpants and my hair was tied up in a bun, ready to move the hell out of there. I had only lived in that white suburban house for two years. I remember the day I moved in it was mid-February. That was two years ago. Then it became May 19th, Tuesday, and windy. I held back tears as I drove away from that house, the one we were supposed to live in after the wedding, raise...
i thought we were best friends, eternal companions, trustworthy confidants. warriors on a mission, one for all and all for one. little did i realize just how wrong i was. you set yourself up for attention, while i slip away into the shadows. you possess the ability to break things, while i possess the ability to clean up the mess. i stand up and defend you when others prey upon you, but you simply stand back and watch as they prey upon me. i fight your battles as well as my own, a lone warrior. but today is the day...
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...
He hated the color green, he hated it with all the enamel in his big front teeth. Since he was a tiny woodchuck he was teased mercilessly by his peers because well, he wasn't colorblind like all the rest. He could see the color green...everywhere, everywhere! The anger grew within him against this gift that he called a curse. He just wanted to be like all the other woodchucks living in their happy, ignorant, colorless little worlds. He could never sleep during the day with visions of sugar green fairies dancing in his head. He began taking walks, destroying all...
The stories rarely stop when the party does.
He was not tall, or lean, but he was fashionable. He had the bushiest eyebrows, like tiny mink stoles pasted to his forehead, and a strange (but familiar) teetering gate to his walk as he meandered like a river through the empty park lawns.
"I hope I didn't insult her," the man worried to himself as he kicked an empty potato chip bag across the path. He spotted a bench looking out over the old friend, duck pond.
There our lonely man sat. Contemplating the emptiness of it all. No ducks, even....