You dance because you don't know any better.
You don't realise what is really going on, you may never truly realise what's going on.
So you dance, the three of you - in a moment they are your sisters, your mothers, your lovers. They are your world, your dance partners, although if anyone asked you their names you couldn't give an answer.
You dance.
You will never see them again, after this moment, after the moon sets and a new day begins. You won't remember anything else about the day but the dance. The dance will live on in your...
.. 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...
I don't want to hurt you.
I want to hurt. At least then I'll feel something. I can't go back to being numb like that again. I felt so, so dead.
Does that mean you feel alive now?
Like you wouldn't believe. Just being with you wakes me up.
Oh, really?
Please don't leave me. I can't go back.
I can't stay.
If you leave, I'll die again!
Marie loved apples.
That would make her smile.
It was bad enough that Eric had messed up her homework, it was supposed to be a joke, who knew the dog would actually eat it. Puppies do that. She'd kind of laughed it off. She'd taken the shredded remnants of it to school, she'd come back, shadows under her eyes and Eric, waiting on her porch asked if she was in big trouble.
"Nah," she replied, "They laughed. I'm forgiven this time, and so are you."
Big hug.
And she munched a Pink Lady apple, a double celebration. She had one...
He had been happier when he was unhappy.
It was difficult to fully explain; his days of being an asocial shut-in were, upon reflection, paradoxically better than his life now. The words had flowed then, from his mind to his keyboard to the story, he could see and imagine vividly what he did not have.
Now, with a college degree, a good job, a new car, a girlfriend and a house in the hills, he was a markedly happier, and thus unhappier, man. He couldn't finish anything he set his mind to. His efforts were as half a page of...
He could remember the first time he saw that statue. It was one of those things you simply never forgot, like a first kiss. He remembered the first time he saw that statue, smiling majestically down at him from its pedestal, Lady Liberty welcoming him to the country, letting his heart swell up with a strange, newfound pride. He supposed it was the moment he'd become American, even before the papers had been stamped and Ellis Island had given him and his father the okay. It was certainly the first moment he'd felt American.
He'd gripped the banister of the...
When I reached end of the running trail in the woods, I ran into a gigantic zombie. Nearly wet my pants. Damn thing had to be seven feet tall.
I remembered that zombies bit skulls open and ate hot steaming brains. Made me wish I was wearing a football helmet. I started to run like hell in the other direcition.
"Wait," he hollered. "I'm thirsty. Got any ginger ale?"
"No. I only got a can of Pepsi."
"Good enough," he said. "Let me have it and I won't catch you and eat your brains."
I reached into my backpack and...
Time was running short, and John still had no idea where Adam had stashed it. I mean, thought John, how many places are there to hide a pelican in a Des Moines nightclub? There was no use trying to listen for it, with the mind-numbing beat of some kind of Euro-techno-disco-30's remix whatever the hell it was kicking the living shit out of his eardrums. All he knew was that if he didn't get to that pelican soon, eighteen future suicide bombers would have easy access to any entry point in the Pentagon, and it would all be his damn...
"Is it me, or are getting text messages tinier and tinier?" Without her glasses, Jen was practically blind. She searched her purse, but they weren't there, when suddendly her phone rang. "Great. I can't even see who's calling me. Hello?!" The voice on the other line was distortet, heavily breathing, and uttered: "Looking for something?" "Who is this?" The voice let out a quite and diabolical laugh. "That is for you to find out. At the desk right across from your's sits Jim. He knows everything. If you ask him, you will never see again... Because I will break you're...
"Hello."
"What?"
"Hi."
"Who are you? No, wait. Where are you?"
"Look up."
"You're in the sky?"
"We are."
"You're..."
"Butterflies. Yes. Does this bother you?"
"To be honest, less than it should."
"We have been watching you. We saw that you were different. We chose you."
"Chose me for what?"
"The time is coming and we are here to warn you. To warn all of you."
"Warn us? What are you, some sort of prophet."
"We are of God, if that is what you mean."
"Ah."
"We bring you a message from the depths of chaos, the heart of...