In the Kiliswa village, status depended upon how many bricks you could carry at once. If you put down any of your bricks, even for a second, you would immediately be pounced upon by your rivals.
It was a harsh life. It wore at you, carrying gigantic piles of bricks everywhere you went, day and night. Only the strongest survived; the rest perished.
Among the strongest were Ja and Na, twin brothers whose parents had died from carrying too many bricks at once (a twin pregnancy was especially hard, for the mother must carry her additional weight AND her bricks...
Dear one,
Well, I finally made it, I'm in Spain staring out over Santiago de compostella, i always ment to do this with you. I know you know that and as you can see its beautiful here. I wish the accident had never happened i could feel you holding my hand the whole way i swear it. i could hear you whisper at night and damn it if i thought this would help me i longed for you every night i slept in your bag i could smell you. hear your voice in my ear. Damn it! Why did you...
"I hate you! Get out of my face!"
Wow. That's just the way any teenage girl wants to start her day: the most popular guy in school declares in front of the entire gym class that he hates her guts.
Well, that's just the story of my life these days. Everyone who's anyone hates me. As if to emphesize that point, a red ball crashes into my face, knocking off my glasses.
"Simmons! You're out!" the gym teacher's voice echoes though the gym.
So, I go settle on the bleachers with the rest of the people out of the most...
Maggie came to Heathrow airport on a white pony she had purchased along the Thames. She was hoping to board the next blind flight to Asia. Perhaps it might take her to Tibet, but you never know with those sort of flights. She had packed a variety of items in her wicker basket, which she always looped to the brass hooks above the seats on the plane. The basket had a vertical fold-out tray, where she had assembled her afternoon tea: a cup of Earl Grey and four cucumber cream cheese sandwiches.
She got in the security line at sector...
The music in her headphones..."if you lift me up, and get me through this night, I know I'll rise tomorrow, and I'll be strong enough to try..." She stared through the mist and clouds wondering where she had gone. What had become of her life, why here, why now? Kaitlyn wanted to run away from life, love, because she really had neither. The Adirondack mountains towered over her, the chill in the North Country air was giving her bare arms a chill. Kait's brother died yesterday, 9/10/01, and today even more people, so many people died. She was glad to...
She'd have preferred the electric chair. The clinic's lobby was a stale tan color. It was April, and there was a Christmas movie on TV for Christ's sake.
Her name was called, and she went to sign the form, pay the co-pay, and was assured by the lady at the desk that this was indeed, confidential. She was asked if the man next to her was the father, or her boyfriend, or something. She lied and said no. He looked upset but ultimately should have been glad that she said no, he'd probably end up getting arrested for rape, anyway....
The fabric of the space-time continuum collapsed, and Oda Komawichi Sabicho Ichikagu was transported from his home in feudal Japan onto a train going from Pittsburgh to Newark.
Needless to say, Oda was quite confused, as were the 11 passengers of the train. One moment, this group of noble commuters, business men, and nephews visiting their aunts were minding their own business, the next a 13th century samurai warrior was in their presence. This a tricky thing.
Oda's first instinct was to, naturally, slice each of the strange looking white passengers. He clutched his katana in anticipation, waiting for the...
There was a comma where a semicolon should have been. This drove her crazy. She thought of actually shooting herself in the head but that would have required a 3-day waiting period; besides, she hated guns. So she kept going through the papers, red slashes here, smiley faces there. But many more slashes than smileys. Soon she just started making slashing smiley faces. Her students wouldn't know the difference, she thought.
After all, they couldn't tell the difference between simple punctuation so how could they get her irony?
John, her favorite student and best writer in her Senior Classics class...
Kenya. She said her name was Kenya.
And then she laughed. I couldn't hear it, not over the music in the bar, not over the shouting of everyone around us. But I saw the laugh, starting in her stomach, and traveling up and out of her mouth.
She leaned closer and said that her parents had grown up with Black Power and Africa awareness, and decided to name her Kenya. That they had grounded her the first time she straightened her hair.
Her voice, the part of her voice I could hear, had a huskiness to it that really appealed...
I was there the day that the idea of nation ended. When the black flags went up next to the reds and blues, the stripes, the stars, the figures, and all the rest. It wasn't just the black flags of course, it was the greys, the oranges, strange symbols that might not have even been human, but expressed a very human idea, "This is mine."
It seemed to happen all at once really, old boundaries didn't matter anymore, people were now brought together by an idea, or ideas more accurately, no longer separated by false lines drawn on old maps,...