Billy was steadfastly unimpressed.
"Can we go home now?" he asked.
"But, Billy, don't you want to see the top of the beanstalk?" Sarah asked her son. She was confused. Why didn't he like the things other boys liked?
"No."
"Why not? Isn't it cool and -"
"It's a phallic object from the a fairy tale written by the unwitting supporters of the patriarchy," he interrupted.
Sarah hated this. Being lectured by your own sever-year-old was the worst. "Billy, quit saying silly things," she scolded. "It's just a beanstalk. It's supposed to be fun. Why can't you enjoy anything in...
Waves lapped at her toes as she stood in the wet sand and looked across the sound to the island. A small plume of smoke rose from the chimney, hidden behind black spruce and birch trees.
She could see the canoe tied to the island's dock, rocking gently with the waves.
The image of the waves coming in both directions unearthed a memory or feeling she had kept buried for quite some time. Tim's waves had pushed in one direction and her's had surge in the opposite.
"What was in the middle. What pushed them apart," she wondered.
Now she...
I was going to the store to buy figs when the kid with the long brown hair ran past me. She was running so fast that her body was on an angle... like 45 degrees and her hair was raking back. There was a big piece of wood stuck to her back.
I bought my figs and then I started the arduous walk home. The girl ran past me again and I was able to stop her.
"Why are you running so fast?" I asked.
"Because of the wood stuck to my back," she said. "It is infested with termites."...
Not really that pretty
But lovely
Strong
flowing
She sat on the beach watching the last sunset
We were tense and sad but the sun did not care
When I remember will I think of the beautiful sun?
The beautiful you?
Not really that pretty
Striking, alive worthy of the perfect sunset
And so much more
Here are words that don't quite form a story. I'm typing them because I'm compelled to write for six minutes a day as a creative warm-up. If I don't, I get antsy; my palms sweat, my skin itches, I hallucinate. Ok, that's not entirely true, but I do enjoy this activity, and I find that it really helps me "prime the engine" for a more focused day. I work at a radio station, and my job is to write scripts for those goofy things you hear between songs that identify the station. It helps to have a good cup of...
The message was received.
"Prayers are needed for a friend. he has cancer."
Horrible! Terrible news!
Certainly not the kind to be wished upon anyone.
Within minutes the responses were coming in.
"Right on it Buddy!"
"My prayer list is never too long!"
"I'll be shouting out to the Big Guy!"
And I sat and wondered!
Is this same guy who said all gays should be dead?
Is this the guy who said all Muslims are terrorists?
Is this the guy who said all poor and homeless people deserve to be poor and homeless?
I sat and wondered, "What is...
It was not a world in which it was advisable to take risks.
It could be argued - had been, by a few scholars, in the deep and distant past, a more romantic age - that risks were always inadvisable, that this was what made them risks in the first place.
But those scholars didn't live here, they didn't live now, they were from a world of chivalry and knights and heroism.
They were not in a world where you were burned if you were caught.
There were marks all over her arms - his, too, they sat beside one...
"Travel light."
"But take everything with you."
A murmur of confusion ran across the gathered crowd.
"That will only slow us down!" The young man who had been such a cool head through all of their troubles spoke firmly, with an authority far greater than his age would normally have allowed.
"We can't allow them to find anything which they could use against us." The town drunk retaliated. Or at least, that was all he had been, until the shadow began to cross the land and the war drums had begun to beat once more, since then, he had been...
The red gown was more of a crimson really. I wasn't sure why she had taken it just to sit down at a doorway just down the street. She had shown up with enough money for a new garment, I'd given it to her and she'd just sort of walked aimlessly down to the doorway and sat down.
It kind of made me hate her. I know you shouldn't hate little girls but I hated this bullshit. I mean, seriously, just leave. Don't make me sit there and wonder about what the fuck is going on. Like, I don't need...
Birds have always terrified me. Sinister black eyes. The ability to fly. The fact that they evolved from dinosaurs and you know they are just waiting, biding their time until they decide to revolt and take over the world.
So, having to feed my aunt's cockatoo while she was away on vacation, was a constant struggle between fear and responsibility.
I would go to her house after school, and pour the seed or feed or whatever he ate through the bars of his cage. I then turned on the radio. The cockatoo apparently liked the classic rock station while he...