An unknown figure watched Mery and Arthur McGee as they shopped in main square. Mery, hair tied back, long coat wrapped around her to fight the cold, a scarf tucked around her neck, approached the front store window and glanced in awe at the woman behind the glass. Her hair coiled around her face in romantic ringlets, and her long black dress oozed with classic beauty.
"Arthur, isn't this dress marvelous? Look at the color, and the sweeping length. I must have it, Arthur. I must." Mery said in delight.
Arthurt, her husband, was less than enthused. "Dear, it's...
Potatoes. All she could think of were potatoes. Since going on this diet, she was even dreaming about potatoes. Chips, drenched in vinegar; jacket potatoes filled with cheese; mashed potatoes; roast potatoes; any kind of potato. She was obsessed.
Every diet book had drilled it into her that carbs are bad, so if she was to drop two dress sizes before her best friend's wedding then potatoes were strictly forbidden.
She was excited about being bridesmaid, she really was. It was such an honour, though not totally unexpected, she and Haley had been friends since preschool. It was only natural...
"Knives."
The scientist looked up. The musician was bright-eyed, excited, although there were bags under his eyes. She replaced her spectacles (why did she always take them off for the close-up work? It didn't make sense) and gave him her full attence. "Knives?"
"Knives." He sat down on the stool, gangly, limbs too long. He was not suited for the labratory - not a huge surprise, really. "Knives are the answer. We...we cut."
It was almost cute, watching him try to describe what he presumed the scientific method was. "Do you mean dissection?"
He nodded, enthusiastic, excited. "Yes! Yes, we...
I walked down the street with my pants around my ankles, arms akimbo, doing the Super Bowl Shuffle with a boombox wrapped around my ears. I had picked up 20 D batteries at the store, and if I was going to do something, I was going to do it right.
With the screaming vocals of Ronnie James Dio blaring from two overworked speakers, I strutted along the Santa Monica Pier. Rather, I did the Penguin Push all down the boardwalk. It was times like these when I was proud to say that I could rock out with my cock out....
My hand disappeared a week ago. I was rolling out a sheet of cookie dough for the kids. They come home around three and I like to have something warm baking for them. It makes me feel more useful and it's good that kids end their day with something sweet.
I was rolling the dough. Chocolate chip, I think it was. And my left hand just wasn't there anymore. The space where it was before was empty now. I didn't scream or cry. I'd gotten used to missing things. I figured this would be the same.
I had another hand...
The disco ball turned on its dusty axis, shining pixels of glitter light across their worn faces and twinkling in their liquid eyes. Eyes that darted to the front door when someone walked through. This hotel bar was the opposite of pretension, the only tension coming from the anticipation of meeting someone to make the night less lonely.
He came in for a beer--procrastinating to book his hotel for a corporate conference plus budget cuts at work meant he had a room at a low budget hotel. All the eyes followed him as he took a spot at the bar....
Silence.
The vicar cleared his throat. 'Do you Isabella Riley take....'
'I heard you.' she said, suddenly reappearing from the dream world which had captivated. 'I er... I don't.'
Suddenly aware of a hundred pairs of eyes, she took a deep breath. Ben's mouth fell open. Shock visibly clear on his face.
'Iz?'
'don't Ben.' she murmured. She had to get out of this church. She couldn't possibly marry him. Be commited to one man for the rest of her life. She just couldn't do it.
'But Iz. What? I mean, why?'
'I'm sorry Ben. I really am so, so...
Words like knives, thrown back and forth across the room, like a death-defying circus act.
Husband and wife tossing sharp insults, from the couch to the kitchen doorway. Neither landing anything deep, glancing wounds, already scraping scarred tissue.
Neither really feels anything for the other anymore. But the dance, the battle, the contest keeps them together. Light reflects of the blades as they flip and fly.
Thud into walls. Plink against the floors. Bounce of their scaly armour of experience, disdain and dull hate. It aches in their bellies. They think it might offer some release, against the mounting pressure....
I thought she was made of china, the first time I met her. Girls that perfect didn't exist, only dolls. Frozen icons of perfection, unattainable.
She made me feel clumsy - she was slight, small, pale, hiding behind perfect ringlets. On paper we sound the same - the same could be said of me (apart from the ringlets; my hair is straight, limp) but she wore it with pride, I treated my height as a disability, my weight as an inconvienience, my skintone a health hazard. I looked sickly, she looked ethereal.
Somehow it wasn't a surprise when she spoke...
£18000. That's all it would take. But it was more than Charles had, that was certain. He gazed in wonder at that glossy, dog-eared magazine page. Awe, even. He had been looking at that same page every morning for the past fourteen years and with a sigh he would fold the mag shut and let it sit on his lap and lean his head back and rock. The rocking chair had belonged to his father. That was the only thing of his father's that he ever got. The cancer got him, a few years earlier. The rest of the family...