It was the fall that surprised me most. I was jerked strongly by the safety cord. I looked below my feet and all I saw was emptiness. I couldn't control myself I started screaming at the top of my lungs for help. But I already knew I was in way over my head. Above me somewhere were my pickaxes and my backpack and my expedition crew. I tried desperately to get a grip on the slick walls. It was no use. I was stuck in this abyss of ice and emptiness. I rubbed the tears out of my eyes and...
The old lady was in real trouble now. She did not feel the grey touch of the dark hand as it stroked her wrinkled face, marking her. It would come for her soon, the looming shadow of time, and there was nothing she could do but grow older and weaker. She sat in the back of a black car, and her destination was the foundations of the departed. Accompanying her was her sister, wearing the same black dress. Everything was the colour black today. It was the symbolic colour; the colour of the dark one. The lead weight of a...
We were to meet in the gallery. The glass one, stone fronted with tiles. It is an old place, no longer fashionable. It looks out onto a street where buses no longer run and rubble fills the roads. He said he had a message to give me. The way it was said, it did not imply that the message was from him, but only that he was a messenger, of the most unwilling kind. What inconvenience it must cause you, I might have argued, to have to meet up with me in such way. What a task your people as...
It was my "life's work," that's what they call such a thing, but it makes it sound so organised, like my life was something i contolled and I sensibly chose each morning to get up and expend my earthly energies on this tower. "You must have a lot of self-discipline" people say to me when I meet them at parties and we discuss our lives as though we see them clearly, as patterns of behaviour about which we can make broad statements. I try to answer, as best I can, saying something appropriately self-effacing.
What I'd like to tell them...
I saw the thing. It was preserved in the glass case, the only one of its kind. So faithfully had the curators touched it, applied the special fluids, made sure that never again, never again would it be forgotten. It had been once before, after all. After all, memory is a sieve. And this was memory itself. It shouldn't have been forgotten.
I can't remember the thing itself especially now. I suppose that's expected. My memory's not special in anyway, no, not at all. It doesn't matter, anyways, just that it was a record, so that people wouldn't forget, wouldn't...
They crouched to peer beneath the stairs, the grime and dirt on the old hardwood floor unsettling beneath their feet.
"Come on, Benji. Come out." Jorgia slipped her hand into her pocket, grasping a dog treat. She dropped it at her feet in a futile attempt to lure their "lost" puppy out from under the staircase.
Ashley began to pace the hall, scrutinising the mysterious markings etched into the dirty, peeling walls.
"Hurry, Jorgia," she breathed, "We should get out of here soon."
Jorgia inhaled deeply and swiftly slid her small frame underneath the stairs. Engulfed in an atmosphere of...
The wind swept through the area, sending a chill through the hearts of all those that were paying respects here, the weather reflected the emotions contained here, it was violent and broken, moaning around like hell was chasing on its heels. Despite the destructive nature, the gale seemed to gather behind me and encourage me towards a path I had walked often, towards the highest part of this graveyard. The thorns dug into my hand harder, a painful reminder of why I was here. The sun had started to retire, casting an eerie golden glow, hitting the headstones in such...
When the father arrived home to his squalid, Lower East Side tenement building, he was exhausted. He paused at the door to pose for a Jacob Riis photo, and then trudged though the entryway. The grit of coal from the furnace in the oil refinery still covered his face. This, despite the fact that we worked on the docks hauling fish. His apartment was in the rear of the building: a cramped, filthy space overlooking a pile of rubbish that the realtor had described as a “quaint fixer-upper with a partial city view.” He approached the door, removed a rat...
Once, in Beijing, you were there. You were here. Doorway. Phone. Stammer.
She clutched round her that red gown, shawl over shoulders, and stood. Stands?
I am across the street, with you. Table. Café. On the table: phone, keys, change. Two glasses.
One and a half minutes ago, I hit "record" on the phone and slid the phone toward you. Between you and me.
You cleared your throat, and said:
Once, in Beijing, you were there. A young girl, a gown too big. You saw a couple across the street. One older, thin, thin-lipped, a look of resignation. One younger,...
"Stop. Look around you. What can you see? The nearest human is over ten miles away. You are alone. Quite possibly more alone than you have been your whole life. There's a physical aspect to this feeling you're having, this aloneness. It's relaxing. Take a moment. Feel yourself relax. Feel your heartbeat slow. Feel you mind de-clutter and expand into a space no longer populated by others. Feel those invisible boundaries dissolve."
The voice paused and Karen became conscious of the slow drum beat that she must have been hearing for some time. She could hear the rhythm of her...