The man wrote to the woman down by the river Yo. He had finished in the fields and his brother was calling from the high hill.
"Young!" he screamed "the soldiers are here!"
The man dropped his pen. The notepaper, pink and full of tiny perforations the man had made in the shape of a lotus flower, flew in the direction of a crane's nest. A young bird who was wading blinked at it. Soon, it began to rain.
The soldiers carried out the brother and left behind the others. A girl ran to the river for the pen as...
In hindsight, the solution was obvious. But then solutions always are when viewed backwards, from the end of the equation. It would be like saying I really oughtn't to have had that extra slice of cake, in hindsight I know that. But at the time, in the moment, faced with that cake all covered in icing and topped with cherries and accompanied with cream, the thick and runny kind, not having it wasn't an option. And then there was peer pressure and all of that complex mess to wade through. It had been the same at school, when she had...
My own pink shoes were the last thing I saw. Then, darkness. I tried to put together the pieces of the puzzle in those final moments but nothing seemed to fit. I was supposed to go to work that morning.
Supposed to. That would haunt me. I was supposed to do a lot of things. I was supposed to pay my rent on time, I was supposed to pick my daughter up from school, I was supposed to meet my husband for dinner that night. It seemed none of that would be happening now.
That morning, after taking the dog...
The bass pounded next door. pounded this door. pounded so loudly that louis put his head on his desk and pounded with it. he got up from his studying to give his next door neighbor a pound for a pound. and that's when his bed started shaking. Earthquake, he thought. and dived under his desk for safety. wait a minute, he thought, am i supposed to hide underneath the desk or a doorway. and then he noticed his desk wasn't shaking. just his bed. that is against the wall that he shares with his neighbor. then he heard the moaning...
It is beautiful. The trail was never going to end. Or at least I wasn't going to make it to the end. I won't live forever. I will die before we reach the end of the trail. We'd been traveling for three years. By all calculations it will take another four to five years. I realized that as I was digging through the journals from the explorers before us. I realized that the rest all knew that, they just didn't want to tell me. To tell me that what I had fought for wasn't ever going to be mine.
But...
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...
£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...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. The rain was falling around her and she looked out into the street, wondering when she should make her break for it. Sensing that the rain wouldn't let up for quiet some time, she dashed onto the streets holding her package close to her chest. Her eyes flitted from side to side as she transversed the narrow streets and alleys.
She saw the blue door ahead of her and pumped her legs harder, eager to reach her destination. She threw herself against the door with a...
Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up.
"Yes, Ms. Clark?" The professor deadpanned, "You have something you'd like to add?"
Rebecca tugged on her shirt slightly and took a deep breath.
"Yes, I do." She felt her cheeks turn red, "That's is wrong."
"Wrong?" Rebecca hated this guy and she took secret pleasure as he looked wildly at the board, searching for his error, "I don't see anything wrong here."
"It's in the first line." She felt like a hero even though her voice was shaky.
"Oh, I...
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....