In a world where walking was obsolete, Pat often wondered what the ground would feel like beneath his feet. Would it be spongy and soft, giving just a little with each step? Perhaps it was cold and hard, slippery like ice. Sure, hovering about everywhere was convenient and not at all physically demanding, but he longed for his feet to, just once, touch the earth below him.
Everybody knew, though, that if you touched the ground, you'd instantly explode. Pat didn't feel like exploding any time soon, so he just kept on floating. Damn those scientists and their exploding topsoil...
He sighed as he read: "This image or video is currently unavailable."
"Thank you, Flickr," the man said to himself. He'd been trying to upload the photos he'd taken at the reenactment all afternoon and was constantly frustrated by the site's refusal to work with him. James had been adding pictures to Flickr almost since its inception and had never had problems like today. He didn't know what to do, only that he felt like pulling his hair out.
"Forget it," he said in disgust. I'll try it again tomorrow. Standing up, he turned and walked away from the computer...only...
Vanquished.
Seriously, that's how it felt as I walked down the hall back to homeroom. My hands were in the front pockets of my jeans, my head was down. I felt as if all the wind had been taken from my sails. A strong breeze could have knocked me over and I would have just curled up in a fetal ball in front of the beige steel lockers. When the bell rang, people would just step around me as I tried to become more and more invisible.
Mr. Garsh said he was sympathetic. I think they tell him to say...
The attic was stuffy, of course it should be. It is May, and they are preparing to move into a new house.
She is hunched over a box sifting through the items time seems to have forgotten.
She sees kids medals, awards and photos from the ceremonies. She finds trinkets and grade school crafts. Making sure they are in tact, and making sure she wishes to keep the memories, she places the items into the box with care.
The boys have been out of the house for years now. These items are all that pretty stays here. They have their...
"I could never be a poet because I just can't seem to master the semicolon," I said.
"Not that hard to figure out, really," she replied. "Google it."
It wasn't that big of a deal to me. To be honest, I didn't even like poetry. Still, I Googled it anyway, and found out more than I ever wanted to know about the semicolon.
Later that night, I was hit by a semi; I had to have a section of my colon removed.
Uncanny, that was...
"This is incredibly boring," she thought. Staring at her toes, watching them blend into the linoleum was making her dizzy. Not dizzy dizzy, but eyes-start-crossing dizzy. Elisabeth had to raise her head before she was caught in the vortex of double perception and lightheadedness.
As her eyes refocused on the normal plane, she recognized her father, alive, recov
It was a pleasure to burn.
All things, it was.
Paper. Incense. Even skin.
Yes, especially skin.
They all had particular smells- those things which he burned. Paper smelled of ash and dried, hot trees, as in the desert, the heat so thick and juicy you could drink it, pour it inside of you, fill yourself with warmth in a way which standing in front of a fire, rubbing your hands together did not even thouch.
Incense- he supposed it ought to be different, depending on the smell. He only ever bought sandalwood, nothing else and so he didn't...
It was twenty to eight.
"Actually, it's almost quarter-to."
He was such a pedant.
"I can see what you're writing, and I'm not, I just like to be precise about these things."
Once again, his obsessive compulsive need for exact timekeeping
"I don't have OCD."
He had completely missed the fact that he hadn't been diagnosed with any kind of disorder, just displayed some obsessive compulsive behaviour. It was more of his paranoid ideation, presuming that an innocent
'You haven't interrupted me.'
"You're being boring. It's just bitching now. Although now it looks like you're the paranoid one."
'I'm not...
Leaving was the easiest decision to make, and the hardest action to take. He'd told his parents he wanted to move out now. He'd found a job, found an adult advocate, and had surprised himself by finding an actual handicap accessible apartment in Savannah.
But, then came the guilt. "Haven't I taken good care of you?" his mother asked. "What did I do?" Her dark eyes shone with pain, but he couldn't decide if it was real or feigned.
"Yes, mama," he said wearily. "You've taken great care of me. Just like any nurse would.' He eyed her as he...
100 feet away, all hell was breaking loose. Everything was going to change, forever - but for now, I was willfully ignorant. I chose not to look through the windows, not to know, to keep the door closed, locked.
Real life was not going to invade my sanctury.
It had been my prison, up until the moment when I had heard that damned siren, the one that we had all prayed would never go off. The one that promised that it was all too late, that everything had gone wrong, that it was too much.
That sacrifices must be made,...