"I shot my butler, but I did not shoot the chauffeur" Mrs. Kensington said. "I don't know who could have done such a thing. That poor old man."
"The butler or the chauffeur," the detective asked.
Mrs. Kensington coughed with polite outrage.
"The chauffeur, of course," she said. "The butler can rot in a thousand hells as far as I'm concerned."
The detective flipped back a few pages in his notebook.
"You say the butler had been stealing from you," he asked, scratching his nose. "Did you have any proof?"
"Proof is in the pudding, as the maid would say."...
She always eats oranges in the morning. Awake at 6.30 and out at once to the fruit stall below her window. The sound of the traders' early morning banter is hazy in the grey veil of October dawn and the lines of fruit like a crown of brightly coloured gems awaiting her selection. Two precious oranges in a brown paper bag and back to her third storey apartment. When she slices into the dimpled skin of the orange its juices swell onto the kitchen counter and onto her pale fingers. Her hands are laced with the citrus scent for all...
She was the most delicate girl in town. I liked to think of her as something made out of matchsticks, and knobby joints. Her voice, it never seemed to mature, even as she stretched into a teenager, and curves set in, she would still skitter on her toes, and wring her hands, and never make eye contact.
The crush I developed on her was no not so unusual, I think the whole town was in love with her in their own way, male, female, child, animal. Girls like that aren't meant to last if you think about it. Those quiet...
It approached. Well, as much as the end can be said to approach, as opposed to us approaching it. The great beast, that stalking horse of the apocalypse, with massive paws that looked like human hands, a lion's head with a mane of fire, and the body of a wolf.
The great hunter Talianto was selected from all people to confront this end. Of all people her spear flew the straightest, her blade cut sharpest and cleanest. If there was any hope of defeating such a monstrosity, of doomsday that moved in shadow and swished a spiked tail clearing all...
Katie just loved taking walks downtown. It was such a nice way to get some fresh air. What she didn't like where the people she would meet while walking downtown, so as a general rule she kept to herself.
This particual Saturday morning didn't go that way.
As usual, Katie took her little poodle out for a nice stroll. Her poodle seemed to favor a tree, not to far away from a pay phone.
"A pay phone?" Katie chuckled to herself. "Talk about an outdated object."
As if on cue, the pay phone decided to ring. It startled Katie, and...
The sun set. My boat had stopped drifting. The Delaware River between New Jersey and Pennsylvania was calm. The rain stopped, the crickets chirped, happy with the still summer air. My bathingsuit was finally dry. The only problem with that river is not having shelter on either side from a rainstorm. I watched the residents of the river banks put umbrellas over their heads while grilling. Some took their dogs and children inside. The teenagers laughed, and had mud fights. The rain stopped, the grillers closed their umbrellas, the dogs came out to play, and the teenagers stuck their feet...
The waves rolled in, and I could hear them crashing along the shoreline. It was a fresh water lake, with rocks that made up the shore.
My eyes were still closed as I lay on the day bed. I was relegated to the front porch, as it "was not appropriate to sleep in the same bedroom."
Such old fashioned thinking makes me giggle. Yet, I follow to impress.
I can feel the sun on my cheek and I don't open my eyes. My legs stretch themselves out, s I was slightly cramped on a space too small to fit my...
In hindsight, the solution was obvious. It always was, that was the glory of hindsight. And it wasn't so bad when you didn't have someone crowing at you, not quite saying "I told you so" but thinking it very loudly indeed.
She wasn't sure why she put up with him. Twenty-something years they'd been friends. You got less for murder (she'd thought about it - not for long, but it had still crossed her mind). He was cocky and insufferable, and the best friend she'd ever had.
Very irritating, the way these things seemed to dovetail together so neatly.
They'd...
Just the facts, man.
That's how it works right? But sometimes facts aren't enough. I need more. I need more.
The pen quivers beneath my grasp, the words necessary to breathe life to this blank canvas escape me, forcing me to dig down into the unfrequented corners of my mind for wisdom, nuggets of truth, or inane ramblings...or all three.
Shoot. This bio is due in seven hours and here I am huddled in a cold basement awaiting inspiration, mind whirring at the speed of light with nothing in the way of progress visible on the horizon.
I begin to...