I shot my butler. He was a mole! I should have known. I'm trained to tell whether someone is lying or not. I'm a secret agent, for crying out loud! Stupid, stupid, stupid. I shot my butler. He wasn't the best butler, actually. I shot my butler.
What does it mean to go the distance? Does it mean to beat everyone else or to beat yourself? When you grow up, parents, teachers, and coaches tell you to "do your best". But we all know thats bullshit in the capitalist society we live in America. Its dog eat dog. Kill or be killed and everyone is in it for themselves. Maybe you can trust your family and a couple friends but thats it. "Go the distance" cliched. Easier said than done. What does it really mean? Beat everyone else. Be better. No one cares what you're doing unless...
It was the fall that surprised me most. I struggled through winter, reeling at the news that I was going to die. That I wasn’t going to see another Christmas after this one, that I had less than a year – maybe six months, although they couldn’t be sure.
And I tried my best, but that last Christmas was a dismal affair. I wanted it to be perfect, and in wanting that I asked for too much. No other Christmas had been perfect – but they had been wonderful. And I went and ruined my last one by organising, instructing,...
Fault. Always so unclear.
Perhaps the fault was mine. Perhaps I shouldn't have pushed so hard. All I wanted was a taste. Just a glimpse of what she was thinking. Was I really in the wrong for that?
"Look. Just... Tell me what's wrong."
"I don't want to."
Obstinate. Here I am, just trying to figure out what's wrong with her or if she's okay and she doesn't want to share with me.
"You know you can tell me."
"I can't."
"I'm not going to judge you for anything, you know."
A shrug. Too bad, she's saying to me. You...
He was one alone among many. He'd served with his brothers since 2001, since the day after that fateful horror descended on his country. The man, Mohammed Ahmed, was a devout Muslim, had been reared in the faith his entire life. He was also a second generation American, born and raised in the Great State of Georgia. Others had always looked at him differently, but he considered himself a Georgian. A Southerner. An American.
So, on September 12 Mohammed Ahmed became Pvt. Mohammed Ahmed, United States Army. He served willingly in Afghanistan, and hesitantly in Iraq. But, he served and...
Heaven; such a harmonious place.
With luscious trees and elevated mountains.
A lighthouse standing tall in the distance;
An lingering canoe floating in the shimmering lake.
Billowy clouds soaring across the sky.
A car driving down the road.
God is in presence;
We are in heaven.
CRASH! the window had shattered after being shoot by a gun. All of us shuddered at the sound what were we going to do. Were we going to die today?
I heard a scream not knowing where it had come from we all blindly ran away. I couldn't here anything, my vision had blurred suddenly I heard a bang. My bestfriend who was like a brother to me was shot. I could feel the tears running like waterfalls down my face but i kept running knowing my life was on the line. Whoever killed my bestfriend was going to die...
He read the card quietly as he walked along the Great Wall. "Explore," it said. "Dream," it read. "Discover," it implored.
Well, he'd done all of that. He came to China on a whim with his girlfriend and explored the sites. He went to the Great Wall and to Beijing, to little towns and big cities,. He dreamed with her of starting a family when they saw a woman with her child nestled in her arms, a man walking beside her and holding her close. And he discovered, when she was shot down for the little bit in her purse,...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. Two potted cucumbers stood to the left of the doorway, vines climbing twined round trellises up the stucco, the few cucumbers skinny in the middle from lack of rain, though it rained now in gusts and sputters, droplets momentarily darkening her gown.
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. There was scant shade from the clear noonday sun in the inset door. Two cats lay lazily in the sun. She idly stroked one, the calico, under the chin.
Once,...
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,...