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,...
I lay siege to it. This was war and a fast and furious assault seemed the surest course. There was a front to push forward, barriers to overcome, landmines to be defused. I was young and relentless and eager; I couldn't lose. After every foray I watched the scaffolding rise again, higher and higher and each time I tore it down, waiting for the walls to fall. Eventually I tired of the advance and retreat. New orders came. I couldn't win this battle and there were other wars to fight.
Years later I returned to that once fragile country. A...
In order to choose her shoes, Chloe consulted her "Big Book 'o Footwear" every morning while getting ready. Whenever she bought a new pair of shoes, she'd put them on and snap a Polaroid of her feet so she could get a decent idea of how she'd look in them without actually having to try them on. Her fiancee thought this was ridiculous, but she thought it was quite a time-saver. Plus, he had no room to criticize--he often brushed his teeth while peeing.
He wasn't certain he believed her, or that he'd heard her correctly.
She believed it, though. That much was obvious, from the earnest look in her eyes, from the way she clung to her coffee cup with such a tight grip, as if it was the only thing tethering her. As if it was what was keeping her real, keeping her here.
"How did it happen?" He asked finally.
Althea seemed to relax a little at that, as if she'd overcome a hurdle, as if she was relieved - finally, somebody believed her. "I don't know. If I did, I...
Starvation.
He'd heard the word before, used it - but he hadn't known what it meant. He knew that now. He had no idea of what it really meant, not until now, not until this moment (but he knew it would continue to get worse until he could eat, of course it would, that gnawing inside would only get worse)
His vision was failing, he was dizzy - he needed something, needed to find something to eat, or he would -
He knew it with a painful clarity. He would die.
Again.
It had been bad enough the first time...
In the beginning, he tasted like rainwater: salty. Dried sweat around the rim of his mouth, a taste that clung to his mustache bristles like saltwater taffy.
In the beginning, he was rainwater, and I was a pool. Splashes hit the bottom. He said, you are a the ruin of mankind, rising to the tops of the trees. He said, you make me greedy to reach your destination like a home.
In the end, he tasted like a mountain top. Stretching high above the clouds to breathe a privileged cold. And I was a seed that could not grown on...
"Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick Tock. Tick"
"Sweet Jesus can you stop with the ticktocking? What's it all about anyway or are you actually just trying to piss me off?"
There was no response to Paul's question. He looked at Sarah who replied only with a smile that seemed to hover between serene and beatific. She had been strange today, even more strange than usual. He has seen her last night talking to some rough looking types at the cheap end of the train.....railway steerage if there was such a train. She wouldn't tell him what she had been discussing...
It was cold. Freezing, really. There at the stoop, on the street, glowing in red. Dark, straight hair raking her face. She shivered, stood and walked down the street. To me, this place is foreign. To her, she knows the environment like the stories her mother told her. She walks down the road away from the doorway. Where they threw her out. Spit on her. But now she walks down the road trying to keep warm. She coughs. The shivers shake her again. The cold day drops her onto the street, rejecting her and the brightness of her clothes. The...
There's somebody standing in the corner of my room.
I think they're me.
I mean, she - think it's a she, the lines are fuzzy - looks like me. A bit, anyway. She looks how I could be. Maybe how I should be. But she keeps flickering and altering - maybe she's just a potential me.
Or maybe she's all the potential mes.
I step closer to her - I can't tell, not really, that expression keeps shifting, but she seems to be happy about it, I think there's a smile (more smiles than frowns, anyway).
I open my mouth...