You can hide me here, in my pretty things. I will not stir to fight the malaise.
However did you want me, strong? To have your cake and eat it, too?
I was just dreaming of the outside world, of a dream outside this dream. Of colors that are vivid and real. Of people you can reach out and touch. Of rain that falls onto your skin. Of dirt that makes you truly dirty.
And you, you were just telling me stories. Stories of the people you saved during your travels. How you shared a space with a teenage mother...
She hid behind the thin sheet of fabric. Her hair gently fell upon her bare back as she felt the breeze gently brush against her bare chest. Her eyes shifted from left to right as she watched his every move. He walked to the edge of the bed and began to unbutton the wrinkled dress shirt he sport that night. The shirt reeked of hard liquor and a slight hint of nicotine. She breathed in the heavy scent of sin that floated through the room. Unable to control herself, she let out a soft moan. He turned towards her direction....
A dapper man bent down and picked up a penny off the cobblestone walkway. A young girl gasped softly as she ducked into a nearby alley. She watched in suspence as the man turned the penny over and over in his hands. That was all the money that her mother had given her for the day and she had been instructed to take it to the baker's shop that afternoon. If she was short by even one penny by the time she reached her shop, she would not have enough to buy any food. The man paused for a moment...
He ran into the room, his heart pounding, and his clothes soaking wet. There had not been a storm, at least, not that one could have seen. But rain fell on him nonetheless. A ghost of a storm, haunting him.
It was like some cartoon raincloud that hovered over him, that soaked him. He carried an umbrella everywhere, drawing strange looks. In an effort to avoid this, he had gone fancy, eschewing the utilitarian umbrellas, the ones meant to fold up, to fit in a purse or a pocket.
No, he used full length umbrellas, massive black umbrellas with gold...
The last time she'd seen pink butterflies, she'd burned down the church.
She told them the headphones helped with the hallucinations.
She lied.
Dr. Weber had first suggested the headphones, and he'd told her to compile a playlist and to choose the songs based on certain lyrics and words, and to use those lyrics and words as cues to control the hallucinations. If she couldn't completely erase them now, she could at least learn how to hold them back, get that subconscious moving until the scary ones became mildly disturbing and then from there they would lower in degree until...
Fights tend to start for no apparent reason. I say that was rude, then you tell me I was snotty first. It's a freakin' white t-shirt we argue over. One of mine I ruined myself with the blue detergent that sits on the washing machine. You throw it because I'm mad you brought it upstairs in the first place, when I was going to bleach it in the next day or so. Then I get more mad and tell you to not be mean to me, when really I guess I was the mad one in the first place. This...
Lost without a hand to hold, Shelly, looked both ways down the street. Dropped down from the curb into an alley between fender and bumper and peeked her dark brown eyes along the concrete corridor.
A dark station wagon rolled by, riding heavy and low. Momentarily, her reflection stared back at her in the tinted window, haloed in the streetlight. A brick caught in her throat and she swallowed, but it wouldn't go away.
Shelly turned stood there, arms out, resting on hood and trunk and swallowed and gulped and shook her head and bounced up and down, hoping the...
It was the fall that surprised me most.
I guessed the weight and the distance. It is easy really once you think about it, I guess easy for me at least or at least it was easy, once.
I scrapped up the side of my leg and sometimes that takes longer to heal now that I am older, but being alone who cares really.
It is a good story to tell if anyone is listening.
It was the fall that surprised me most. It is never expected I suppose. One thinks that you will always be quick, cute, desirable. Always...
Mr. Sippee is the new owner of the Turtle House. Mac and I met him on Tuesday. There he was, sitting on the roof, waving to the swans. We went up, cause Mac had his own ladder. "Hi kids," says Mr. Sippee. Then he jumped off the roof. Down he fell. One storey. Two storeys. Three. Crash into a pile of broken marble.
Up gets Mr. Sippee. His head is cut in half and blood is dripping from his ears. But no matter. Out he pulls a needle and thread and gol durn but he sews his head right back...
The disco ball was turning. I couldn't believe it. The big night had finally arrived. The day I had been waiting for for four years: My senior prom. I had gotten the nerve to ask the homecoming queen, Jill, to the dance. I remmeber I was so nervous when I asked her. It was during 4th period English class. My teacher was asking us to do some stupid thematic connection activity, and I leaned over and said, "Hey, Jill, umm....would you...." She looked at me like I had 1,000 heads, and they were not handsome heads. I started to falter....