I was reading a great book when the words turned to sand. A hole opened up on the page and the words drained through, and I, engrossed in the plot, followed them.
When I awoke everything was different. But just slightly so. My alarm clock's red letters were blue. My green-striped sheets were now blue striped. The knobs on my dresser had turned from square to oval. My fat tabby cat was a calico.
The stuff was all there, it was just the details were mixed up. It was like a sketch artist had recreated my room based on a...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. She gazed upwards towards the empty whiteness where the sky used to be. Outside, the streets were filled with people doing the same. Cars had screeched to a halt. Things were dropped, and dog leashes let go of.
The sun, the moon, the stars, the clouds - nothing was there. Only, they weren't looking just at the nothingness. All eyes had narrowed to the one dead pixel. Hanging in the sky, like a tiny afterglow of a tiny what-used-to-be.
Erring on the side of caution I took two of the smaller ones. Just like breakfast, or a night on the town. My body was made for loving and tingling and vibrating with the eternal cosmic hum. I am old enough now to understand the consequences of my actions and of my non actions. The universe provided me with feet so that I may find a place to put my dancing shoes.
Sal couldn't breathe. And he couldn't stand running through a huge group of people. They didn't have much to hurry for. Some of them were walking calmly to trains, while others were meeting thier loved ones after riding in on one.
He was the only idiot in the place litteraly pushing through people. He would have to apologize to the old lady with the walker he knocked flat on her butt later. Right now, Karen was his main focus.
Karen. She left Salvadore a message on his answering machine. Something about leaving him, because she couldn't keep playing house anymore....
She didn't look at him.
"So that's my answer, is it?" He stared at her, hoping, praying for - well, anything. Any kind of response. A show of emotion.
She didn't look at him.
"Fine. If - if that's how it is, if that's - fine." He wanted the weight to lift from his shoulders, now that he knew the truth, he wanted something to happen, some kind of change - he wanted to feel something.
There was nothing. He was numb. He wasn't even angry, he just felt cold.
"So I'll be going then."
Her back was to him...
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.
Look, I admit, I'm at least partly responsible for the situation. It's my fault I'M here, and not his, er, mine.
The pronouns can get really confusing, so maybe I should just back up. It's not easy being a clone, or, shall I say a time-displaced duplicate of him. I mean, of myself (see?). The accident happened a while ago, really long enough for him, the other me, to get used to it. We both decided that we'd stay in the same house and have the same life; he owed me that much, for saving his (my) life.
I DON'T...
"Come on, Ben," I pleaded. "Why do you have to do this every time we try to have some family time? You know we hardly ever see each other. It's the holidays, for God's sake."
"There are better ways to celebrate than eating defenseless animals that were cruelly raised and slaughtered on assembly lines," he said firmly.
I snapped. "Oh yeah, Ben, well tell me, just why is it wrong to kill animals? They're not humans, they can't reason like we do. A lot of them are predators too. We need to eat. Why not eat them?"
"Because animals have...
It was dark, cold. I felt the wind, colder than ice, blow into my face a large number of sharp ice crystals. "Where am i?" i thought. I walked down a hall, made completely of ice. The air was not only cold, but had a bitter smell to it: like torture and an evil queen. I walked into a throne room, by the looks of it, anyway. The only spot of color in the room was the bright yellow hood the person standing before the queen wore, and it was quickly fading. The first thing i noticed about the room...
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...