He set the plate before her. It steamed, smells of carmelized meat and cinnamon wafted up to her nose. "This is my lust."
He still spoke with inflection, they had not dined upon his theatricality, his sense of timing, his desire to surprise. There was an order to these things, and while he still had that order, he would continue. The assembled guests mumbled their appreciation, though Dowager Harriet was still chewing through the last bites of his shame.
When the Boddhisatva-to-be had announced this meal, the good and great had tittered that he had finally lost his mind. Spent...
She closed her eyes and disappeared. The notes swallowed her, refusing to let her go. The beat aligned with her heart beat, giving her the illusion of impossible strength. The music grew louder until it was an explosion--as if thousands of butterflies instantly fluttered. She wished she too could fly away. Fly like the waves of the sound. Fly like the butterflies.
But instead, she was bound like the hair on her head. Bound by responsibily. Bound by expectation. Bound by fear of the unknown.
I was trying to count them. The little bastards kept moving around, making me lose track, infuriating me to no end. I had been awake for almost thirty hours and sleep was no closer than it had been twenty-nine hours ago. Even my imagination wouldn't collaborate in sending me into unconsciousness. Goddamn sheep.
Sheep and sleep were two very similar words, I decided. I instantly sought to catalog all the words that rhymed with sleep. Bleep, steep, reap, peep, seep, weep, beep, keep, jeep. Meryl Streep.
The original verb still eluded me. It would be a long night (and day).
"What'll it be?"
"Jack."
"Want ice."
"No."
The bartender pours the brown liquid into a tumbler. I wait patiently.
"First time here?"
"No."
I take a swig and end up downing the whole glass. I point down at the empty vessel. He answers my request.
"Funny, I don't remember seeing you come in here before."
The place was a empty. It was late on a Tuesday, understandable why there wasn't a crowd in here. The lights were dim and mahogany colored bar reflected what little light it could find.
"Yeah, it was a couple of months ago."
I point again....
Birds. I hate badminton. Eye-hand coordination was never my strength.
"You'll have fun," Fanny told me.
I hate how the little birdies fall apart if you step on them. Which I always do. They're easier to miss, fallen in the long grass like puffs of dandelions.
"Tell her to play," Fanny told her brother. We avoided eye contact. Like we always did when she was around. Our secret.
"You'll have fun," he said, not looking at me. "I'll let you win."
I didn't want to beat anybody, least of all him. I wanted to fold him in my arms, cradle...
"Avery," she said, eyes flashing, "Avery, Avery."
I held the snake in my hands. "I need to take care of it. It's lonely."
"Animals belong in the outdoors, not in kindergarten."
"Then I belong in the outdoors, too!"
"Avery, if you continue this for one moment longer –"
"Don't worry," I whispered, almost to myself. "Flora will get you. Flora will get you."
She came a few minutes later, rage flickering on and off in her pale face. "What's all this?"
Miss Duncan glared. "Your sister brought a snake into a kindergarten classroom."
"What the bloody –"
"Flora!" I yelped....
Contemptlation of the one. The flame at the center of life. Beginning and end. No beginning, no end.
It's my birfday.
The children huddled around the flame, discussing what was to be done. One suggested that the only possible route was violence, the violence of the oppressed masses against their oppressor. Another suggested that they might take more subtle means of gaining control of the classroom, gain partisans. The teacher came in, and they blew out the candle, acting as though nothing had happened.
Every child around the cake wished that it was his birthday, that he could be the...
There once was a man in a sphere
Whose outward appearance was queer
He was hard to mistake
For the sphere was opaque
Because he had filled it with beer
There were three daughters of the Feng family, and when the father lost his business and the mother lost her mind, the three daughters were left to serve others on their own china, long ago sold for half its value to a family of gloating pretenders.
The first daughter married a nice young man from across the way, not a family of any importance but he was a hard worker and that was enough. The second daughter died young, and since no one cared to remember her family, much less her, her life was brief and short and unremarkable.
The...
When he first saw her, it was by accident - in the rain, striding, determined, certain. She glared at the rain that fell around her, almost daring it to her touch her.
He almost dropped the stack of books he needed ro reshelve - not because she was beautiful, not because she was charming, but becaue she looked so devestatingly angry.
The rain wasn't listening to her; her hair was flattened against her head, her clothing glistening, almost shining against the dark sky. Sun seemed to be attempting to get through - maybe if she glared hard enough at the...