It was picture day. Mom took us all to the park. The whole family, I mean. It was her, dad, both sets of grandparents, all 8 great-grandparents, my sister, my brother, his kid, and all our aunts and uncles and cousins and second cousins and third cousins and their dogs and cats and kindergarten teachers. There were 63,293 of us in all. And mom had us all wear the same thing: blue jeans and red shirts.
We all gathered under the shade of the mighty elm and then the photographer took the picture. She had to take 37 shots to...
She always felt a little self-conscious about wearing headphones in public. She didn't want to seem anti-social, or too cool, or appear totally oblivious to the bike rider frantically ringing his bell as he approached from behind.
That's why she visited the gardens so much. Not so much for the flowers but butterflies had secrets of their own. They listened to their own songs and drifted through a world of their own. They wouldn't judge her musical tastes and she would be silly to judge theirs. After all, who are the deaf to judge those who can hear in color?
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.
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...
"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...
I see his face in my mind's eye and feel my chest being lit on fire. It's not fair. Everything is so perfect when I'm with him, but I always have to wake up and come back to the cold reality that he is only the
Man of my Dreams.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to make his image disappear from where it has burned onto the backs of my eyelids, forming each time I close my eyes again. I feel like screaming at the unfairness of it all until I have no voice left for anything but...
Wine. The only way I can escape. The bitter taste of beer and harsh sting of liquour, far too much for me to handle. So I drink wine.
The man has been watching me for a while now. The one with no face. There names for him on the internet, there are stories, and jokes.
But there are few believers.
So I keep to myself. When I'm not drinking wine, I search for answers, but that often makes things worse. The more I read, the more real it seems, although to everyone else he is just a story.
I thought...
Blue eyes. Everyone here has blue eyes. A woman in the corner has eyes the color of pale winter ice. The girl wrapped in her boyfriend's arms outside of the tiny cafe has blue eyes that look like the muted blue-gray of storm clouds. Her boyfriend looks at her adoringly with eyes that hold at least five different tones of the brightest blue I've ever seen. Little children skitter past me, and I make out in vivid detail, four sets of blue eyes.
I stand here on the old, worn sidewalk with my eyes downcast. My eyes are not blue,...
The people in the cafe continued talking as I stood to look at the door. Still not here. I glanced at my watch. Dash it all, I was going to be late to my meeting. He would not be getting dinner tonight, oh no. My husband wasn't one for standing me up, though...whatever. He's not here, and I have to go. I walked out of the cafe, jogging down the stairs and out. What I saw I will never forget. My husband's car and another one in flames down the street, an obvious car crash. My heart stopped then started...