Framed by white-washed plaster walls, she was a sharp contrast to the beige and grey of the street surrounding her. She reached up and brushed a stray lock of black hair from her forehead, looking over her right shoulder down the street. She was waiting, and her eyes scanned the oncoming traffic carefully, searching.
The young man across the street had stopped walking when he noticed her, a sudden burst of brilliant red against the subdued building. She never looked over at him, never stopped looking down the street at the oncoming mass of bicycles, cars, carts, trucks, and people...
Billy was steadfastly unimpressed.
"Can we go home now?" he asked.
"But, Billy, don't you want to see the top of the beanstalk?" Sarah asked her son. She was confused. Why didn't he like the things other boys liked?
"No."
"Why not? Isn't it cool and -"
"It's a phallic object from the a fairy tale written by the unwitting supporters of the patriarchy," he interrupted.
Sarah hated this. Being lectured by your own sever-year-old was the worst. "Billy, quit saying silly things," she scolded. "It's just a beanstalk. It's supposed to be fun. Why can't you enjoy anything in...
I'm trying to hang on, really I am. My arms are tired and my muscles burn as sweat and tears find their way into my eyes, making them sting. "Hang on," you say. What if I fall? What then? Can you catch me if I fall? I think I might slip. My fingers are striped red and white from gripping this rockface for such a long time and my head is spinning. I can't make sense of anything for one horrible moment and then I am surrounded by water. I realize that I have fallen into the ocean. The last...
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...
He was standing on the sidewalk below, jumping up and down. A passer-by might think he was crazy, but she knew better. He always did things with good reason. She smiled at him as she walked by and murmured, "Hi." He looked around like a startled deer caught in a floodlight, but she was gone. She had dissolved into the doorway.
Maybe he's really happy, she thought, as she walked softly up the stairs, careful not to wake the sleeping house. Sometimes, when she was happy, she felt like doing that. And she felt like never, ever, ever stopping. Maybe...
We were to meet in the gallery. The glass one, stone fronted with tiles. It is an old place, no longer fashionable. It looks out onto a street where buses no longer run and rubble fills the roads. He said he had a message to give me. The way it was said, it did not imply that the message was from him, but only that he was a messenger, of the most unwilling kind. What inconvenience it must cause you, I might have argued, to have to meet up with me in such way. What a task your people as...
The night had finally come, the date that I have been waiting for all week! My boyfrend was planning to take me out on a speical day, tho he wasen't telling me where we were going. I was so excited, that I had tears streaming down my face. He was almost here at my house to pick me up, I was rushing, I had to put on my makeup, get dressed, take a shower and I had to make sure that I looked good. OMG he is here!! He arrived in his mercedes benz, wow I am gobsmacked, off we...
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...
We were playing a family game of tag. I was the seeker acting as if I was a robber making sure no one was hiding from me. I heard a ringing in my ear. It was nothing but silence and the creaking of the wood beneath my feet. I checked every single closet. But I couldn't find anyone. It was like they had left me here alone trying to find them while they were out doing something fun. I decide to check the basement. I walked don't the slanted wood stairs. I heard the whispers of their v
While walking in the city, the 2 friends asked each other where they should go for dinner. They decide to go to a fancy restaurant and order some steaks. They ordered it with gravy and some mashed potato. The boys mind was running wild. He was thinking of how his friend looked very pretty and how good they would look together, as a couple. The girls mind was also running wild vise versa. As soon as they finished their dinner, they decided to go to the lake. While walking to the lake, they didn't talk whatsoever. They were silent, thinking...