Spinning.
As I drift towards the ground, I spin and the world spins around me. The blues and greens and browns flash past, a kaleidoscope around the carousel of my descent.
The spun silk canopy spinning with me and giving an orange glow from above as the Sun's rays find it in the blue, blue sky.
The Earth rushes up, faster now. Still spinning, I begin to tense. Remember the instructions.
Relax.
Let your legs go limp.
Tuck and roll.
The spinning stops with a thud.
To push a button. Such a simple thing. But where would it take me?
Down.
But what will be waiting for me there? Is it a place I want to go?
I thought I had hit rock bottom, but when there seemed no lower place to go, the answer is this elevator.
Down
But maybe Down is Up. The raised letters under my fingers promised escape and newness. In a life where everything is the same and without hope, any change can be good, right? Hope as a byproduct of fear.
Nothing to lose.
Down.
I lost my grip on the wheel. Well, not really. In reality, I lost my grip on everything. In that moment, nothing else mattered. The world around me became a blur of distant activity and the noise around me sounded like a conversation floating through walls from the other end of a house. The world both started in motion and went completely still in the very same second. In that moment, walking past him in the hallway, I forgot my name. All I could remember was the image of him walking to his locker that burned itself into my mind....
Taste. The middle, forgotten brother in the family of senses.
They don't have helper dogs or monkeys for people who can't taste anything. No one is working on smaller and smaller devices to amplify or stimulate tastebuds.
You can either taste or not and no one really cares.
The one good thing about not tasting anything is you can win all kinds of money on the playground by eating things. Things that might seem disgusting.
I was the richest kid in elementary school. I'd takle bets and then down worms or bugs or the digusting ham and peanut butter sandwich...
My friends are so annoying they threw fake snow all over me as my perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe came out of the oven. I hate it when my friends team up against me like I really don't like it because they treat me like nothing, like I mean nothing to them, I know that sometimes people get annoyed and sometimes even a bit moody. But still, I want to know that I belong, that they care about me and that they need me, but really it's annoying. it is now going to take ages to get this fake snow...
He wasn't certain he believed her, or that he'd heard her correctly.
She believed it, though. That much was obvious, from the earnest look in her eyes, from the way she clung to her coffee cup with such a tight grip, as if it was the only thing tethering her. As if it was what was keeping her real, keeping her here.
"How did it happen?" He asked finally.
Althea seemed to relax a little at that, as if she'd overcome a hurdle, as if she was relieved - finally, somebody believed her. "I don't know. If I did, I...
The sounds of the jungle echoed all around Jane as she swang from tree to tree, frantically listening for the slightest sound of another human hiding in the canapy.
Swinging on the expertly tied ropes her beloved had woven much before she was a dream in his heart. She must find Safura before it was too late.
Clutching the half full elixir closer to her heart, she leapt down into a clearing feeling a prescence close by. Stunned, Safura looked her straight in the eye, dropped the other half of the elixir she was carrying and slinked into the shadows....
She remained there, trying not to be washed away by the torrent that unfolded minutes beforehand. It was a terrible scene, yet pleasant; watching the rain soothed the fire stoked within herself.
Did she wish to begrudge another man? Did she want to carry another grudge? Did she care to add another misery to her life?
Until now, she'd never thought of herself as pretty. Even this morning, she hadn't really thought of it. A white dress, sure. A veil, sure. Kitten heels, yes. She had told Marjorie that she didn't want her make-up done.
"I've been doing all right for forty years," she said. Marjorie just looked at her and then looked away without saying anything.
Marjorie was pretty. Everyone thought so. It wasn't so much a matter of thinking, even. Empirically, she was attractive. But she wore a lot of make-up.
This morning Marjorie wasn't there. Wasn't there to watch her pull on stockings...
She began a cigarette.
She thought about the beginning, when both of them wrestled with being simultaneously addicted to and afraid of each other. The fear was its own pleasure: they both noticed that the adrenaline of their hours apart was worth infinite foreplay.
She watched the first part of the logo turn orange and then grey. The image lasted in the ash for a second before mixing in with the image of the paper.
Later, she began to notice a strange emotional trajectory in their evenings together: the impulse, the sex, and then sadness, or disappointment. The sweat turned...