Wistfully the dog gazed out over the water. The sandwich his owner had not been able to finish was floating away, moving teazingly with the waves. If he had not been tied down with a leash the dog would have jumped in the water after that sandwich. He had not yet had anything to eat today and his stomach was complaining. The sound of his owner's laugh brought his mind back to the ship. He jumped down from the railing just a split second before the leash was janked. Trotting obediently after his master the dog contemplated all the smells...
"Vanquished."
"No, the word you're looking for is 'vanished.'"
"I always get those mixed up. I also get the words 'camel' and 'camera' mixed up, too."
"Don't fret, it gets easier with practice."
"Thanks for the stupor."
"I think you meant 'support."
"Oh, right."
"So, when do we get to stop pretending to be humans?"
It was two years before I was born. It was one year before my husband was born. His parents had not met yet. When they would meet, in 1987, they would fall in love quickly. Not instantly, but quickly and deeply. The story of his beginning, and of his childhood, was happy.
I waited. Two years were left to pass before I could make any decision.
My husband's mother was young. She seemed kind, but I could not get much of a sense of her personality, no matter how much I watched her. She was a private person. Reserved. Even...
That was the last thing she saw.
It was headed straight for her chest, a glittering blade, and she saw it in slow-motion. After that, however, all she saw was blackness.
The killer straightened up after her last convulsive shudders were over. He wiped the knife almost as an afterthought on his torn jeans. His face betrayed no emotion. He walked away slowly but deliberately from the crime scene, over to a payphone. The street was deserted, the sky, blank. Slipping his hand in his pocket, the killer took out a quarter and placed it in the machine. He dialed...
Flying home on a plane always made the man feel the same way. Confronting the (insane, brilliant, necessary) idea of flying through the sky, unnatural (he was an animal after all), yet completely commonplace (everyone does it), consistently put the man in a nostalgic, wistful mood. He'd picture his wife sitting on the edge of the bed, the afternoon sun coming from the window, happy to see him. He'd think on his kids, the way they were; a mixture of exasperation and wonder. He'd think on work the next day.
Grateful. That's how it felt.
He'd cut planes in half....
Price of a roll of Kodachrome: $5
Cost of the Canon camera: $200
Wage per photo published in Life Magazine: $25
Price per bushel of corn: $2
Day's wages for detasselers: $0.25
Fate always gets the last laugh.
You expect one thing, another happens. You predict a storm, there's not a cloud in the sky. You bet on red, the ball lands on black.
Or worse, double-zero. Salt in the wound.
I hated it. Predictions, prognostications, fortunes even, for those inclined to call it that... they're supposed to be real. I always believed in that little bit of the supernatural, some little psionic impulse, letting you see fate, visualize fate, and perhaps even manipulate fate.
Only I could never get it right. Nothing ever rang true, even when I deliberately predicted the...
I jumped. Where was I going? I have no idea. Seemed like the thing to do at the time. My friends told me to jump and I did. What was it that my mom always said to me...(thinking, thiking...."Don't do whaqt your firends always tell you to do...") Oh yeah, that's right. Well, I didn't listen. I did exaclty what my momther always told me not to do. I did what everyone else was doing. So, as I fell, fell, fell...kept falling (where was I going?) I knew this was a bad idea. I loked down, and goll darnit I...
In hindsight, the solution was obvious. It was the one time Watson had solved the case before I had. He teased me about it for days. And it was very obvious. I don't know why I didn't see it. I must be losing my touch. Mary finally told him to shut up about it. I was very grateful. But in hindsight, the solution was obvious. Eh, I'm getting old. Mycroft would have laughed so hard. I'm almost 80 now. My croft died a few years back. My brain is getting dumber and dumber the older I get. I'll have to...
There is nothing good about Monday. I feel bad every time I think that, because then I realize, "Well, I could be dead, or in Cleveland, and then my Monday would be much worse." And then I feel bad for making fun of Cleveland in my head, because I actually liked it the one time I went there.
Even though I don't do much here, it's hard to escape the native smugness that comes with being from New York City. It is all going on here. The thing is, I don't want to do most of it. I'm pretty internal,...