"I'm in love with a robot."
"What?!"
"I am in love with a robot. I really am. I just realized it."
"I am concerned that you don't know what love is."
"Well - me too, but that's not the point. I am concerned that you don't know what robots are."
"What is a robot? Who is this robot that you "love?"
"A robot is someone who functions on the basis of identifiable algorithms or functions. It is someone who may appear human but is not. You."
"You'll never say it, will you?"
"Say..what?"
"What do you think?" She is exasperated, hands on her hips, eyes looking...sore, maybe.
I can never tell.
I should be able to, by now.
"That? Those words?"
She makes a face, and it's like a bridge collapsing. "Those words. You make it sound like they're...they're... like they're something bad."
I can't even think them, let alone say them. I mean, I do, of course I do, but... No.
"They aren't." I attempt. "And...you already know..."
"Do I?" She's staring now. "I did. I did know, but now...I'm not so certain. I...I just...
I lay there, floating. On the outside, at least. On the inside, I walked quietly down a dark hallway towards a bright white light. ,y mother had always told me not to go towards the light. But I was here for a reason. My life had been falling apart for a long time. I couldn't stand it anymore. So I had jumped. As I walked, I felt the water swish around me and I gasped for air. And kept walking. Walking. Walking. The light got nearer and nearer, and I started to reconsider. Was this too final? No. I had...
Spinning. Reams and reams of golden thread passed through her fingers as the spinning wheel conutinued on its endless spiral of revolutions. She had blisters now on all the fingers of her right hand. Blood seeped from under her nails and dulled the glow of the thread as it piled higher and higher on the floor beside her. She wondered what the point was but knew she couldn't stop. He would be back soon and then she would know her fate. Spinning. He said that if she got through all of it he would give her her freedom. She didn't...
He watched as she leaned against the tree, staring at him. "What?" he asked self-consciously as he shifted in his seat. "Do I have a booger?"
She laughed, stood up, and shook her head. "No, silly," she replied. "I'm just thinking." She walked over to him and looked down into his brown eyes. "Haven't you ever wanted to walk? I mean, sitting in that thing all day's gotta suck."
"I don't sit down all day!" Mark said to his friend. "You know that, Mary. You spend half the day at my house on the weekends."
"Yeah, I guess." She shrugged....
The girl adjusted the ancient headset irritably. Stupid thing was a poor substitute for her surround sound wireless earbuds, and frankly time was crucial in her quest--she had five minutes to get to the bottom of the mountain or the Ravaging Horde would catch up t0 her and her guild would never forgive her.
They'd given her the manuscript to protect, after all! And it was supposed to be because she'd been an all-star runner in middle school, as if that had anything to do with anything. But her headphones not working was totally an exo.
She tapped the ridiculous...
"I'm gonna kick your butt!" Heather yelled from the other side of the playground. She dangled on the monkey bars, high enough to break an arm if she fell. Gene's lips curled upward at the thought.
"What? Little prissy Heather is gonna actually do something for once?" This sort of drama wasn't uncommon at Lakewood Elementary School among the fourth- and fifth-graders.
"As a matter of fact, yes." Heather dropped down from the bars and marched across the wood chips to where I stood at the top of the slide. She looked up at me and added, "And I'm gonna...
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...
So, maybe she wasn't what a guy wanted in a girlfriend. She was loud, and rowdy. Always speaking her mind, blunt to a fault.
She didn't know what guys wanted, They just didn't want her.
21 years old and not one date, not even a first kiss. "Failure." She breathed.
"Did you say something, Charlotte?" Her mother asked, she shook her head.
"Nope." She continued to look out the window as her mother drove down the highway.
What was wrong with her, she didn't feel ugly. and she liked her sense of humor, but then why was she so invisible...
Wide, flat expanses lend themselves to romance. The romance of the open air and the sky as they meet the horizon and walk away. In this dusty corner of the world the muezzin stirs. He who calls the believers to prayer.
Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.
Allahu Akbar into the rising sun. Allahu Akbar to the departing night. Bleary eyed with sandalled feet, the faithful congregate through the thick dust. Voices hushed as though in respect as the light beckons.
Awake for morning in the bowl of night,
Has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight,
And Lo, the...