The disco ball was turning. Who knew there were real discos anymore, with real disco balls?
This was my seventh time coming here in three weeks, all because of her. It was the same story every night: I walk in, I see her, I sit, I do nothing. Why do I do nothing? She paralyzes me. She paralyzes me but she doesn't see me. Or so I thought.
--
She's back. Again. Seven times. Seven nights of coming in, seeing me, sitting, and doing nothing. Why does she do nothing? It's clear she sees me. It's clear she wants to...
Dancing on the beach in bare feet. What a careless thing to do. You could get glass in your feet, or step on a sharp rock. And what on earth are you wearing? It's too cold out; you'll get sick. Get back in the house this minute, girls. It'll be dark, soon, anyway, and you shouldn't be out after dark. That's when the bad men come out.
Sometimes, I wish I could be like you. Innocent, with the world ahead of me. Able to do silly things like dance on the beach at sunset without worrying about the consequences. But...
It was enjoyable, this feeling. And so unaccustomed! He had come to a place in his life where so little really made him happy anymore. Leaving the store, though, despite the fact that it was a cloudy, cool day, he felt sunny on the inside. He had bought a new shirt, and he was wearing it - he decided to put it on right away, before he had even left the store. It was green - but a certain shade of green that he didn't see very often. It was his favorite color, and it had called out to him....
Good Lord! What is that old fool doing. He is out and about with only a tatty old dressing gown and a pair of mouldy slippers on his feet. Thank goodness - he appears to have his pjs on, under that disgusting robe. People like that should be looked after. It is disgusting how families neglect their old folk. I would hate to grow old like that - put me in a home - NO - put me down first. I would rather have euthanasia than be reduced to a quivering, brainless, incontinent wreck. Thank goodness I am still young...
An aura surrounded her.
He couldn't describe it, couldn't explain it, couldn't put it into words. It was beauty.
She raised her hands, opened her mouth, flexed her diaphragm, and completely, irrevocably drew him into herself.
Her song permeated him, and the light that bounced off of her transformed his eyes into bodiless, empty receptors: everything else faded, his body, his chair, his table. There was only the Vision.
Then the song ended, and he was left floating in the smooth, absent, come-down buzz of the empty amplifiers.
Whap! It him like a .... what? Whap! It did it again... that thing inside his head. He'd forgotten to take his meds... oh, many days gone by. The doctors had warned him when left the ward... Whap! It felt like... God, he couldn't have described it if he'd wanted to. He'd loved his mother.. when she was alive. Being dead didn't help his issues... his mother, not him, that is. The ward had been locked, the drugs forced on him.
Whap!
He'd promised the doctors he'd take them when he got out.
What!
He'd instead torn them up and...
She could tell I was faking it. My smile felt wrong, though no one else knew. She knew. A glance at the priest standing before us revealed that he was none the wiser to my feelings. But she could tell, I know she could. She stood there, hands grasping mine, tears shining in her eyes, a wide grin stretched across her face. Was she faking it, too? I was panicked this morning, knowing that I was to be married in a few hours. Maybe she felt the same. My calm facade got me through the waiting, but I was nervous...
Seed sack in one hand and broom pole in the other, Johnny Appleseed approached a patch of freshly tilled earth. Four rows, twelve feet long each, ran parallel to one another. With the broom pole in his left hand, he faced the first row, made a hole and dropped three seeds within. He sidestepped six inches to the left, made another hole, dropped another three seeds in. At the end of the first row, Johnny briefly glanced back over his shoulder and caught a hoarding chipmunk stuffing his face with seeds from a hole he'd just sown four feet away....
Time stopped the moment I recognized the driver. I clenched my fists and stepped back onto the curb but the car screeched to a stop and I knew he'd recognized me.
I could have run back into a building, found an exit into an alley. Instead I bolted into the middle of the street and froze on the crosswalk. My eyes met the driver's and I heard as if from a distance the honking horns and screams of cars and people.
My throbbing pulse sent cold pumps of blood through my body and my skin prickled, and my clothes dampened...
Heather had never found her talent.
The smallest amount of knitting made her arms feel like they'd fall from her shoulders. Her paintings looked like they'd been crafted by a toddler. Even decoupage, just gluing paper onto things to decorate them, seemed beyond her reach; in every project the images were wrinkled and unattractive. What was she doing wrong? Time and time again she struggled to release her creative genius, the one she had been told lived inside each and every person, but evidently she preferred to stay hidden deep inside.
Standing on the bridge, she watched the churning waters...