Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. She was tired - her mother had been taking her from door to door all morning looking for ... what exactly? She wasn't sure, but she knew more than her mother thought she did. She watched the kids play who weren't her.
She was the product of two Peace Corps volunteers, and this adventure teaching English in China was the next step. AmeriCorps, Peace Corps, MercyCorps, and now the less valiantly named R4 English Tutoring. She should have been starting second grade this year, but she...
My heart was pumping. I ran down the old wooden stairs as the clock striked 3:00pm. I rushed on the computer not caring that I pushed down my grandma and she was hurt. These results were the most important thing in my life. I logged in to my computer as fast as a cheetah, But than I forgot what my password was to the skyward. The heart pumping, my brain was hurting from me trying to remember what the password was."Ahhhhhhh" I screamed grandma who was still on the flor stopped moaning and put her attention to me. " what...
Excerpt from personal diary, Saturday, Sept. 23, 2010:
Experiments designed to give self artificial sexual fetish involving lamps have thus far resulted in failure. First attempted to insert lamp into arbitrary orifice; however this failed due to how cumbersome the lamp in question was. Perhaps there is a non-penetrative alternative?
Excerpt from personal diary, Saturday, Sept. 24, 2010:
Attempted masturbation while entertaining thoughts of the lamp. So far unable to sexualize the object itself, and thus unable to complete experiment. Will try again with different parameters tomorrow.
Excerpt from personal diary, Saturday, Sept. 25, 2010:
The lamp wouldn't turn on....
Balanced on the line, he told her again, "Put it down!"
She couldn't move even if she had wanted to, the butt of the gun felt slippery in her clammy hands but she refused to reliquish her hold on it. The line was a mere streak in the dust, but the signifance of that line, oh the significance that it held. It held the entire future, hers and his, the future of nations.
"Put it down, and step toward me."
"Back off!" She shouted, readjusting her grip on the gun and aiming it squarely at his chest.
"Just step over...
Private Morlane. Rooster. Let the regiment sleep. Gun. Trigger. Regiment sleeps.
She had no idea why she'd put on her red party dress this morning. It was cold, it was overcast, and she had nowhere special to go. Still, when she'd awakened this morning, the thought that made her want to get up was not any of these:
- You have the entire day to yourself
- You deserve to do something fun
it was:
- You love the way you look in that dress.
So, on an autumn morning indistinguishable from the days that proceeded and would follow it, Sal was wearing her red silk dress, a natty trench coat,...
A life of dots was all she'd known. At first it was the small dots that appeared in the corners of her vision on sunny days. Then those dots went away as the days grew dimmer.
The next dots were the tablets the doctors gave her to "slow the loss of function."
And ever since then, dots touching fingertips, bringing meaning, sometimes memory.
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She'd always come running when I called. That's why when she didn't come, I freaked out. My girlfriend was kind and gentle. Sweet and caring. I was very depressed before she died. When I called, she'd come running, whether I needed someone to bake a cake with me or someone to keel me from shooting myself in the head. I loved her. She'd always come running when I called. I called her that day in a state of panic. I couldn't find my watch, someone must've taken it. She said she'd come. I waited for about an hour before calling...
Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up.
"Oh, looks like we have ourselves a volunteer?" the D.J at the booth smiled at her.
She blushed when the spotlight hit her. Figures the first time she wanted to be daring, the whole world would see her.
Looking back at her friends as though she wasn't sure of herself anymore, they all encouraged her, their hands moving towards the stage. "Go on!" her friend, Darnell grinned wildly to her. The rest of their group nodded their approval.
Well, if Darnell...