Elaine stopped dead in her tracks. She had just fixed the bulb this morning, it couldn't already be...
The sound of the back screen door swinging stopped her heart. A wave of panic went through her and she just knew she wasn't alone anymore. But maybe they (or he, or she) had just left. Except she didn't hear any footsteps.
Her bedroom door was locked. The handle jiggled, then a voice; "Larry it's friggin' locked!" "Fuck," Joe yelled. "It fuckin' can't be locked!"
Elaine started turning around; her cell phone was in her car in the driveway.
The kitchen light...
Aurora Moondust Boardman was gripped by a mixture of fear and excitement as she read he Great, Great, Great Grandmothers words. Back in the early 21st century a rather twee social network called Twitter was de rigeur. Nowadays they had the Social Implants that allowed thoughts to be transferred to any of their Optimim Subscribers.
She talked a lot about '@Pesky_Kid' whom Aurora presumed was her Gt, Gt Grandfather. He was famous for his daring exploits in th 50's when he pioneered the first Mashed Potato Wars computer game and retired a millionaire at 20. Kate (as her ,Gt,GT Grandma...
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....
In the beginning she thought he was an alright gentlemen. Until he began showing little bits and pieces of himself. Now it seemed ridiculous that she could have fallen in love with this boy-man, this immature piece of bones, flesh and nothing else. She laughed to herself, almost becoming hysterical at the thought that she could have been shackled to this man, that as a Catholic, she would have wrestled with leaving him and when she eventually did, she would have to wrestle with a feeling of guilt for the rest of her life.
Which brought her to God. Funny...
Outside her bedroom window the bells of the church called out to the diminished congregation. It seemed sacriligeous somehow that, while the floral skirted spinsters sashayed into the chapel, she should be lying here wrapped in his arms. Jayne wasn't religious at all despite her most formative years spent eagerly attending that little Methodist chapel. At school she had always excelled at Religious Studies., but life and it's course in cynicism had cured her of all that.
She nuzzled deeper into his arms drinking in the smell of sensual sweat, knowing that in a few short hours he would be...
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...
Did you believe, like me, that there were monsters under the bed? I would leap from the middle of the room, my feet thudding on the mattress, determined that no hands would grab at me from that dark , malevolent recess between bedframe and floor.
The woodgrain on the antique wardrobe would melt into the face of a hooded figure. The deep, soulless gaze visible only to my terrified young eyes. Yet the most frightening part of the night was the key in the door and the gruffness of the slurring voice.
No, my monsters didn't live under the bed....
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...
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.
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...