Today he awoke to the blaring sound of thunder. "Again", he thought to himself. It had been just like this for 38 days straight now. The long hours throughout the day and evening. The animals making their sounds all the time, never ceasing sometimes; the frogs, he couldn't stand the tree frogs.
And there were the ladies on board the boat, always nagging, "Noah, do this", it just never stopped. Actually at one point he was completely ready to abandon ship and climb up the inside wall of the hull and out that little window and float off to wherever...
The lamp wouldn't turn on. Andrew wasn't sure whether the power had gone out, or whether it was just the bulb -- these silly bulbs were always coming from the closet and going into the trashcan -- but he flicked the switch back in the off position and headed for the hallway. Rounding the corner out of the closet, he could see no light under the crack at the base of the door.
"Goddamn," he thought aloud, and thundered down two flights of steps to the basement, where his lighter illuminated the breaker panel. None of the switches were tripped,...
What was that? I swear to god, something just went under the boat. I don't know what it was, but it was shiny, and it was fast.
Is it lunch time yet? I like lunch time. Everyone gathers near the front of the boat, eating their sandwiches and chips. Most usually share, at least a little bit. It's not like everyone can eat all of that. Most usually share, but you gotta watch closely. Gotta be vigilant. And be careful of the gulls. They'll sneak up on you in an instant. They scare easy, but man, are they sneaky.
I've...
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...
The lamp wouldn't turn on. That was really the least of his problems. It meant the electricity had finally been turned off. So had the water, the cable, and the gas. At least they had waited until the spring. It was warm enough to not risk freezing that night.
Jacob wondered through his house, filled with useless possessions. He touched the television and the fridge as he walked by them, exiting the house and into the beautiful April morning.
The birds were chirping and a steady drone of cars racing down the highway filled his ears. He took a deep...
The doctor told me the swelling would soon subside. This made me happy. I hate swellings. Especially in my nose. Once my nose swelled up to the size of the moon. Literally. I was upstairs in the attic when my schnoz grew to the size of a lunar satellite. It crushed all of Prince Edward Island and displaced half of the Atlantic Ocean. People in Pakistan died.
Yes, having a nose the size of the moon is not good. For that matter, having a foot that is the size of a football stadium is also not good. That is what...
The darn woodchuck was bothering me. He was a smart woodchuck. He had a bucket of red paint, which he was using to paint the golf course. "Ha ha ha," laughed the woodchuck. "I am painting this blade of grass right now. Watch as my paintbrush, which is laden in red paint, strokes the blade. See? It is red now. Ahahahaha!!!!!"
I was having none of it. I do not like the golf courses to be red, especially the green, which is called a green for a reason. You don't call them red or blues or yellows, do you? No....
Now, supposedly, if I start out a hundred meters ahead of Achilles, and Achilles is travelling five times faster than me, when he has covered that hundred meters, I will nevertheless have travelled twenty. And when he travels twenty, I will have travelled four. And when he travels that four, I will have traveled .8 meters, and so on and so forth, such that Achilles will never reach me. I win.
But Zeno, the cur, says that, eventually, Achilles overlaps me. "We know it from experience," he tells us. God damn experience! I know that if Achilles is continually arriving...
It was supposed to be a nice relaxing drive. We were going to my mother's house for Christmas, the presents all stacked up in the trunk and carols playing on the radio. I sat in the passenger's seat. My husband was driving. It was getting a bit late, but we hoped to reach her house by about ten. Not a lot of traffic. Nice country road. But that all changed. I had closed my eyes and was about to drift off when I heard a loud, inhuman scream. My eyes shot open and I looked at my husband's pale cheeks....
It was all a laugh. The lion hunting, being carried around by the natives, sweating on the African planes. Life was one big hurrah. We were, after all, the Empire. Not just an empire, but the Empire. Below the snows of Kilimanjaro, we posed for our picture, giggling, playing with one another. This was life. This was the life that power built. Our power? Not so much. It was more a power build over the years. One conquest after another. Royal Africa Company. East India Company. Liverpool. Manchester. Watt, Arkwright, and so forth. We were something unique. The cool arrogance...