The results were in: she had earned "third runner up" honours.
"Top five ain't bad!" Jeff said encouragingly.
"It's four spots worse than good," Melanie grumbled. "I don't want to be 'not bad'; I want to win something! I want to be recognized!"
Jeff sighed. "I recognize you," he reassured her. "I recognize you more than anything else, or anyONE else, in the whole world. Why do you think I married you?"
"Chocolate trifle," she sniffed.
"Well..." he grinned. "Ok. You got me. I married you for your chocolate trifle. But AFTER the trifle, you're the most important thing in...
Maybe we all do. Maybe we all did. Precious things like our youth framed by handle bars, the hole dug beside the roots.
When I first got the hang of whistling, I sang at the birds. But I was just the needle through which they thread. Winter was rolling down those cooling autumn hills. The flocks were heading south for those mountains.
There was gold in those mountains, precious like the air between a frame.
"Wait, so he hit you?"
We had been over the story several times by now, as Carl sat down bringing a fresh round of amber colored liquid in pint glasses.
I ignored his question as I tried to figure out if this was another IPA or something different.
"Yes," I said, snapping back to reality.
"Damn dude, that fucking sucks," Carl said taking a sip of his beer.
I shook my head in agreement. Took a sip. It was the IPA. Damn that is a good beer.
"Yeah, he just snapped after I told him he was being an asshole...
Jail. Only saw my dad once a month, too far to travel. He used to tell me funny stories, keep his mind off the grim reality of life inside. Never gave me a chance, either, to relate how the family were doing, what they felt about losing him.
My mind travelled, not really listening to him. Noticing the regulars at other tables. The fat woman with red hair, always in blue sweats with white stripes down the sides, green laced trainers. Talking non stop to the thin man with the hollowed pale cheeks and ginger hair combed over his balding...
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...
The ransom never came, poor fools.
The two kidnappers waited with young Jacob Cartee standing between them. The boy looked well, unhurt by the men who'd taken him. That was good. James despised child abusers. "In ten," James said softly, speaking into the mike on his collar.
He shifted his weight, noted the direction of the wind. Slowly, he inhaled as he gazed through the scope on his M99. Time counted down. At "one" he exhaled and pulled the trigger. One of the kidnappers - he'd taken to calling him Ogre - went down instantly. A second bullet escaped the...
I could feel their glares. They loved to do this. I kept tripping over branches and I could feel the cuts on my arms.
They would save me eventually and they would take me home and I would tell mother what they had done. She would tell them to go home and tell brother to go to his room, there would be no dinner for him and I would get sad because I felt trapped. I felt wronged and needed my mother's comfort, but I knew that my tattle-taling would only result in spite from them the next time we...
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...
A dapper man picked up a penny. He tossed it the air, but it fell. He never caught it. A spankled girl kicked up her skirts. They tangled about her legs, and she tumbled. A tired child opened is mouth. He cried out, but no sound came. No sound came. Sometimes nothing falls. Sometimes nothing lands. Sometimes nothing comes at all.
It is useless to try to explain that to the Thing. They don't understand cause and effect, you see. That is another dapper man, Commander Hollis, trying to explain. They don't understand us, and we don't understand them. The...
Dispossessed
All he had to his name was this park bench, and not even that.
As he sat and gazed off into the distance, he contemplated his fate. He'd lost his job, then his home, then his family. Nothing was left to him, not even his body that lay six feet under rotting in a pauper's grave. His spirit sat on the bench that the shelter had dedicated to his memory. Suicide had not ended his suffering. Dispossessed of everything he had held dear, he contemplated getting his life back.
His ex-wife stood looking at the bench, at his name...