An old sepia photo can be a bullet. It can tear through the lineup of neurons, neatly lined up like socks on a bed. It can make you aware that you are your latest incarnation. That you have been here before.
A mother and her child. Doesn't that child look familiar? Who remembers his own birth? Especially when it was 70 years ago? Today I am 27. I have been 27 many times now, projecting myself a year into the future so that I could live as 27 for a year, then my past self projecting himself a year into...
I always felt like I was stuck in a bubble. Like the Pope in his vehicle. On display like the Queen of England. A goldfish in a bowl. Maybe it was my shyness or my wart on my left cheek. Maybe it was the lisp that made everyone return my greetings with a "What did you say?" Maybe it was my slumped back, the hump that made shopping for blazers so difficult.
"Who's in there?" small children would say, peering at me on a Sunday in the park. "Don't bother that nice man," their mothers would say. The mothers were...
Through the files, there were instances going as far back as ancient Egypt. This creature had been in the human world for centuries. Amut, the Heart Eater, fated to consume the hearts of men who were evil and corrupt.
All across time the demon roamed, scraping its existence into the memory of mankind. But something was off about this log file in particular. 'Encounter Log No. 682-426-1991' it read. Where did this page come from, though? It was not in the database, nor in any files that had been scoured previously.
It had the normal redacted information for security measures,...
I crept silently through then corridor, the occasional creak of the floorboards abruptly halting me in my path.
The hallway was lit up by a dim nightlight, glowing a soft orange hue in the blackness. My shadow flared up the wall as I passed, and slowly shrunk back into the all-engulfing shadows.
A turn of a corner later, and I came face to face with a door. A door, which, when opened, would answer all my questions. I placed my ear to the keyhole, and made my bets attempt to silence my breath, and slow my pounding heart beat, trying...
So close, yet so far. Matey the Pirate never understood the phrase until these last few days of his life. The woodpecker would get closer and closer to the nub that was left of his leg, chipping away at the wooden peg that was left. He had to make it to shore. The ship was not going to last. The gapping hole in the bottom was filling the ship with too much water. This all meant that Matey would have to float to shore. Alone, he had not enough buoyancy to make it. In such a situation he though could...
The spotlight found her and then stayed still. Beneath it she trembled. Curled inwards. And then, becoming aware of her audience, the room of eyes watching her, she stretched out her arms, opened her mouth, and started to perform.
At first it was a slow dance, with the words of the song low and soft, gentle as a whisper. And then, as her confidence grew, as she started to enjoy it and believe in her ability, believe that these people actually wanted to watch and hear her, she started to speed up and the song became almost wild, a celebration...
They were listening.
"Have you noticed the children?"
"What about them?"
"They seem different, don't they? Since we moved here?"
"Hush. They'll hear you."
"They're all the way upstairs. They can't hear."
They were listening.
"Yes. Yes, I've noticed."
"Timmy asked me about strangulation today."
"What?!"
"You know. And Sally..."
"Yes. The, um. The incident with the-"
"The knife. Where did she get it? She can't reach the counters."
"I don't know."
"Something is wrong here, Susan. Something terrible."
"Dammit, John, these are our CHILDREN..."
"Are they? Are they, though? Look at their eyes, next time."
"What do we do?"...
"Remind me why I'm doing this again?" I asked my sister as I folded the paper.
"Because you love me."
"Right," I rolled my eyes as I finished the fold. "Done."
I showed my handiwork.
"That's suppose to be a paper crane?" My sister questioned. "It looks like a crane that has been run over by a steam roller."
"I tried," I said as I added it to the tiny flock of paper cranes we had be making for the past half an hour. "Again, remind me why we're doing this."
"Because, in myth, if you make a thousand paper...
The whale thought better and steered away from the shore.
I hurled a pearly conch into the surf and dropped backwards into the sand. Fiddler crabs filled the orchestra pit, their claws grinding salt and sand into no music. Two fronds breezed an applause, each clap sounding like "mock, mock, mock."
Alone, but not alone, the silence drowned by obstinate life.
The gate closed behind them with a soft click. They crept along the grass, still wet from the afternoon rain, to the french doors. No lights were lit on this side of the house.
They stopped at the door and reached for the knob.
"He was supposed to leave it unlocked," one voice said behind a ski mask.
"Try the other one," another ski mask said.
The other knob turned and the door swung open, into an office. One wall was an inset bookshelf. And the second ski mask whispered she'd always wanted one of those.
"Marry a doctor, like...