Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway.
After a carefully judged amount of time she stood up and retied the bow at her waist.
"Sure, you stood me up at prom, Adam," she said, "but THIS is for calling my dissertation 'feeble-minded and a stunning waste of recycled pulp' in front of my advisor."
She retrieved her bike and stuck a hardbound volume titled "AN OPTIMIZED PROGRAMMABLE BINARY ARCHITECTURE FOR A SCALABLE DIGITAL THEOREM ITERATOR" into the handlebar basket.
Then, whistling, she hiked up her skirts, straddled the seat, and biked off into...
In her rear-view mirror, she saw Gene turn. He looked at the bush, at her, at the bush again, and then felt his pockets. Phone, wallet, ke...
He bolted for the bush. Heather slammed her hand against the ignition and turned the key. Grinding metal. The car was already on. She floored it and turned for the bush. No clear plan had formed in her mind but she could see Gene sprinting. The bush arrived and the car rose up to meet it, bouncing over the rockery and screeching up the hill. Grinding metal again. The wheels were spinning. Smoke...
"Lifetime Warranty - Satisfaction Guaranteed" the adverts had promised. "No one has ever returned a loveBot 7000 in the history of the company."
He flicked through the manual. Ah there it was: "If you are genuinely unhappy call THIS toll-free number…"
After keying in a few tones - he hated automated call centres - he had been put on hold by what he assumed to be a clever computer, but was in fact a rather stupid one.
The loveBot sat up, watching him lovingly, with her 'come to bed' eyes. It had entranced him at first. That, compliance, and...
Leaves golden and red. A New York fall is among us. Chill to the air and inevitably the snow will be coming soon. Rushing to stores for turkey and stuffing, then rushing to the store for last minute gifts for loved ones. The red and gold leaves change to red and gold Christmas ornaments. The colors of fall and the colors of winter.
Holidays in New York are unlike any other anywhere. Snow blowing, chilly air, hustling, bustling, rushing, racing. Decorating for Christmas on Thanksgiving night, playing music, eating leftover turkey while baking cookies. The movie 'Elf' on in the...
The dream had been wonderful, yet it would never be real.
I am blind yet everything I experience at night is always in varying shades, or what I think are shades. I question if what I see is the same whites, blacks, red, yellow, orange, green etc and all the tones in between that everyone else can see.
I am lucky in a way that I know what to wear, I can sense the differences between shades, they have their individual feelings, sometimes I can even hear them like musical notes.
The dream last night was different in that there...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. It was not that she was frightened - no, fear was something she found rather useless - but because she knew with an unshakeable certainty that if she wandered onto the street, she would be eaten by a vampire.
The house beyond the doorway was no better, on account of there being a ghost lurking inside, the type that would drip ectoplasm on her most horribly before devouring her soul.
This girl, then, was at an impasse. She could neither proceed nor retreat. Go out, the...
Julia was always scared of ending up alone. She'd picture herself old and decrepit, sitting in a lonely apparement wondering where it all went wrong.
Out of sheer desperation and panic she ended up marrying a somewhat dim fellow, who went by the name of Don. Don was a simple man to say the least. He was lovable and easy to please.
"Is that a new brand of bread?" he'd gush in the supermarket.
Julia was abnormally intelligent. She had a PhD in biochemistry, she'd written several books on the process of some "cells and stuff" as Don would try...
The large shape of the medical building loomed on the horizon. Vic and I were survivors of a plague tring to get a vaccine. We had been traveling for so long and this was our last chance of hope.
" do you see it?!?" He yelled joyfully.
I smiled. We were so far off and he was so sick I didn't know if he would make it
"Well, Vic how about you take a rest" I said while sitting down on a broken city curb. He walked over from the ruins of the Rise Records building-which used to be one...
Until now, she'd never thought of herself as pretty.
Sure, there were lots of positive adjectives she would have included in a description of herself. Clever, athletic, determined, sensitive, ambitious, caring, discerning, admirable.
Ok, maybe "admirable" was stretching things a bit.
But pretty? That was a word for the popular girl in high school, with the childish voice and the two-expression face: desirous and desirable; I want THAT and you want ME!
Pretty was the compliment of an unimaginative father, the manipulative tool of a mother living vicariously.
It wasn't something she had ever felt the need to apply to...
“Come here.”
The little boy looked at her, then back at the kitchen door.
“Come here!”
Something crashed in the kitchen. The boy turned away and stumbled over to her. She took him by the hand. “Come on, we have to go.”
“What's wrong with him?”
“Doesn't matter, just come on. We have to hide.”
“Why?”
“I did something, and now he's mad.”
“What did you do?”
“We have to hide.”
“What did you do?”
“I stole all of it.”
“What?”
“After school today, I stole all his drinks.”
“All of them?”
“Yeah.”
“You know he gets mad when he...