My mother loved colour. She spent the last weeks of her life in a hospital bed, with its monotone greys and whites. People gave her all kinds of gifts and cards. But her favourite one was a bright purple robe with pink stitching.
That gift was from me. Truth is, I'm more of a tactile person. Yet I knew this was what she craved most--her two favourite colours in the world.
At her funeral, we released balloons in pink and purple. Or, rather, everyone else did. I held onto mine. I wasn't ready to let her go yet.
Today, though,...
"You heard me right, friends. The evil that is draining our country of vitality is NOT Wall Street, NOT Washington D.C., NOT the Chinese or video games or foreign oil! No sir!"
I looked out at them, every one of them shocked at hearing this deviation from the party line, hearing my "lunatic heresies", as the bloggers and cable news harpies would no doubt dismiss them.
"NO SIR!" I thundered, rocking them back in their seats. "I tell you that the greatest threat to America and TO THE WORLD is this scourge, this pestilence, this new opiate of the masses:...
I stared up at the stars the beauty overtaking my sight, the bright lights occupied me while I was waiting. For him
I heard the scrape of metal coming from the silver ladder, someone was climbing up. He reached the top the lamp he was holding lighted his face helping me see his cute face.
He said nothing and sat next to me placing the lamp in front of us, following my eyes up to the stars.
This was forbidden, us together in the midnight hour. Us together. If our families found out were would be surely banished. We were...
Mist and fog everywhere.
It had started off as a beautiful African day. 30 degree heat and so they only wore shorts and t-shirts and packed a few sandwiches. No point taking unnecessary baggage, they told themselves. This is an impromptu safari. Let's be adventurous.
Then the fog came down. They weren't expecting this. And the track just sort of faded out. Bumping over grass in the battered landrover, they could see no familiar landmarks, nothing to lead them back to the road.
They were cheerful and amused at first. Lost in Africa! How foolish. What a great story. Then...
Three Chances. Two Donors. One Hope.
December 4th. Today is the third anniversary of your first bone marrow transplant. Did I actually say “first transplant”? Who in the hell has another one? It is still hard for me to imagine that you did. What parent walks around carrying those things in their memories?
You had such an amazing donor. He gave you six months of good health and a year of life. He must have been so brave and selfless to give you such a gift. I wish that I could thank him in person. But that would never happen...
Slowly it built, piece by piece. The atoms of its essence compiling line after line, upwards and outwards, exploding into space and time. The building of matter was not easy, but in a sense it was simple. All of it part of a natural system, as light and effortless as the wind around it. Should an ant ever wonder at the workings of its colony, or more likely would it continue on with its pattern. As the structure came together slowly, so did other things. More complicated pieces, wonders ontop of wonders. The chains of DNA and ribonucleotides weaving synonymously...
They were trapped for seven days. Aleena tried to hold back the tears as it had been seven days since she had seen the wolf- warrior Felan being taken away by Balor. She felt that she had let everyone down: the people who had brought her up as their own. She wondered where they were; if they were still trapped in the cage that she had tried to rescue them from when she and Felan had been caught. She wished she could see them one more time, even if it was to say sorry for bringing them into this. They...
We made our getaway through the window, I begged you to stay here, to feel the warmth of the house, to watch movies in the dimlit room, but you insisted that I had to "live a little". The clock struck midnight, I heard the chimes & felt the goosebumps as I climbed onto the roof. "This is absurd.. maybe we should go back.. it's freezing out!" But your smile told me differently. You spread a blanket out for us to share, and we looked up at the moon, glowing and providing light for us, along with the streetlamps. I was...
"So you're saying you didn't see Willie Mason leaving the store Friday night?" PI Dot Post eyed the man sitting in her passenger seat.
"I see no man, no ma'am. Course you know dat."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I see someone leave that store, 'bout 11:45, I reckon, but weren't no Willie Mason. Nah, dis person got curly red hair an' wear army boots."
Dot glanced down at her own foot attire, her hand reaching uncertainly for her auburn curls.
"Aye, I see you, detective lady." He grinned maliciously. "I see you wit' de blood on your hands."
Well,...
I am different.
I know it.
They know it.
They being society.
In our society, we are to dress the same, act the same, our names are the same, and the only thing different about us is our eyebrow angles. Strange, isn't it? I know there are a few like me in the world, but I don't know where. When I was very little, my parents lived on the edge. They would be different, and the society would scold them. When I was three, they were to be killed. Before my parents died, they decided they wanted me to stand...