The rock where my sister died dominated the landscape like a giant defrocked mushroom.
My parents were standing beside me, waiting for my response as I looked up at the seaweed and the striations. I wasn't sure what they wanted me to feel.
"It's cold," I said.
"We were just up on that ledge," said mom. "The tide was coming in, but the sun was setting and we wanted to watch it."
"Thought we'd just wade back to shore afterwards," added dad.
"But I lost my balance and slipped. Pregnancy does that to you sometimes, messes with your inner ear....
The border. He had. To find. The border. He'd made this trip a hundred times before and each time the damn thing moved. When he thought of it - if he thought of it at all - he imagined it as some kind of mystical shimmering veil. Except you couldn't actually see it. Couldn't map it. It might be there with the next step or it could take a thousand more and he never knew which it would be. He was pretty sure he'd been walking straight for it but... had he just been circling? Was he even heading in...
The winter of 1970 in the Bay Area was not something I ever expected to experience- especially since I was born in 1990. My folks scolded me every night for sneaking into the backyard whenever there was a full moon. It wasn't my fault: grandpa planted the story about the time-well in my head and it sprouted into a maddening obsession.
My hair was now curly instead of wavy and my hands reverted into the pudgy state of toddlerhood. Who was I, in this time, and why was I only a spectator? My new parents talked about the lunar landing...
"This dream - it was better than waking."
"That's incredibly flawed. Inherantly flawed. You can't control the dream - for all you know, in the next few moments, you could've... You could've turned up to someone's wedding. Someone you hated. Or worse, someone you loved."
"If that's the kind of dreams you have, I'm not surprised you can't understand how a dream could be better than waking." I made a face. "That's really the best you can come up with? Oooh, a dream wedding." My nose wrinkled. "Is that a pun?"
"A very strained one." She replied, going to make...
An aura surrounded her.
He couldn't describe it, couldn't explain it, couldn't put it into words. It was beauty.
She raised her hands, opened her mouth, flexed her diaphragm, and completely, irrevocably drew him into herself.
Her song permeated him, and the light that bounced off of her transformed his eyes into bodiless, empty receptors: everything else faded, his body, his chair, his table. There was only the Vision.
Then the song ended, and he was left floating in the smooth, absent, come-down buzz of the empty amplifiers.
*click*
"Sweetie, Daddy is trying to work, OK? One more picture and then you go play with your dolls, OK? You can do a fashion show and take pictures of them. Wouldn't that be fun?"
*click* *click* *click*
"OK, that's enough now. Honey? HEY, HONEY! Can you come get Penny? I need to finish this report! Honey?"
"She can't hear you."
"Why not? Where's Mommy, sweetheart? Is she outside?"
"The woman is in my capture device."
"What? Your... Penny, what's wrong? Why are you looking like that? Where's Mommy?"
"The woman is in my capture device. Along with the pre-reproductive...
There had been a time when he could have named all the seas on the moon, and pointed them out. That seemed to be in another life. He curled into a ball as tight as he could go and tried to ignore the pain in his leg and the weakness stealing up his body. He tried to ignore the cold seizing his limbs, and instead recited lists of constellations, dragging them from the pits of his memory. He even managed to get a couple of the moon's names. He uncurled one hand and the claw-like fingers groped blindly for his...
The rush I felt skipping my way home, the breeze flowing through my hair.. there is nothing like it. There are so many things about being a child that simply have no analogue as an adult. Skipping carelessly down the middle of the street, climbing trees with no fear of falling, having no worries greater than what mom is making for dinner.
I long for those days. I miss the sparkle. I miss the sparkle and the freedom I didn't even realize I had. But now it's gone.
Is there a way to find sparkle once you grow up? Is...
Balanced on the line, he told her again, "Put it down!"
"Come on, then," she said, impishly.
"I can't. You know I can;''t cross the line. I'll have to go back."
"Why?"
It's just how it works. It's a liminal space. I'll explain if you put the book down and step away."
She looked baffled, then nervous. "I can't! It's stuck to me."
On no! "Then bring it to me. Quickly. Please."
"What's happening." Her voice was flat, lacking timbre. She was fading and I couldn't get to her. I only had seconds.
"Stay where you end up. Don't move....
Rouge.
"That's right men, put up the flag. We are no longer the lone-star state, but the lone-star ship!" Captain Johnson bellowed in a frenzy.
The ship's red phone began to ring.
"No. No, we are not coming back from this tour - You can call us Pirates if you want to. No. We will not come back, we are tired of this war. We are tired of these living conditions. And most of all, my men are tired of this food. I will not listen to reason."
Captain Johnson was cut off by the distant rumbling of a torpedo...