Until now, she'd never thought of herself as pretty. After all, her parents had named her Agnes. Agnes. That was the name of some fat, frumpy girl. But she stood here at the mirror, the bell had long since rung and students had settled themselves in desks. The comb in her bag would have to do. Maybe something from the haze of hairspray left behind by the other girls would help set the ridiculously high bangs she had crafted for herself.
She threw the comb in her bag and headed out into the hall. It was empty as expected. Agnes...
I jumped. Yes, I jumped into this fiery ring with full knowledge of what I was doing. I couldn't help myself. She was a wonder to behold. It didn't matter that she was married. It didn't matter that she had children. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. Her hair was the most wonderful shade of honey-blond. Her eyes were liquid pools of green fire. Our passion knew no bounds. We lived in a world made just for us. But like all things, our world had an end. She was married. She had children. They were beautiful...
Sixteen years, almost to the day. He wasn't sure what was worse: how sad it was, or the fact that he knew how sad it was.
If only he could be one of those losers who didn't /know/ they were losers - a self-deluded idiot. Sure, they get laughed at by the world, but at least they're happy in and of themselves. They don't know that their dream is unreachable, that they're doomed to spending the rest of their life watching something they can't have.
Tom Hamil had been selling flowers for sixteen years at the same shop, in the...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway.
It was raining, her hair was plastered to her face in a black sheen as she raised her arm to cover her head, even though she was already soaked through. The once beautiful crimson dress made of expensive silk now hung in tatters. Black kohl and the remains of red blush slide down her cheek, collecting in the dimples of each side of her face. The jade hairpin holding up an elaborate hairstyle had long since fallen out, leaving her long wave of black hair spilling...
Rip Van Winkle was a story that I never understood. How could a man that slept for forty years in a forest, aging all the while, just waltz back into town and have such and unremarkable story? Imagine having an absolutely perfect memory of the incidents, the setting and the culture of a time before this. I've always loved history, so I guess I'm just gushing out of a personal fetish, but if I was to lock myself away for years and come out of it, I would like to think that someone would really appreciate my particular knowledge.
Walking...
The Ministry of Health had issued a flash across every network in the country. You knew it by the sudden crimson blur in your peripheral vision when nearly every screen within three hundred miles was showing the same thing. Such things could cause the closest thing to a standstill in a city of twelve million people.
"Mario, could you turn up the volume?"
"Sure, Jose," he replied.
"... at least fifty thousand have already been affected, with thousands more potentially affected. We strongly recommend wearing a breathing mask or handkerchief as an alternative, to prevent the spread of this endemic."...
"Come here often, do you?" The old man said. He was sitting on the iron bench waiting, like me, for the bus. His clothes were a little ratty and he smelled faintly of moth balls. I didn't know what to say to him being as this was my first time here.
"No, sir. You?" I replied, awkwardly.
"Been coming to this stop for, oh, must be twenty years now." He said, shifting his cane a bit. His dark glasses hid his eyes and I wondered if he were blind.
"Ah...well..." I trailed off. I've never been one for socializing with...
If money was the root of all evil, then wine must surely be a close second.
Jasper gazed through the rosy depths of the wine glass in his hand, observing the scene beyond with quiet detachment. Wine had always mellowed him, left him with a feeling a pleasurable distance from his surroundings, as though nothing that happened would effect him at all. He remembered his girlfriend's anger at his apparent coldness when she informed him of her condition, the way she had yelled and screamed and beat her fists against him as he silently took in her news, analysed the...
As Darvo walked into the glaring sunset on the western horizon ahead of him, he wondered to himself about the Yoga studio he passed by minutes ago. There were so many beautiful women in there doing flexible things that he knew that his own body was not capable of.
Darvo had actually passed by that same Yoga studio almost every day for the past six months when he took up a job as a salesman at the screen door factory next door.
Everytime he walked by, on his way home, he made a point to look inside the window of...
The beam swept across the water. The waves glistened in the darkness, tiny bumps of light in front of the tall tower. Her eyes had been scanning the glistening waters ever since the sun had set and she had realised his boat was not moored at the jetty with the others. Guy and Tom had walked along its wooden boards, dropped their eyes and tugged their caps when they'd seen her, but they'd made no mention of him. She'd almost called out after them, asked them where he was, but stopped herself before the his name could push itself from...