Leaving was the easiest decision to make, and the hardest action to take. Nobody knows until they've been in those shoes.
"If he hit me, I'd hit him back!" scoffed one colleague.
"It should never happen twice." said my mum.
I know they mean well. I hope they do, but it's not so easy, is it? I mean, I've read the stats. More women are killed after leaving their abusive partner. I suppose its something to do with regaining power or something. Isn't everything about power. Being the top dog. I didn't want to be another number. A statistic to...
Not everyone knows this, but Kate Beaton is obsessive, the painterly equivalent of a Method actor. To create each new page of "Hark, a vagrant!" she recruits Swiss artists' models to dress in period clothing and pose in front of the Alps. Frozen in position as well as in time, they are required to make only the most ridiculous of faces for her art to take fruition. Eyes are stressed. At least half of the models have held a spot in Guiness for eye-bugging capability.
Once their minds are relaxed after a sufficient period of standing still, they are required...
Peasants. That's what I thought when I looked out the window. Nothing but peasants on the street below. Uneducated people. I watched as one of them gave birth. Immediately, she put her baby in a tree. There was a bees' nest there and the bees stung the baby. Even from up here I could hear the baby scream. The baby fell out of the tree. I think it broke a leg because it didn't move after that. The baby just cried and screamed and ate fig newtons. It bled too. A lot.
Slowly, I ate my Almond Joy bar.
Gweedo,...
The sepia girl smiled at me as I tucked her photograph back into my wallet.
I'd found it several years ago, inside a book in a box on a table at a garage sale. I hadn't ended up buying anything from the sale, but I'd taken the photo. I suppose you could say it was stealing, but I've never thought about it that way.
She seemed lonely. I was just taking her from a life spent between pages on the Ottoman Empire, with me. I travel a lot, and a part of me wanted her to see the world.
I...
"Do you believe in ghosts?" he asked
"No I don't." she replied
"You're about to."
The doors opened wide with their bottoms scrapping across the wooden panelled floor. The light shone out in a thing line and then a bigger line and then a rectangle and then eclipsed the entire room in thick white light.
She turned to him with fear in her eyes. She was quaking in her little boots, her little hands started shaking too, she searched for comfort. He held out his hand.
"All good things" he started, require a leap of faith..."
She looked him in...
My feet ached, but it was well worth it. There was blood on one of my insteps, the left one, and when I walked around the floor I tracked her blood around with me. The room, nothing more than an abattoir, had fit the bill perfectly. There was the pen I'd led her to. I said nothing more than, "You'll like it. It's the spookiest little spot." And she had crawled inside without the least hesitation. And as soon as she did so, the smile left my face, and the grimace reappeared, and I thought, "This is for all those...
From the day the museum opened, the mammoth was the first thing every visitor saw. How could they miss it? It towered over the entrance when they came inside, rain or shine, its trunk high above their heads as though ready to trumpet. At least they assumed she would trumpet, but no one really knew or cared.
Designed to model a beast that lived ages ago, the poor thing stood and gathered dust on its bits that were too high for the cleaning staff to reach. So the witch, a neo-pagan from San Fran, took pity on the poor beast....
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...
When I took the photo it was still light. Tom threw his arms around me and twirled us both around, our shrieks and laughter echoed on the mountain. Ten minutes later he was dead. Torn to pieces by an unexpected pack of hungry wolves. None of them touched me. They circled, growling but left me alone. Even when I ran to the trees and attempted to climb, slipping back down the icy bark. Ignoring screams, snowballs I managed to throw. Dragging Tom's body away they left me alone to my grief, shock, sorrow, disbelief and paralysing fear.
One foot in front of the other. He had to keep going. There was no turning back.
They almost caught up with him several times. In the woods he'd tripped over a branch, sprawled, and felt their hot breath on his back just before he kicked off and escaped. Now he was in the clear, wide open spaces of the school's football field. No obstructions in his path. No cover or refuge in sight.
On foot in front of the other. If he could just keep running for another mile or so, he could make it to the church where...