Maurice looked at the empty mailbox and sighed.
His pension was supposed to be delivered today; first of the month, just like always, but instead the inside of the cold metal tube held only a few bills and a postcard advertising the latest whatever that he didn't need. What he needed was his damn pension.
He took a deep breath and took several careful steps back up his driveway to his front door. He checked around the bushes, painfully walked the outer perimeter of the house, even checked the cat flap, but no pension.
Son of a bitch, those damn...
It wasn't so bad, the cancer, eating me from the inside out. Started with headaches, diagnoses, hopes and dreams dashed like fine china on the asphalt. My hands shaking, pillow wet in the morning, children gripping me, knowing without words that life was changing. Daddy is dying, mommy said. Like grandma. No, daddy isn't going to heaven. There is no heaven. Only the great void. Its nothing to be afraid of Sofie. Daddy loves you. More doctors and pills, and then pain and then...nothing. The desire to life squashed like a grape on the supermarket floor. Life itself spinning, a...
Midnight on the roof he had been told, regular as clockwork but this was the third night he had spent in the cold. But as she emerge from the doorway he thought it had been worth it. Even from this distance he could see she was beautiful. He admired the slim form of her body and the glimpse of her legs as the nightgown slid apart. Suddenly there was a flare of light as she lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. Back to work he thought with a sigh as he took aim at her and pulled the trigger.
"The day after tomorrow, this will all be over." Such a fucking cliche.
Sure, our road trip would be ending soon enough, and we would be returning to our miserable, monotonous, minimum-wage jobs that regularly take us to the very brink of sanity... but to pretend that everything we just experienced would be concluded as soon as we return to home port strikes me as truly false.
The thing that he seems to miss is the continuity of events which develops out of the dynamic relationship between what we do and otherwise experience, and the way we see our fundamental...
"Grandpop's teeth didn't look like that."
"How do you know?"
"Because mom always said you got his teeth. Do your teeth look like that?"
"Maybe after they'd been in the ground for fifty years."
"Not even. Look at the length of them."
"No, teeth keep growing after you die."
"That's nails, dummy. And they have to be attached still. You think teeth keep growing if they're just loose like this?"
"Who can say?"
"You know who would know?"
"Yeah, but she can't exactly tell us, now can she?"
"Well, she'd know for sure."
"Grandma's probably the one who did it...
I used to follow my grandfather up the field, gathering potatoes. He would pull them up and leave them like gold nuggets, glowing on the topsoil. I came behind with a trug that was big enough for my baby brother to sleep in. I struggled when the trug was nearly full, and I'd have to set it down every few yards and watch my grandfather as he worked mechanically ahead of me.
I daydreamed that, one day, there would be a real gold nugget lying on the row. I would take iot to the bank and a big man with...
Groggy from the lack of sleep I got the previous night because of a runny nose and a running mind jumping from one work thought to the next, I walked into the office kitchen to grab some hot tea to soothe a sore throat. As I was about to pour some hot water from the water cooler, my colleague dispensed some water for herself.
"Getting some water?"
"Yeah," I said.
"I heard you were sick the other day. I hope you're feeling better," she said with sympathetic eyebrows.
"Uh, a little bit, thanks."
"I love water."
"That's good."
"I actually...
He set the plate before her. Two slices of charcoal blackened toast, plump stoneless cherry jam, no butter or spread. It wasn't punishment for climbing out the bedroom window to staying out late again. It was all they ever ate after mom died. They got through a loaf of bread a day.
She no longer cared what happened. All she could think about was Ross. He cooked her pumelled bloody steak, creamy mash with chives, grilled tomatoes covered in mixed grain pepper from a silver pot. Loved her with food, milky coffee and kisses.
Next week she was going to...
"This is it?" Leila said with a wrinkled nose, her hands were clasped behind her back as she slowly approached the animal.
Myron stared at the blue ribbon sitting in a bow on the back of her head, eclipsing her dark brown tresses like an enormous butterfly. His eyes traveled down to her feet and the way her calves flexed as she walked on her toes around the creature.
"I wasn't lying, was I?"
"Dunno," Leila replied, and she hopped on a crate, her lanky, boyish form backlit by golden rays. It shone through her hair, making it more like...
"What the hell kind of superhero costume is that?!" My dad was yelling so loud I could hear him from my room. When the blue cow suit had appeared, I'd been so excited. My brother Eddie hadn't gotten his disguise until he was twelve. Mom's quiet reply made me feel a little less anxious but it didn't seem to have much effect on Dad.
"Kendall, I'm sure it's something he'll grow into. Eight is awfully young for his powers so there's plenty of time-"
"Grow into? Who's going to take a blue cow with fangs seriously? I can see the...