"Write," she instructed.
So he did. He wrote. He wrote of many things, and when he was done, he presented the neatly bound typewritten pages to her. She didn't even look at them.
"Write more."
He wrote more. He wrote of how he felt when the sun in the afternoon cast dappled lines across the floor. He wrote about prison bars and he wrote about prison food. He wrote about her, and how her dark hair was short and clipped above her ears. He wrote about how her brown eyes pierced his soul and tore him apart and all he...
He looked upwards. My goodness - it was high! What would he feel like under these arched ceilings, dwarfed by the massive columns and enclosed within the brick and stonework of this enormous building? A cold wind blew between the arches and pieces of litter fluttered by.
But to gain entrance to this place he knew that first he had to pass the exam. And he knew he had not prepared enough, not worked hard enough, not learnt the texts by heart as he should. He had been too busy with other things; eating and drinking, loving and sleeping, singing...
He couldn't see through the rain. The rain covered everything in sight, like a thick veil of mosquito netting had been thrown over the city.
It was a dilemma. The once wished-for, prayed-for, blessed rains that the Americans had provided for the desert nation had turned into a curse. They washed away everything, buildings crumbling on what had been sturdy foundations in the desert. While the crops suddenly flourished, the cities were dying. The culture was dying. The people were dying.
Now the americans were threatening to take the rains away.
"Travel light, but take everything with you."
That was all the hastily scribbled note said. Now here I was, driving down the back roads of southeast Georgia, my eyes constantly darting to the rearview mirror, knowing someone - anyone - could be trailing me. What the hell had Erick gotten us into now? I wondered as I drove quickly, dust kicked up behind me as I sped toward the cabin. It was our agreed-upon meeting place in case trouble showed up.
My hands gripped the wheel tighter. Dammit! I swore to myself. I was happy, going to be married in...
Karrie had never worn white in her life. Not the day of her first communion, not even when she'd dressed as a ghost that one Halloween, but yet here she was...
What the hell had she been thinking getting involved with Ken? Really, Ken- like the doll. He wasn't her type at all. He loved tradition and tuxedos and classic rock, while she adored zombies and punk. And him, of course. What had she been thinking?
From the moment she met him, everything about him irritated her. His pigheadedness, his obnoxious sense of humor, his conservative dress. He could be...
He opened the letter from his cousin, reluctantly breaking open the blue air-mail envelope. Who uses old-fashioned snail mail these days? It was from Cat, of course. His good-for-nothing lay-a-bout drop=out relative who had adopted a ridiculous animal name and gone off to live on an remote island in the West Indies. Practically a desert island. No email there, of course.
Meanwhile, people like himself, sensible people with ambitions and mortgages, had to eke out a living in London, or Sydney, or Rome. Wherever he could. And that is hard when you are a classical musician - a violinist -...
I saw a girl press her cheek into the moldy stone column. Her arms gripped the sides in a hug. Her eyes were closed and she smiled.
I wanted to take a picture of her but then her friend arrived, a girl about her age. They were both older teens. They were American, with spots on their foreheads and chins, hair streaked with pink and blue, pale skin, and wide eyes. They giggled as the first girl, a blonde in a pink jumper kept hugging the column and hamming it up for her friend who took pictures.
I remember when...
Charles didn't know what to think. The heat on his cheeks hurt too much, but he didn't like it when the flame disappeared. Jenny was the one holding the camera. She told him that they could all share the candle. It was one flame for the entire group. A moppet party, dad called it, because it was not their birthday.
Mom was sick. Charles could only think of that. She'd pale cheeks and skin stretched over her face, and her hair tangled and black and her mouth a gaping, gawping hole. She didn't even recognize any of them when they'd...
She didn't look at him.
Instead, she stared out of the window, quivering as though she would cry at any second.
"Bev?" Steven called out tentatively.
She shook her head, still not looking at him. All Steven wanted was for her to look at him. Her gorgeous green stare always made him breathless. She always made him happy.
But now? He screwed up.
"Beverly, c'mon. Say something."
She stared out of her window as though he weren't even there. He walked closer and reached out to touch her shoulder. "Beverly-"
Jerking back violently, she twisted his direction and snarled, "Don't....
Summer at my grandparents was an endless game of imagination, lying in the grass with army blankets tented across the clothesline, the sacred tie give over to Grandma's "shows" in the afternoon, my grandfather on the back porch with a baseball game on the radio and the smell of cigarette smoke in the air, grasshoppers caught in a jar with holes poked in the lid, and tart cherries from the tree out back. I had no sense of time passing and the memories still leave a taste of bittersweet on my tongue.
We'd sit across from each other for hours,...