"If you weren't strumming that chord over and over, I might think you were asleep," said Howard.
"Yeah, you might be forgiven for thinking that," replied Memmy. "No, I just rest my head on the body of the guitar. Here. Like this." Memmy's head didn't move. It was already on the body of the guitar.
"Don't you guys play electic guitars," asked Howard.
Memmy didn't look up. "Not when we're depressed. Hey, hand me that bottle, would you?"
"Which bottle?" asked Howard.
"The one that's not empty," said Memmy. He still hadn't looked up.
Howard shook several in sequence. One...
Dispossessed
All he had to his name was this park bench, and not even that.
As he sat and gazed off into the distance, he contemplated his fate. He'd lost his job, then his home, then his family. Nothing was left to him, not even his body that lay six feet under rotting in a pauper's grave. His spirit sat on the bench that the shelter had dedicated to his memory. Suicide had not ended his suffering. Dispossessed of everything he had held dear, he contemplated getting his life back.
His ex-wife stood looking at the bench, at his name...
I don't know what I'm doing here. I never really have to be honest. Going through that door was the worst decision of my life and now look where I am. Stuck here, in a world I know nothing about, one that looks so familiar and yet so alien. A place where I am surround by people yet so alone.
I'd rather I was actually alone, it's much better than being ignored. Much better than the situation I'm in now.
It boggles the mind what the people are like here. They never stop, they're always moving. None of this makes...
He sprinted through the line of trees that marked the end of the forest, his sanctuary. He had known something was terribly wrong. His hometown, a small village with just over thirty people in residence, was burning. He had seen the smoke rising into the sky when he woke and ran toward it immediately, praying that she was okay. He hated that he had to leave Jade alone, unprotected, with Lord Westley and his army raging across Torrin, but he dared not stay near people during the full moon. Aidan slowed as he reached the outskirts of the little town....
Wait ... for a green-clad man. He will come to you either at dusk or at dawn if you stand by this gate. When he comes, you must say to him, "I see, they have dammed the brook below Piper's copse." He will stop and fill his pipe and make small talk with you about this and that. Speak freely and let him know of your grief. Tell him how your crops have failed these last three years for want of rain or too much of it and how sick your children are. He will listen to you quietly and...
We sat on our toboggan at the top of the hill behind the house. It wasn't much of a sliding hill, but it was easy to walk up, so, there you go.
Me, Jenny, Eric and Becky took turns sliding down on the hot pink crazy carpet and then struggling up the slope in ski pants and too big boots. It was only the third or fourth snow of the season and between the melts there was just enough of the white stuff to pick up a bit of speed on your descent.
Eric or Jenny came up with the...
He stares into her bloodshot eyes, her glaring furious and terrified back.
She has not slept in over 24 hours and it is by sheer will-power that she manages to remain erect and alert. He must not win.
It must be over soon, she dreams, hallucinates, cries to heaven and God and all her nightmarish waking hells.
Freshman Biology.
First it was the night sweats. Then the spontaneous attacks of anxiety. Her boyfriend left after the sleep talking began, screaming about failing and nonsense and the like.
A test? No, more than a test. This was it.
Her delusions extended...
I looked up at the cathedral door and I thought this is what it means, this is how it all culminates, in this big round arch towering above my head. It was like a mouth, opening wide to swallow me up and draw me down inside, to consume and digest me. Just like the church, I thought. This is what it does. Consumes me.
After I'd breached the threshold, the sounds of the war outside hushed and all I heard was the soft murmur of the others, deeper inside, the soft crying of lost and destroyed. Here's where we come,...
"You been seeing the television?" the Guard said.
Huxton squinted, through the bleariness of sleep into the bleach of daylight, he only saw the form of the Guard, an outline of a man, faceless and without detail. Slowly, he sat up feeling as if his bones were brittle to snap. "What?"
He wished he could seem more heroic than a man who has been beaten and tied and imprisoned for days. He felt horrible with a dehydrated mouth that made sticky sounds each time he parted his lips.
"You been seeing the television? They say you is dead, man. They...
He ran into the room, his heart pounding, and his clothes soaking wet. Or were his clothes pounding and his heart soaking wet? That's the great mystery surrounding the untimely death of Clive Anthony Cliveanthony.
We know that he did run into the room, based upon the velocity of wind against his person and tread marks on the carpet from his sandals. And yet, by the time his body was discovered, the clothes were dry and the heart was definitely not pounding. His liver was pounding, but not his heart. His heart just sat there with a vacant expression, like...