"Obtain the marionettes!" Fox's tone was commanding.
'Obtain', thought Fred. That was just like Fox: always using a big word when a small word would do. He could have said 'get' instead of 'obtain'. But then, again, Fred's mother had told him 'get' was a terrible word and it should be avoided.
"Are you listening? Did you hear me?" Fox bellowed.
"Sorry. Yes," said Fred. "Get the marionettes."
"Use force if so required."
'Hit the bastards if you need to,' Fred translated to himself. He pummeled his right fist into his left palm to show Fox that he'd understood.
He...
The Moon would never be the same again.
Sure, nothing important in its construction had changed. It was still the same old mass of rock hanging on an ever-decaying orbit around the larger mass of rock that we call home. But it was different.
Maybe the giant structure unfolding on its surface had something to do with it.
This mission had taken years to even green-light, never mind anything else. But now, we were here. Standing on the moon, with a base. It wasn't anything special, though. We were heading to Mars with a similar base the next week.
But...
It wasn't entirely fair. It wasn't.
You knew it wasn't.
See that one in the back? She's yours, right?
The one barely visible?
The safe one.
That one is yours.
The one in front? Not yours, not really. Not the same way.
Polka dots. Something Sandra bought her the last time you...well, the last time.
Sandra. She's not your either, not anymore. In the end, she wasn't safe. Not really.
It's the eyes, isn't it? The eyes that get you. Maybe the sun - the way it seems to be an answering presence, a judging presence. Judging...her? You? But not...
He set the plate before her. She was petrified, the bugs an creepy crawlies moving around on her plate didn't help. She hadn't seen her family since he had taken her, 3 years ago, and every day since then she was abused, punched and everything in between. He had been obsessed with her since they'd met 6 years ago and it took him 3 years until he finally had her all to himself. She had tried to escape so many times but she was never successful. She knew her time was up soon but she wasn't sure when, she had...
The anti-grav boots were worth every penny.
Shelly had saved for weeks, mowing lawns, delivering papers, collecting coins from every cushion in the house, to earn enough hard cash to buy them. Her mother had told her not to waste her money, that they were probably just galoshes with springs on the bottom, but the girl refused to be deterred. The magazine ad had proclaimed them anti-grav, and there was a Truth in Advertising law on the books, so they must be the real deal.
And she was right.
But not in the way she thought she would be.
Instead...
I held it at arm's length. The stench permeated the air around me. (I had just gotten a word of the day calendar, that's why I knew what permeated meant.) Pinching my nose, I placed it on the table.
Whatever it was, Andy had gone through a lot of trouble to get it. He saw it floating down the river, and he dove in after it. Too bad that two minutes later, after he caught up to it, a barge full of household rubbish tipped over and spilled its... cargo all over him. It reeked of consumerism.
I pulled the...
Whap! That's what the thunderbolt felt like. Never felt one before that fateful day. Not sure I can stand another.
I remember the first day I saw her, the woman of my dreams. I didn’t know she was the woman of my dreams at first, that came the moment I saw her smile.
A colleague and I were talking one day and her name came up. He said if you ever see her smile, you’ll never forget it. He was right. One day, not long after, I happened to make her smile and that was it. That was the day the...
The year was 1986 and we were going to see Under the Cherry Moon, Prince's new movie. "We" was me, old man McCracken, and Penelope, my talking handgun.
We got to the theatre and it had been turned into a chicken coop. "Gol," says Old Man. "this durn wrecks my day."
Then out comes a chicken. he's 8 feet tall. "Dont worry. we're still showin the movie. C'mon in."
In we go. There's only 4 seats and they're all covered in bird dung, but s'okay. Down we sit and the movie starts. There's Prince shaking his tiny ass, singing Girls...
She wasn't the kind of girl who kept love letters, wrapped in pink ribbon, locked in an inlayed wooden box. Not that anyone sent love letters these days.
She would have no wild stories of her youth to tell her neices, no lost loves, no ones who got away.
She was, as she always had been, just her.
She had got so use to being on her own, the proverbial independant woman, that she ended up so afraid, afraid of being any other way.
And so , even though she was still young, she had stopped looking for love letters...
The giant surveyed the landscape, wondering where all the people were. Truth was, he didn't know he was a giant. Everyone else he had ever come in contact with was a giant, so humans - the little people he had no knowledge of - didn't exist in his mind. Yes, he saw them, but they were nothing but insignificant little insects, ants, only there to annoy and crush.
He marveled at this world, so green and rocky, so unlike the limitless cloudy floors of his huge domain. He reached down and picked a few blades of grass, and at once...