She tried online forums, crosswords, excercise, volunteering for charity. Church, self help books, counselling. Crafts, writing, setting up websites, interior design, feng shui, alternative therapy. Gratitude. Socialising. This was the latest fad.
More boyfriends than anyone else in the town. Popular, all ages, all gender everyone wanted to be her friend. Yet, all she felt was the pervading sense of loneliness. Years of 'if only I had .........' then I would feel happy. Envious reading about lightbulb moments, lives changed, passions followed, fulfillment for the rest of their days.
She wondered what on earth was wrong. Karma from past lives?...
(To read Part 3, follow this link: http://sixminutestory.com/stories/somewhere-better-part-3.)
"Choose as you please," said Someone Good. "Surrender to the breeze, or fight for control. Which do you value: predictability, or potential. The known and the now, or the unknown, the good?"
As the air whipped in gusts around her, gripping her, twisting her, she struggled. Within herself, she wrestled for a choice. Would she allow herself to be carried up by these winds of change?
Somehow she knew that this was a defining moment. It was here, in the borderlands of Somewhere Better, that she could either fight her way back...
She was the most delicate girl in town. Or at least, that's what they all thought. With her prim private school uniform, glossy ringlet curls and polite smile, she had them all fooled. Everyone except me. Noone knew her like I did though. Sharing a bedroom gives an unprecedented view into a person's inner psyche. I'm not just talking about dirty washing left on the floor and mugs growing mould, though that's gross enough. It's not even just the boys, or increasingly lately - men, she would shimmy down the drain pipe to meet. It's not even that her straight...
Bombs were the last thing on his mind. It was scotch tape that was presently obsessing him. He had no idea why the image of scotch tape floated there, as it hovering in space, as the explosions and mayhem and chaos reigned around him.
Pierre Leclaire was a soldier in an army of two. Him and his dog Rufus. They had a gun, three boxes of crayons and a wad of chewed up Bubblicious. His mom had always told him he could make the most creative things out of nothing, so the bubblicious had become somewhat of an obsession.
Today,...
They called it co-dependent. They labelled it, the need to go from one relationship to another, to never be alone - they labelled it like it was bad. Like it wasn't what everyone did.
Alright, maybe - just maybe - she took it too far, maybe she was a little too reliant on whoever's hand was (by rights) hers at that moment. Maybe it wasn't what they had decided was healthy, but their healthy? They could keep their healthy.
Their healthy was not her healthy, and it wasn't what she wanted. They decided all of these things, using test after...
The beam swept across the water. The waves glistened in the darkness, tiny bumps of light in front of the tall tower. Her eyes had been scanning the glistening waters ever since the sun had set and she had realised his boat was not moored at the jetty with the others. Guy and Tom had walked along its wooden boards, dropped their eyes and tugged their caps when they'd seen her, but they'd made no mention of him. She'd almost called out after them, asked them where he was, but stopped herself before the his name could push itself from...
The disco ball was turning. That was the first indication that something was wrong. That disco ball hadn't moved since 1982, when his brother put it up in his parent's attic to make room for his Tattoo You poster. The disco ball had hung for 30 years from a four-by-four, good solid wood. ("That wood ain't going anywhere, his dad once told him. That's old country wood, original American oak. Before all this," and let a wave of his hand tell the rest.)
He was up there in the attic when the disco ball turned, revealing it's multi-faced mirrored squares,...
The water was clear, so I stared at it, looking at my reflection. I was ugly, there were no two ways about.
She had been right.
I kept staring at myself. The disfiguring scar curved an unappealing path through my cheek. My hair was matted with dirt and dust. I wasn't even handsome in a macho kind of way, like someone who had just emerged from a bout with a bear.
She had been right.
My eyes were red and puffy with tears. My lips were chapped and sore. When I ran my tongue over them, they felt sharp and...
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...
I remember when I first saw you. You were walking alone in a park, it was a cool evening it was so late that even the night walkers were in a bed, There you were walking alone in the park, skin fair hair so blonde it was almost white. You wore nothing but a patient's gown. I walk up to you concerned then frightened, you my dearest lamb were covered in a crimson tint. Do you remeber what you asked me you said "help me"
~