Leaving was the easiest decision to make, and the hardest action to take. Which was strangely ironic, because he was notoriously indecisive about everything. But this time, it was a clear case that he needed to get out, run away, and with haste.
However, haste was yet another thing he did relatively badly, too.
But maybe it was because it had become too entertaining to leave. Yes, he was in constant peril, but verily, the actions of the mortals around him were entertaining to the last. Nowhere else could he find people willing to do such stupid inane activities like...
Gene started thinking up missions. Find a tapedeck, sparklers, foam hats, and a Tears for Fears hat. Re-enact a concert in the parking lot of some three dollar hotel. Load the back of Dave's truck up with lawn furniture and mailboxes - whatever isn't tied down. Cut down all the trees on one block on the East side under the guise of city workers.
Gene fumbled with the cats. He hat taped their four tails together and begun the arduous process of spraypainting them gold when some three Spanish children skidded to a halt in front of Gene's yard. "Making...
"The water was clear," he kept insisting.
We all had been there. There were pictures, and a video somewhere posted on youtube. The water had been far from clear. Anything but clear. It was thick almost to the point of gummy with chocolate brown sediment, and tiny detritus the likes of which I didn't want to contemplate.
"I saw it," he said. "Perfectly clear. Purified. He was standing in the middle of it, and he made it clean by his presence. I tell you I saw him!"
We all said we believed him. Some even went further than that.
"Yes,...
"Mallard duck," she said, just before she placed the binoculars back down on the car hood. "No doubt about it."
This was the third time she had drug my out to this place to observe ducks. Or, in her words, to "administer some duck justice."
"Do we really need to be here this early in the morning," I asked. "I didn't sleep very well."
"This is when they're most active," she told me. "This is when they feed most, and that's when they pick on him."
"Him" was a duck with, so she said, a clipped wing of some sort....
When I was young I was convinced that if you held onto a bunch of balloons you would go up in the air just like Mary Poppins. Ever since then they scared me. Phobic to tell the truth. So when I saw the girl lying down with the blue and pink balloons I had to scrabble around in my bag for medication and a paper bag. Only trouble is they were missing. Shit.
I was feeling myself get red. Hot. Sweaty. My legs turned to jelly. Trembly. Then suddenly around the corner walks a man holding a massive bunch of...
The oil had come months ago now. They had thought it would disappear. It had always done so before.
But it had remained. It had refused to go. It had clung to them, like a desperate duckling clinging to a mother, only this duckling was parasite.
It had tainted them.
There was no escaping it. None whatsoever. They had tried it all, but it followed them. They wore it like a winter coat they had no reason for. It was summer now.
So he had set out, away. That had been his goal at first, but later when he saw...
I'm dead. Really dead. Not the "There'll be a twist in the end and I'll be saved" kind of way. Just dead.
I keep thinking back to how I died.
I don't remember how I died really. I think I fell.
Are you suppose to remember how you die? Or is that weird?
Is there some sort of weird rule of death that you can't remember how you die?
I feel like I can walk everywhere and find no one. Death is strangely lonely and empty. Am I the only one here?
I wish I could tell you what it...
The light was bright. This made a change from the usual dreary greyness of the sky. I walked along the street whistling to myself, this was the first time I'd been outside in the sun for what felt like months. I could feel a light breeze caressing my face as I strolled into the local park, leaves rustling in the wind, some falling to the ground around me, dancing in sync with the music I was humming in my head. I smiled to myself as birds darted back and forth across the beautiful blue sky.
I found a nice spot...
Malcolm's coo became a cry. The big hands came, to sweep him up, into the dark, cradled, into the big arms. And his cries, despite himself and the rage that swelled within him, subsided.
The big arms swayed, the soft sounds soothed, and Malcolm rocked, he swum, he spun. His arms too small too tired, his legs useless and swaddled up. He liked the rocking, it eased the ache of his anger. It reminded him of the wheel.
The spinning wheel of endless endless, the wheel of flame, where his candle was relit, where his heart was reforged. From the...
The princess gazed from her tower to the lake, the castle reflected ever so perfectly in the waters. "Nann." She whispered. She could almost see herself in the window of the watery tower. "Look at the castle in the lake."
Her nanny crept behind her, stole a glance over the princess' shoulder. Shuddered. "Come away, child. Away from the window."
"Why, what for, Nann?"
"There's worlds sometimes should not be looked at. There are good castles and bad. Please, m'dear. That lake stole your brother from us. Ain't nothing good to come from it."
So the princess was shuffled to...