Black and white. I couldn't believe Dad had done it again.
I know I'm lucky, I do. You can say I'm spoiled if you like, but it doesn't matter - I'd asked for ONE THING this Christmas, and it was colour.
I looked up at my father, tried to fake a smile, and said 'Thanks'. As soon as he turned away, I rolled my eyes, and unwrapped my next present.
A sweater. Great. I wondered what colour it was - if I went out wearing this and one of my friends actually GOT what she asked for and could see...
When nothing really matters you can make anything mean everything. We were building sandcastles, waiting for the high tide to erase the evidence. No one wanted to be here anymore. We were hesitant to make permanent changes, but never really afraid of anything at all.
When nothing really means anything, maybe only everything means something. Try to interpret the meaning of double negatives and find yourself lost in a maze of meanings. Maybe.
We were building snowmen on the first day of spring, waiting for the weather to turn and ruin everything. No one we knew wanted to be here...
Quantum leaping isn't always fun. Not when I end up as a woman. Find it unnerving especially as all I was hoping to do was to channel the skills from one of my parallel selves.
I needed to cook a three course romantic dinner and knew that there must be a Galloping Gourmet self somewhere out there, expert on wines, the best cut of meat and good at table decoration.
Jasmine, was not at all what I wanted, especially as she was a concubine to an extremely ugly Prince, even though she did know how to cook. She was his...
"Oh God" He thought, "please don't."
Angela had it. The coolest, most prestigious item in perhaps the history of the world. The object to define the suave and sophisticated young man that he was. The item he had so long fantasized about having.
It was an Asiachi-original leather bound notebook. So sleek, so elegant.
So inevitably doomed.
There it rested, precariously, atop Angela's tiny head as she gracelessly threw out her scrawny arms for balance and smiled radiantly to her imaginary audience.
She was in the backyard of their country home playing circus once again, the two metre length of...
She opened the envelope and screamed.
This was not the day to be squeamish. This was the day her daughter would be returned. Unharmed.
The finger was the wrong size and shape. John, when he overcame his initial shock, told her it was plastic.
They had both made the decision not to tell the police, followed the kidnapper's instructions to the letter.
So why was the envelope sent? A reminder of what could happen or was there something else going on?
Whilst Megan was making a cup of tea, John wondered whether to tell her about the tiny photo he...
Phons and Ramon had worked this beat for awhile, all of Phons' three years on the force. Today was as beautiful as the tourists bobbing around the stores. The two strolled the sidewalk enjoying their usual eye-candy.
Ramon spots a nice blonde, and turns to point it out to Phons, but he's looking at something in the sky. Glancing back to the blonde he notices she too is looking up. He glances up and immediately gets a face-full of glare, quickly wrenching away and furiously blinking. He smacks Phons on the belly for a moment, "Hey..."
Phons doesn't budge. Ramon...
"Hello" Beth said.
"Howdy!" Jacob beamed.
That was it. The same greeting they swapped every afternoon as he strolled into the building. Beth gazed at him from the reception desk as he strolled past, holding her eyes steady with the cockiest of smirks.
He knew she wanted him. She want him like they all did, only she was cute enough to maybe consider. She had that dirty-librarian look about her.
Beth watched the man continue through the lobby, leering at her. She smiled her best at him, but really saw her knife plunging into his mouth and out the back...
"I think there's a problem with the design!" Clair blurted. The table of nerdy glasses and hazy schematics looked up one by one.
Burt suddenly took her by the arm, turning her slightly but firmly. "We're hours away from the prototype run and you think there's something we haven't considered?"
"It's the idea in general. If the particle resonance is what we think it is then why are we trying to counter the harmonics? I mean--what could that do to the very fabric--"
Burt collapses to a singularity point, everything in the room suddenly expanding at the edges and warping...
The disco ball was turning.
The Mighty Fwarriors turned in shock. Their ambush on the Gold Chain Club had been going well - too well. Now they watched, as the disco ball slowly turned...into Disco Bull.
"Curses!" shouted Melissa, leader of the Fwarriors. She'd hoped that just once, just this one time, they could have a successful ambush, but she knew that it was probably too much to ask for.
Superheroes, supervillains - these are normally pretty clear cut terms. One group fight on the side of good, the other on the side of "evil". But in the real world,...
Giving in wasn't an option anymore because I had given in too many times before.
I'd taken it time after time - too many times before, and this has me broken. I'm broken, broken from you.
You've simply abused me, in the finer way. The finer way where not all the cracks show, in the way that I can hold them in so that they are only something I know. In the way that only I will know when I see you again, and the cracks come stabbing on like a nightmare.
Now when you're feeling down, I won't risk...