The ghost girls kept appearing on the photographs. Even on the really old one of my grandfather.
I wasn't that concerned, it was bound to be an effect of those new pills from the doctor. The leaflet had a million and one side effects including hallucinations.
On my seventy first birthday all the family were round my house and I was just blowing out the candles on the three level chocolate cake when there was a pounding on the door.
Police.
They took me into the kitchen and closed the door. Sparing the rest of the family the embarasssment of...
I never liked autumn leaves as you do. I watched you look at trees, the delight on your face intensified when you closed your eyes and hugged the trunk. You once asked if I had a red ribbon for the pine cone you plucked, it would complete the winter bliss of the photograph you wanted to take. My purse always had what you needed, from floss to batteries, and candies to pain pills, and a red ribbon was procured.
Spring had you enjoying cherry blossoms. Summer had you enjoying shade. Autumn had you enjoying the gold and copper, the natural...
In 1921, he flew from the Great Rift Valley all the way back to England where he discovered that it had been a mistake, he was meant to be in France, 1945. Time travelling isn't as accurate as all that.
Perhaps he would ought to do something a bit different for a change. Go back home. See what changes have been made. Would it be recognisable?
Jack the Ripper decided to return Whitechapel. 1888. London.
Serge nudged his office door shut and sighed. Another lecture done, one more to go on the tour. "What I wouldn't give for something fresh and green," he grumbled.
The tall, leggy blond tossed his hair from his eyes, grunting as he hit the hanging lampshade once again. "I will not do this again," he continued, complaining to the small, empty space. He missed the wild spaces, the trees, the meadows, his favorite pool with the tiny waterfall tumbling in.
"Gillenham can be the bloody ambassador to the Outside himself and finish this tour. I'm done." His bags were packed,...
It was two years before I was born. It was one year before my husband was born. His parents had not met yet. When they would meet, in 1987, they would fall in love quickly. Not instantly, but quickly and deeply. The story of his beginning, and of his childhood, was happy.
I waited. Two years were left to pass before I could make any decision.
My husband's mother was young. She seemed kind, but I could not get much of a sense of her personality, no matter how much I watched her. She was a private person. Reserved. Even...
Their trip to the zoo had been postponed due to the rain. She was gutted as it was something she had looked forward to since their arrival roughly five months ago. And it had promised to be such a fine day upon waking: sun without clouds; an average or around 17 degrees, exceptional for winter. Like with so much about the country (and there was rather a lot): it was one long line of broken promises. However, she had learnt early on not to give much credence to the weather forecasts and to trust her own judgement and the colour...
Leave me behind as you do is because of my fault. The fault you saw in me is the one you said you'd fix, it's the fault you spoke to me about while we sat on the bus, and I still had a smile, and a home, I still had ambition and curiosity as to where I belonged. I sat and stared out the spotted window and saw a man on a bicycle, and the bicycle made a sound both wooden and metallic against the side of the bus, and the lump under the wheels did not come with the...
When I was 12, I went to sea. I went to sea to see the sea. I had yet to see the sea until I was 12. Then the sea I saw, and the sea, she saw me.
We hated each other.
I had romanticized the sea, reading stories and poetry and all the great paintings of roiling waves and citrus sunsets, and salty captains and scruffy sea dogs. It got so I could smell the sea without having smelled the sea. And I couldn't wait to see the sea. So I went.
The sea, she was not pleasant that...
She was a regular victim, the kind of person who flinched when she heard a loud noise, ducked when she passed beneath an airborne bird, stepped sideways in order to avoid each time she happened to pass by a pedestrian, puddle or crack. She looked for and expected (and here I'm talking about the worst) in everything. Forget good and better, forget fortuitous, forget fate being in your favour and good fortune... As far as she was concerned, it was always cloudy outside and it rained constantly. In her model of the world life was hard, living was tough, and...
No shoes or socks in the snow, JaKK was only focused on finding the settlement. Escaping was the easy part, finding his family might be hard. Physical discomfort was not part of his programming, his body able to withstand any extremes of temperature.
The scientists had made them. Fed them. Studied them. Experimented on them. Killed them. Few were left.
After two days he was still beside the forest, the neverending trees.
He might be alone. Lost.
But for the first time in his existence.
He was free.