Sasha stretched as she woke, the cold early morning air stinging her skin. Looking around, it took a moment to figure out where she was. The woodland near the playing fields. She had never come out this far before. She should hurry back before anyone realised she was missing. There was no way she was going back to see Dr Williams again. He gave her the creeps. There wasn't anything wrong with her anyway. She knew her parents despaired at her stories, but they weren't just stories. Why couldn't they see that? They were every bit as real as she...
Mr. JoJo had dreamt of owning his own ice-creamatorium for years now. he had gone into the family business after high school, trading pencils and books for stainless steel and embalming fluid. At first he found it as good as any other job available to him, living in the small, isolated hamlet that he did - 50 people in his senior class. But as the years passed, he grew to hate it with an ever more ferocious intensity. So three months ago he made his decision, two months ago he'd signed the lease for the storefront on Main Street, and...
to feel the moss of the forest floor - this was her favorite. she would bend down periodically, just to caress the soft verdant covering. when she came upon a cluster of burgeoning ferns, she reached and ran them through her fingers like she would strands of a lover's hair. she loved the forest quite as much, and found spending time in it much more peaceful than time passed with any lover she'd ever known. the sun-dappled ground. the falling leaves led in a gentle dance by the breezes. the sight of it all renewed her spirit, in the way...
Wine
cat food
Ben & Jerry's
pay the neighbor kid for mowing
TV dinner
AA batteries
new shoes for girl's night out
stop by the oil change place
Lean Cuisine
carrots
new lipstick
haircut @ 3p Wed
Salmon
baby red potatoes
condoms
clean the house
Steak
lettuce
lawn mower
clean out other half of garage
Beer
Doritos
upgrade cable package
mow the lawn
Hydrogen peroxide
ice pack
makeup w/ heavier foundation
dentist appt. Mon @ 1p
Rat poison
Shovel
Tarp
Remove car dome light
Wine
cat food
Ben & Jerry's
Pay the neighbor kid for mowing
Inner core
Outer core
Mantle
Upper mantle
Crust
Susan.
Flora between her fingers,
Seeds between her toes.
Like Cinderella, I thought,
recalling an old "Wizard of Id" panel.
I stroll above the layers of the earth,
sing-songing under the tarp of heaven,
bulging with the weight of infinity.
Susan springs to her feet.
"Jesus Christ, a spider! Kill it!"
tangling her hair with
typewriter fingers.
I catch it on a leaf and
move it across the field.
I guess that makes me Mantle.
The first thing he felt upon regaining consciousness was wet and prickly. He couldn't see just yet, and wouldn't be able to turn his head even if his eyes were working properly. In fact all he could move were the fingers of his left hand. So he was determined to make the best of that situation until he could do more.
If he could do more. A thought he quickly would not allow himself to hold on to.
He gripped the objects between his fingers. No, it was a substance. He flattened his hand and ran the back of it...
He left the meeting sagging, a half inflated pool toy sinking in the acrid water. The sun was making him sweat, though he hadn't though that was possible. He's sweat so much during the interview he felt as desiccated as one of those silica packets they put in electronics to keep them dry.
Vanquished. Again. Another job lost because of flop sweat and his perplexing genetic gift of turning bright red under any form of pressure. How had his ancestors managed to carry their seed so far up the line? A bunch of panicky, stammering fools who traded flight or...
You took another picture of yourself today. It doesn't look much different than yesterday's. Or last week's. But as you flip back through the months and years, the difference is startling. The difference is harrowing.
You create an animated gif of every daily image of yourself captured over the last two years. A contemporary Dorian Gray morphs on your screen. The last image from today loops to the first image from two years ago. That moment, that blink of time, cracks your skull like a baseball bat.
You're out.
"Tis a penny," said he, and bent to retrieve the copper coin from the sidewalk. Holding it between gloved finger and thumb, he inspected the date with a squinting eye and dropped it into his vest pocket.
"Aye, twy twirrly twee, a penny's enough fer you an' me," he sang and performed a pirouette for the passerby.
A woman, richly attired and ambling along with an aristocratic gate, stopped to consider the man as he continued to spin in circles. A member of the upper crust, she lacked that innate mechanism, honed by the lower classes, which steered one away...
I'll miss the way the breeze would blow hair into his eyes, and the way I would brush it away, asking him when he was getting it cut, even though I knew he never would.
I'll miss the way the sun would warm the tops of my breasts when he lifted my shirt over my head, and the way his day-old stubble both hurt and excited me when he bent to suck one nipple, then the other, into his mouth.
I'll miss the way the dried grass felt beneath my bare back when he laid me down and pressed himself...