The moon hung low in the sky, big and fat it was, looking down at us with an air of disapproval. As well it might given what we were up to. Burglary. Nasty business really, but needs must an all that. It had been Jack's idea, as were they all. He was the brains of the organisation, and what with him being the biggest and all, it would have taken a braver man than any of us to stand up to him and say no. That's how we come to be crouching in the bushes outside Millie's house.
'Ready, lads?'...
He ran into the room, his heart pounding, and his clothes soaking wet. He was running west, towards worn mountains that once jutted out from the earth, but now were nothing more than mere hills amongst a flat landscape.
Flat feet were pounding against the earth raising a dust cloud that trailed behind him, covering his tall shadow in the late burning sun.
Running was the only thing he knew how to do. The cold air that nipped your nose and rosed your cheeks held nothing for him back East anymore.
Now, now he was just following the snow that...
It was the fall that surprised me most. I was on the floor writhing, banging my fists, heart pounding, tears streaming.She was dead and it was all my fault. The whooshing sound in my head was drowning out my mother...I had to get away.
The clarity was too much to bear, I needed solace. I climbed the steps to my den, walked over the bodies that littered the floor. Hands shakening I unwrapped the foil and laid back as the eurporia engulfed me.
She had tried it because of me. But I didnt hate it...it was now my only friend....
Outnumbered and out of breath, I didn't know what else to do. The lives that had already been taken now stained my guilt and I didn't need more blood on my mind. So, the white flag of surrender went up and the terms were made.
Our youngest children were to be taken from us and trained to keep their families in check. We were to only have children if the king commanded to. Oh, and we were no longer able to choose our mates.
The children were brainwashed to believe that their mothers were evil witches sent to destroy the...
Not that he could fell it, but judging from the way he staggered with every few steps, his legs hadn't healed completely. It was likely he was setting himself up to trip and collapse again, unable to move, but he knew he couldn't stay any longer. He tried to make his steps as steady as possible, but with no percerption of how much weight he was applying, he was at a loss to gauge if he was accomplishing much, and in the back of his mind simply waited for the tell-tale crack of bones re-fracturing, and plummet into the grass....
"Do you remember?"
"I remember"
"We were so..."
"Young"
"Stupid."
"We were kids."
"Would you still buy that excuse if one of yours said that to you?"
"Ha, I guess not."
"Because we were idiots."
"Clearly we haven't learned our lesson."
"Of course we have, there's some method to the madness these days."
"You call it method, I call it being surrounded."
"Go out with a bang though?"
"Always."
And with a nod, the two old friends picked up their paint ball guns.
"On three?"
"On three."
"One... two..."
Into the battle once more they ran, best friends who had...
We take the ability to breathe for granted. It's the basic function that keeps us alive, you would have thought that we would keep a closer eye on it, that we would pay attention to how many lungfuls of air we consume every day. But we don't. We don't think about that mundane process because that is not the element of breathing that adds a spark to life; it is the thieves that trade in such banal fare that creates the interest.
For a breath once stolen is never forgotten. Whether it be by the view from a hill over...
Donna started twisting and the world melted away. Her socks moved back and forth on the ceramic floor. her elbows were tucked in tight against her, her hands almost parallel to the floor. The other dancers around faded and disappeared. The walls crumbled and let in the cool night air and bright stars overhead.
Then that fell away as well, and there was just Donna and the music.
Tears welled in her eyes but did not fall. She shook her hips. The tears dried.
The song ended and the world exploded back into existence. Now she could see Harry with...
The disco ball was turning, just as it had the very first time I had walked in, ten months and five days ago.
Back then, I had only been a visitor, an anomaly in the lives of those who were gathered around me this night. Somewhere along the way, I had become a recurring cast member: life went on without me, but no one objected when I made my impromptu appearances.
Tonight would be the last night I could stay before my whole world changed. Because of that, I kept my eyes open, nostalgia clouding my vision more than the...
And then there is the approach of Autumn and September impatiently tapping at the window, intimidating August, chasing it away. I reach out my hands in an attempt to catch hold of it, but it is already overshadowed by distance, one step removed. Only yesterday it was April and there was the whole of Summer; it was a time of promise and hope. I naively believed that I deserved it, that I would be delivered unblemished months. It was such a bad winter, so very long and cold.
But here I am on the edge of the season, dragging so...