It had been three weeks now, to the day, that Mira James had been absent from class. Mrs. Pendleton sighed with regret as she rubbed Mira's name off of her desk. Truancy was a sad reality that she was powerless to stop, and the school always needed to make room for new students.
She rummaged gingerly through the shelf, searching for the pile of junk that seemed to accumulate in every seventh-grader's desk. It would all be in the trash soon, leaving room for the next student's pencils, stickers, and other belongings.
It was empty. Clean, even. With a frown,...
He set the plate before her. "EAT!" "YOU WILL EAT!" He shouted at her from behind. He had her put on a blue dress before dinner, like Alice from Alice in Wonderland.
"YOU WILL EAT DINNER LITTLE GIRL!" He knew she was crying right onto the table. Kaley had been handcuffed to the table for around 6 hours already, and she was panicked and truly terrified. Wilson kidnapped her off the street; he dressed her up and made her sit at his dinner table in his basement, decorated like kids' play room.
Wilson crouched down to the side of her...
The lead ninja laughs. "You are a fool, Senzi," he says through his mask. "Never make a boast that you cannot back up with action!"
They have me surrounded, five on each side, and one nimbly crouching on the tracks behind me, ready to leap away once the train came too close. I had no such route to safety; the points of their katanas promised a quick death should I stray from the rails.
All I have is my own katana, and my pride.
The ninjas continue to mock and jeer. I will be dead in seconds, they think. I...
Water. Surrounded her from every direction on the huge cruise ship. She loved being out in the ocean, looking out as far as she could see and seeing nothing but water.
Her husband, on the other hand...
"Honey, please get up. Open your eyes and see!"
He shook his head, grasping tighter to his paper bag. "Shouldn't have allowed you to talk me into this...never should have listened to you."
She sighed, thinking her husband sounded so sickly and confused. Sad thing is he never threw up, loaded up on motion sickness meds weeks in advanced, and he barely felt...
The bird landed. The men initiated procedures drilled into them back on earth and dream't of for the past month. The main hatch slowly opened. The first men stepped out onto the Martian surface. This would be their home. For the rest of their lives, they'd volunteered knowing they wouldn't ever return to earth. Alphonso stepped forward and turned back to face the rest of them. This is what they had rehearsed. He flipped the switch that would enable the broadcast to be heard by everyone on earth, instead of the internal channel to the corporation. He began to speak,...
The bird landed. Worm-in-mouth, ready to feed the little ones. The nest high up in the tree above Central Park. Those birds had the best view in all of New York.
The birds could see snow, sun, rain, and leaves, all land upon the Park's territory; people-watch, bird watch, even. They could sleep, sing, then fly away, and come right back to their home above the sidewalks and tourists.
Birds in NYC, see more than most others do in a lifetime. Watching people kiss, get engaged, fight, collapse, run, die, LIVE. They see night in NY, day in NY, winter,...
The bird took off. The mail was delivered. A red car drove past. An old man with a cane walked past on the sidewalk.
Every day, these things happened in exactly the same way, at exactly the same times.
Other things were the same, too: the news, the conversations she had, the expressions on the faces of the people she met. The bus to work was always four minutes late, like clockwork.
But there were differences, too.
After about ten days, she started to notice things disappearing. First it was her keys, then her couch. Then the maple tree in...
Care boxes? More care boxes? Do they think care boxes are supporting the troops? Take it back. I don't want it. Don't just take it back, send it back. I don't want their pity. I don't want their support if that is what they call it. I don't want them to be able to get off thinking that they are now justified in continuing to live most apathetically under the freedoms that I supposedly am fighting for.
Instead of filling care boxes they should be filling ballot boxes. Instead of sending care in boxes they should be sending letters to...
The garage was stacked to the ceiling with boxes, the U-Haul ready to cart them away on that windy Tuesday morning. I was wearing sweatpants and my hair was tied up in a bun, ready to move the hell out of there. I had only lived in that white suburban house for two years. I remember the day I moved in it was mid-February. That was two years ago. Then it became May 19th, Tuesday, and windy. I held back tears as I drove away from that house, the one we were supposed to live in after the wedding, raise...
Whenever the mailperson knocks
They deliver to us a new box
I don't know from whom
But I wish for their doom
On all of their houses, a pox