I am not the hero of this story
I have abdicated my own starring role
I will live with that
or otherwise
I have chosen a poor teacher
or I have not made a choice
and that is the worst kind of choosing
She is not the villain of the story
I release her
bye
bye
become what you must, teacher, villain, muse
This is not a test
but I will take it
and pass it
with abandon and lust and glee
But it will not make me a hero
It will make me me
I couldn't sleep with her next to me. And the funniest thing is, I'd been waiting for this moment for three years. Margaret, me, alone in Randy's apartment all night. Was she even asleep? Was she playing possum? I held my breath to see if I could hear her sleeping. But Randy's air conditioner was too loud, and Randy was clearly snoring in the loft bed. I shifted on the couch. My skin had stuck to it; it felt and sounded like I'd ripped a bandaid off.
Margaret didn't move. She had to have heard it. I determined she must...
You can count me out. Everybody knows he's not my favorite person. I'm not debating that.
Take the way he eats: He makes these noises. He SINGS the chewing. It sounds sort of charming right at this moment, but in point of fact it's gross. Nobody wants to hear a turkey dinner set to Ave Maria. Two weeks planning a meal, you want a moment of silence. Some good old-fashioned reverence. What's happened to that -- what is it -- an emotion? These days, it's gone.
As I said, I don't like the man. But I also don't like crows...
The farmer had just left, when the old woman paused scooping up the silver to ponder on his telling. "Blue eyes? Could have sworn they were brown."
She shrugged and lifted a loose board to join the fee with treasured cousins beneath the stair. A knock at the door left her breathless in the hurry to conceal her hoard.
"Who… who is it?" she wheezed. Rather than answer, the caller entered quickly and fell behind the door.
"It's about the eye drops." whispered the same maid as had visited before. "I'd put them in when the Mistress startled me. I...
It was a vast open space. Where the distant hills cling to the horizon, and the blue sky above curves to fasten to the mountain tops below, and desert sand cloaks sheet metal on the floor, stretching as far as the eye can see. It was an illusion…
This is the place where all things die.
This is the place where it ends.
A man in a dark suit approaches me and shakes my hand.
"I’m glad you could make it."
As blood runs across the sand, and the sun drops, and red sky filters between the moments of openness...
"So, old woman, how do you cure Love at First Sight?"
The crone laughed like a deadman's rattle. "Ah, there's a thing. Well, if you were some maid, I'd say a kiss. Or to be truly rid of it, a marriage." She pronounced marriage 'marry-ahj' the old way of yore.
"Neither is possible. I'm already wed, and happily too, were it not for this accursed lust that's come over me."
"Tell me her name and her story." the wise one requested. Of course, she already knew the girl. The lovesick sow who'd pleaded for a love spell. Yet she listened...
The maple leaves will change and fall with a certain grace - November will begin.
Carla read that sentence in her Literature textbook over and over, and the thought that kept running through her mind was, 'Who edited this book?'
That wasn't entirely true, but her internal monogue ran along these lines. Was she the only tenth grader who knew that semicolons connected independant phrases? Older people complained about how texting was ruining the language, but what difference did that make when a text book author, in what she assumed was an edited textbook ILLUSTRATING the language, couldn't even catch...
"If you don't settle down I am stopping the car."
That shut them up. There were lions out there, real ones.
I looked over at Martin and he actually rolled his eyes, shook his head. I don't know when the contempt began.
"Where will you go?" I asked, quietly.
"I don't know. My mother's."
"Look at the elephant!" Beau shouted, delightedly. Karen kicked the seat, hopping up and down. Her seat belt tugging at her.
They had forgotten already, but that’s kids for you.
"They said not to make any sudden movements,” I reminded them....
Holmes pulled up his chair, muttered to himself for a second then cleared his throat.
'We have your bizarre first appearance as a Scottish small holder, otherwise known as a Crofter, if I am not mistaken. At first I thought this was a silly pun on your name, dear brother. "M' small holding' being rendered as "My croft".'
Mycroft nodded.
"Yet, you knew I would see through your disguise even if Watson was fooled." He turned to me and smiled apologetically. I dissembled, but had to admit he was correct. " And we must not forget the excellent Western lilt...
He likes his own room, but he likes mine more. He's five. Half the time, if he had his way he would climb back inside me. He can never get close enough. Half the time. The other half he's complaining. Scowling. "You're interfering with my personal space!" Like he's breaking up with me.
So when he stands there, waiting, in the corner, and he asks if he can share our room, our bed, our space, I do what any rational human would do. And that's to pick him up and hold him, smell his head, that getting-bigger head, and say,...