I woke up this morning fuzzier than usual.
It's easier to remember in my sleep but the memories are now tied with hopefulness--your hopefulness. Your jacket was cold on the outside as I hugged you, and I remember your body warm as I slipped my hand in and tried to squeeze. I remember you tried to kiss me goodbye and I moved from it as I sobbed. I didn't want to miss that kiss but still I moved.
The journey alone has been quiet. You text me or email me or my own brain will write your words for me...
Once in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. She was hoping to catch a cool breeze as well as a paying customer as the slinky dress billowed behind her. Cigarettes were sexy again, and with lung disease the least of her worries, she inhaled with abandon. Another night, another John...
But tonight was different, because as she bent to tap the ashes from her cigarette, she saw a green cloth protruding from behind the fake potted plant near the doorway. Curiousity getting the better of her, she pulled aside the leaves to find the...
There was blood on my pillow.
My nose was dry. I hadn't bit my cheek. I hadn't somehow lost a tooth. A quick examination of my skull told me that it remained intact.
Oh, duh, I have DNA-Vision. I forget sometimes.
I scanned the blood on my pillow. It wasn't mine.
So where had it come from?
"Ah ha! It was me!" yelled someone from the foot of my bed.
It was my arch-nemesis, The Hemophiliac. Of course!
"What have you done?!" I roared.
"I snuck into your bedroom last night and bled on your pillow! But don't worry; I...
I jumped. I blacked out. When I awoke, head ringing and eyes spotted with colours, he turned round slowly.
"You ever heard of an Ox Bow Lake?"
"nuhuh" I said. Mind you, the gag would have rendered the same result as a Shakespeare soliloquy.
"sahwiwochee" Hell, it was different. Maybe if you were a dentist, this conversation would be less one sided. I eyed the man who had broken in to the lab, wondering if he'd had orthodontist training. He knew his way round a physics lab alright, but fiddling with the quantum accelerator probably wasn't the best idea. That...
There once was a man who live on Richmond street, he died a few years back. Took care of his elderly mother who used to shave her head and named her pet cat Winston Churchill, she had a few pet birds too. Anyway, the man was a Musician. He used to park his van down by this old run down building in the center of town and sit with the door open playing his guitar. He wasn't the greatest and he wasn't the worst, he just really enjoyed what he did. I forget his name but I haven't forgotten the...
I carry you with me.
I carry you with me here.
Right here, in this tender spot
in this hollow space.
I carry you with me.
I carry you on the tip of my tongue
Just on the tip, so that I can
carry you with me here,
in my words, in my sounds
There. That word, that sound -
Said just as you would, just as you have
Because I carry you with me,
I carry you with me here.
Right here, in the downturn of these lips,
In that expression you wore had that carried with it a...
In hindsight, the solution was obvious.
It was staring me right in the face the entire time but for some reason I had a hard time coming to terms with it.
It wasn't really his fault, in a way I guess you could say it was my fault. I was the one who always wanted to try new things and that night, he had been nowhere to be found. I jumped in with both feet, never once thinking about the consequences.
It was easy for me, I had no ties to anyone or anything. Well except for him.
He, on...
In 1921, he flew from the Great Rift Valley, along the trails left by the ancient Martians, to find the Temple of the Sun. It was buried, like so much else on Mars, in red sands over the course of millennia, but that meant nothing when you had a native to escort you to their ancestral home.
"So, how can we breathe here?" Pete asked the small, silver creature before him.
It sat in the biplane, strapped in, looking ridiculously small in the pilot's seat. "Air bubble," it replied, fiddling with the dials.
Pete had never flown in a biplane...
She knelt on the tile floor, carefully picking up the shards of glass. Why did it have to be this one that broke? The dust swirled from the broken jar as water trickled out, bits of greenery carried along with it. World jars were expensive, and none to easy to make or acquire.
Another small little universe left to dry on the floor. She wept a bit as she tried to sweep the glass together with her hands, avoiding the sharp edges. She really should get a broom, but the strength to stand seemed to have left her. Why did...
Autumn, 1923
“Would, I be fine?” I inquire softly to Māmā and Bà Bà.
“Don’t worry, just believe in yourself and ignore nasty comments.” My Māmā’s tone was silky and kind-hearted. She patted me softly on the back and kiss my forehead lightly to reassure me for all the pressure I have.
As I entered Shāmiàn island primary school with my two brothers and sister, I glanced at my Māmā and Bà Bà once more, waving ceaseless at them. So many emotions emerged from my mind; frightened, happy, determined and shocked. Nine hours of school and nine hours, not seeing...