Look, I admit, I'm at least partly responsible for the situation. It's my fault I'M here, and not his, er, mine.
The pronouns can get really confusing, so maybe I should just back up. It's not easy being a clone, or, shall I say a time-displaced duplicate of him. I mean, of myself (see?). The accident happened a while ago, really long enough for him, the other me, to get used to it. We both decided that we'd stay in the same house and have the same life; he owed me that much, for saving his (my) life.
I DON'T...
There's somebody standing in the corner of my room. He just stands there in diffused light - brooding and making no noise.
Oddly enough, he makes no attempt at escaping. Perhaps its because I stapled him to the dresser drawer as he had refused to have his picture taken.
He looks so much better in person anyway...
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...
The storm clouds gathered as Isaiah stepped back to the edge of the green.
The weather mirrored his mood: top ten was not enough. Podium finishes were not enough. Second place was NOT ENOUGH. He was the BEST, and he was going to prove it to the world once again.
A soft pitter-patter of raindrops began to sprinkle down upon the aged lawn bowler's wispy-haired head. He ignored its effect on his body, blinking the water out of his eyes, but he factored it in for his movements, making subtle adjustments to his stride, his footing, and his release. He...
It never speaks,
it barely breathes,
it never fades away,
It sucks you up, then spits you out,
leaving you behind.
It tugs at your heart,
then casts it out like trash.
it walks and talks with others,
but ignores you completely.
It cast it's line,
and pulled you in,
then threw you to the sharks,
you spun in it's orbit,
only to fly out and land on your face.
it left you for things,
pieces of paper and plastic.
it orbited your world once,
the left to spin through another.
that is the behavior of the void.
We speared our forks on the tablecloth stained with soy and spice and duck sauce as the waiters took the picked-over "Chinese" dinners from our sight. The restaurant catered to American tour groups whose beef and corn tastes fall too unrefined for authentic foreign dishes and who long to travel thousands of miles just to conjure a memory from the hole in the wall Taiwan Garden down the end of Mulberry Street, across from the courthouse.
As our servants sprinkled the remains of our feast in the dumpster like fish food to the swarm of street children eager for their...
The first time I saw Tommy, I knew he was a total douche. I don't allow my sister to date douches; shit — no brother should. That's rule number 2.
Rule number 1, in case you are wondering, is that you don't interfere with your sister's romances. But I take exception with douches.
Of course, there's a perfectly civil way to address his low-life status without resorting to a politically un-savvy term like "douche," which can alienate the polite, women, and my parents equally well, but anyone who knows me will say there ain't a bone of misogyny in this...
It was hard to be in the elegant room, trying not to move while the crowd swarm around him. George stifled a sigh. If he wasn't getting the eight dollars an hour, he wouldn't have put up with the gawking crowds.
All he had to do was stand still for thirty minutes at a time, dressed as Napoleon. Simple, mindless, perfect job for George. No heavy lifting, no math, nothing that should have embarrassed him. But the crowds, God they were enough for him to scream.
"Who's that?" a snot nosed little girl asked a man, that hopefully was her...
I remember the smell of wet snow on a blinding morning. Squinting through glare and steam. Battleship twigs wobble in a frozen puddle. The neighbor's bell-bottoms dark blue to the knees. She sank in a soft mountain of snow, but extracted herself with the confident strength of the Bionic Woman.
The crows were flying silhouettes, Japanese ink on a rice paper landscape. The country was preparing for our spectacle. There would be battleships in the harbor, fireworks from the torch, old songs that would not die.
But on this day, in the insulation of a winter morning, we weren't thinking...
The floorboard creaked. The house came alive and... walked.
It did not walk as people walk, as things designed to move would move. No, a house is not meant to ambulate, not meant to be in a place different from the place it had always been. That was the first trial, overcoming years of inactivity, millenia of tradition.
But the house was determined to leave its lot, after its lot in life had fallen. All around it, other houses had fallen, eaten away by neglect, time, disuse. And while this house had not had resident or human inhabitant for far...