There's nothing like being in a parade to let people abandon their sense of self and do things that make them appear foolish to outsiders.
You may have seen this as a child and thought nothing of it. You may not have even noticed the people, marching lockstep, standing on top of highly embellished vehicles, or pulling desperately to prevent enormous cartoon characters from flying away. You may have just been taken in by the symmetry, music, and good cheer of it all.
Now, as an adult, there you are, dancing like a fool in full view of the entire...
Potatoes.
That's all the six year old girl would eat. And it seemed that no matter what else I tried to serve her, potatoes was it. She wouldn't try anything else. Wouldn't look at anything else. All she ever wanted? Potatoes.
"Honey, what are we supposed to do?" I sighed, sliding into bed that night. "We went out to the Olive Garden. And she asked for potatoes!"
My husband chuckled a little. "Well, look on the bright side: at least it's a vegetable she wants. Could be worse."
"This is bad enough! No protein! No grain! Heck, even sugar would...
1943
Population. 1943
Even painted over, the 2 was still visible if you looked at the sign at an angle. And the previous 1 if you were real close, but from a passing car, residents or the occasional visitor to Sleepy Falls would see, if they were paying attention, that a new resident now inhabited the town. Ted wiped his brow with his customary cotton handkerchief and reseated the dusty Sheriff's Hat.
"It's not straight." said this week's Deputy, who decided to punctuate this pearl of wisdom with an increasingly annoying, yet habitual spitting out the passenger window.
The fact...
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...
The Moon would never be the same again.
Sure, nothing important in its construction had changed. It was still the same old mass of rock hanging on an ever-decaying orbit around the larger mass of rock that we call home. But it was different.
Maybe the giant structure unfolding on its surface had something to do with it.
This mission had taken years to even green-light, never mind anything else. But now, we were here. Standing on the moon, with a base. It wasn't anything special, though. We were heading to Mars with a similar base the next week.
But...
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...
"So anyway that was what he said yesterday and she wouldn't agree with anything he was...."
The sound drifted away as he continued to stare straight across the carriage. It was the same every morning, she would complain about everything that happened the day before, all the way in on the train, and then again that evening, all the way home.
He, well, he would do the same as always every morning, stare straight ahead at the woman directly across from him. She was beautiful. Here light browne hair rested neatly on her shoulders as she read what seemed to...
100 feet away. I can see the end. I have been searching, wandering, climbing, stumbling, falling into the "infinite abyss", always somehow with an inner drive getting back to my feet. Days, weeks, months, stranded, isolated, all alone. Me and my thoughts. My fears. but I can't give up. What if I do? how will I ever know.? So through the blazing sun, torrential downpours, the sub-zero temperatures, sheltering myself with man-made huts, I pushed on. and now 100 more feet. Don't give up now! No...don't!
Its iron heart broke in two each time it welcomed a visitor. Ironic.
Its sign was officious but it's symbolism romantic. Just like any heart, it was forged by mixed signals.
"Enter me. Break my heart in two. Leave. Break my heart again. I am only whole when I have nothing or everything."
"But once you get inside, if you have ignored my words and pulled open my heavy gates, you will still be facing a brick wall. And you may feel a moment of blank indifference that reaches inside of you and takes your hope. But before you turn...
It was quiet down there. With only 2 days to go, the travelers unwrapped their last portions - bits of cheese, the last remnants of the dried ham, a couple of flagons of water to wash it all down - and proceeded to feast. This was the home stretch; already, they could see greenery creeping onto the pitch-black walls, illuminated by the faint cracks developing in the rough rock.
It felt like their memories, too, were being rearranged. Some had already started to forget how they got there; the winding caves leading to their nook were receding into the darkness...