"Tell me what you did. Tell me what you did yesterday."
She was at the bottom of the stairs in her own house. She was alone, but she knew she wasn't. The lights were off and it was dark.
"I was home. There was nobody there, except him."
She put her foot on the first step, and slowly pulled herself up. When she reached the second floor, she put her hand on the railing to steady herself.
"I felt like I was going to pass out. It was because of him."
She walked into her bedroom, looking nonchalant though there...
Charles didn't know what to think. The heat on his cheeks hurt too much, but he didn't like it when the flame disappeared. Jenny was the one holding the camera. She told him that they could all share the candle. It was one flame for the entire group. A moppet party, dad called it, because it was not their birthday.
Mom was sick. Charles could only think of that. She'd pale cheeks and skin stretched over her face, and her hair tangled and black and her mouth a gaping, gawping hole. She didn't even recognize any of them when they'd...
Malcolm's coo became a cry. It had been hours since we had locked ourselves out of the house but it made no difference to him or his needs. The boy wanted his parents but was incapable of the simple act of walking over to the door and unlocking the deadbolt. The life Malcolm led was one of constant need, one of dependence.
The debilitating accident last year 'scrambled his circuits' as his mother put it but while the rest of the family wrestled with the fact that my son would never walk, eat, speak or function on his own, she...
"I shot my butler, but I did not shoot the chauffeur" Mrs. Kensington said. "I don't know who could have done such a thing. That poor old man."
"The butler or the chauffeur," the detective asked.
Mrs. Kensington coughed with polite outrage.
"The chauffeur, of course," she said. "The butler can rot in a thousand hells as far as I'm concerned."
The detective flipped back a few pages in his notebook.
"You say the butler had been stealing from you," he asked, scratching his nose. "Did you have any proof?"
"Proof is in the pudding, as the maid would say."...
"I object!"
The whole church turned and stared at the woman panting uncontrollably at the doors. Heather couldn't believe she actualy made it right on time. This type of thing only happened on T.V, or so she thought.
She moved steadily down the ilse, getting mixtures of confusion, anger and outright amusement gazes from the crowd. Of course, Paul would look confused. He stepped away from his bride, who could have melted the mesh of her veil from the looks she gave.
"Heather," Paul cleared his throat, looking around the huge crowd. "What the heck are you doing here?"
"Fighting,"...
Hush the forest. Hush where the bear was, the deer have been downed. Hush my screaming heart.
In the kitchen where I am carried after my father's death, I ask for one shortbread cookie filled with jam as my mother Connie smiles around like the carousel she is of feelings. I want to sit in the dark corner and think about the bear mauling him. My father Claus, lying on the needles and still.
I ran into the woods and Meryl knocked me out. Unintentionally, I was fighting him as I would a bear. He cried onto my suede, he...
Your foundation was laid a long time ago. You said it was always the same, just before. His voice offering up your name with a percussive beat, "James," and the sharp hammer blow of "short for nothing." that always followed.
When you left you took ownership of it: patching the walls and putting new paint on it to try and make it different. A thin veneer of you, built on the framework of someone else.
When I moved in you made room for me. You let me fill some of that space, as you did for me. I think she...
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 never liked autumn leaves as you do. I watched you look at trees, the delight on your face intensified when you closed your eyes and hugged the trunk. You once asked if I had a red ribbon for the pine cone you plucked, it would complete the winter bliss of the photograph you wanted to take. My purse always had what you needed, from floss to batteries, and candies to pain pills, and a red ribbon was procured.
Spring had you enjoying cherry blossoms. Summer had you enjoying shade. Autumn had you enjoying the gold and copper, the natural...
The paradox was that while we had been sitting in a cafe in Paris, waiting for the kick, our future selves had reprogrammed the jukebox to play nothing but St. Etienne. So we sat and we drank our tea and slowly, little by little, we became our own dream. The future died there amongst the earl grey and gilt picture frames, and with it, so did she.
She wasn't more than 10 when the meteor struck Beijing, the meteor we should have been there to stop. Huddled in a doorway, she died wrapped in red silk and fire. She was...