"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...
I clutched onto the flowers. Today was the day. I am only 19 but I am getting married right now. My father was a rich businessman and my mother died when I was very young. My father than re-married and she married a beautiful Parisian woman. You may think she is a beauty but she is a pain in the arse. She treats me like rubbish. "Go fetch me my earrings," she would call out. But one year later after marrying my father she died suddenly.
My father couldn't bear this again, so he sent me to an orphanage. I...
Hats. Of every shape and size. I love them all. You may call me crazy, or you may not. I love them all, of every color and make. I make some, I find others. I keep them all by my side, and drink my tea as I study them. Who am I you ask? Some strange Hatter? Well to be more precise i'm a MAD Hatter. Yes that's correct. I am a bit mad, but who isn't? Hats just so happen to catch my fancy, and I love to make them. I also collect them. I can find you a...
The year was 1986. I was traveling through the American South with a spaniel I had picked up along the way who answered to the name "Kenneth".
My goal was to reach Little Rock, Arkansas in order to see the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library and Museum. Unfortunately, I had committed a great error and had greatly misjudged, as he would not even be elected for another six years.
Whoops.
While the spaniel who responded to the name "Kenneth" almost certainly knew that I was too early, he remained mute. In all the many weeks we spent together, he only...
I was at home with my wife when we heard the noise start. At first just quiet thumps. Then louder and louder. I had her hide in her room, the door locked.
I grabbed my axe. By then I could smell something off. Something rancid and foul. I shouted, warning the intruder. This was my home and no robber or murder was going to violate it like this.
I tore through the house, screaming for him. No sign of him. And the noise had stopped. The kitchen was empty. The hall was empty. I ran back to our bedroom. The...
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...
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...
"why cross at all?" was the first thought. "why cross, or pass, or walk, or tread, or sprint or anything else of the sort?"
the sun was even lower than when the first thought started, oranges now completely red, soon black.
"or, why not." the next thought. "who am i to rethink, or revisit, or retry, or reimagine, or reexamine the path now before me?"
to my left, infinity. an unstoppable openness. to my right, the past, from whence i'd come. dust.
finally, twilight. but with my final choices, no regrets. only then could i step out in front of...
She'd been in the park till noon, watching the gate to the Forbidden City, seeing the tourists as they milled about in mist-rimed sunshine. Finally, she caught sight of him as he approached the gate. Every day without fail, staggering slightly under the weight of his bag. She was overdressed for the streets in a red dress meant for parties not park benches. Flung out suddenly from the warmth of the car, out of favour and, quite suddenly without comfort. At the bottom of the hill she lost him briefly, then saw him, walking alongside two Western tourists, his sack...
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...