May crept silently - or as silently as the fallen leaves and cracking twigs would allow – towards the old house. It was one of those places that every kid knows; full of mystery and the promise of ghosts, ghouls, dead bodies, mad old ladies in wedding dresses, or maybe just nothing, all of which was exciting in its own frenzied way.
May would not normally be any where near the house in usual circumstances, but truth or dare at a sleepover was a serious business and since, at eleven, the truths were all about boys and love and kissing,...
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...
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...
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...
Well, I wasn't prepared for this. Genetic engineering really is only my minor. I majored in Music Education, and do a helluva good job at it, if I do say so myself.
The genetic engineering project was supposed to be more kid friendly. A cockatoo and a persian cat, gene spliced, to for some sort of mutated mix. The math (something I'm freely admitting to be poor at) implied more of a cat's head. I got the bird head. Must have not carried the three.
Anyway.
I'm going to have to raise it now. There's no getting out of that....
2070. Je regarde par la fenêtre. Les douze coups viennent de sonner à l'horloge. Sur la place, dehors, des petits chalets de toile sont montés, et regorgent de victuailles et de boissons pour les fêtards. La foule se presse, danse au son des violons, et s'embrasse et s'embrasse pour se souhaiter la bonne année.
Je tends la main vers la petite table, j'attrape mon bol de tisane et le porte à mes lèvres. Ma main tremble, ses veines sont saillantes et sa peau fripée. Les tâches qui la parsèment sont le décompte des années.
2070, le monde n'a pas changé....
"Knives."
"Yeah. And?"
"Pepper. Salt. Ducks. Ivory, but don't tell anybody."
"Seriously? Knives?"
He handed me the duffle bag. "Knives. And everything you need to know is in there, too."
"Everything?"
"Everything. The molecular structure of Ferrous Oxide. The length of a stick. The speed of light under water."
"What about the temperature of Jupiters core? The average age of a bitch collie in its first heat? Foreign exchange rates for all currencies against Bhutan?"
"All of that. Plus the phone numbers of every Mossad agent, and their email address and blog addresses. Oh, and the starting lineup of the...
Her cheeks were as pink as her dress, blotched with red that matched the little bows that tightly held her blonde hair up in two ridiculous pony-tails that resembled palm trees. Her mother did the dog's hair like that as well. Jonathan always wondered how someone could want a second Maltese instead of a daughter.
Was he being unfair? Probably. It was something he slung at Marie as their last fight as a married couple wound down. That fight he'd carried on with such spirit convinced there would be break-up hate sex, but that shot at her parenting skills effectively...
I walked along the flat stones that made up the busy road and let the bustling crowds swallow me whole. My heart pounds in my ears. I hear a sharp shout from behind me and instictively dive over the bright green barrier. I press my body into the lush grass and take shallow breaths. The sound of thousands of footsteps set my nerves on edge. For a moment, my mind wanders to the many times my friends and I used to play hide and seek in this garden when we were younger. Children squealing in delight and running in circles....
Shit.
Her hat just blew off in the wind. Well, it wasn't so much wind as the fact that she stuck her head out the car window to get a better look at the flashing lights.
The cops probably wouldn't be too happy if they stopped to retrieve it. Another one lost.
It was her Mariner's baseball hat, the one that shielded her from the torrential rain in Singapore; the one that bleached to a dull slate gray from the sun in New Mexico; the one that she wore whenever the Mariners ended up losing. It wasn't so much a...