There was blood on my pillow and when I woke up the right side of my mouth was swollen and swore. I rushed to the bathroom and rinsed the dried blood from my mouth. It came out in thick clumps at first, and then ran quickly as the crimson liquid. I pulled my cheeks wide and saw that three teeth were missing.
I ran back to my room, my jaw aching and throbbing with the intensity of a fire alarm. I lifted the blood stained pillow and saw three dollar bills lying there. They were crumpled and crimped but someone...
Absent. The roots were absent but you could still see them. When you burn a stump, you often end up with a chunk of its heart that doesn't turn to ash. The interesting thing is how the fire always seems to follow the roots, no matter how deep they go, burning away every trace of them. Sometimes, even a year later, a fire can rekindle from deep in the earth where it was banked in some hidden location. Looking down from above, you can see the faithful reproduction of the root system only it's just air. Hollows that disappear into...
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...
When he said he'd take me far away, to a world I'd never seen, I had expected more than this.
"You're just seeing the scaffolding."
"What is there that isn't scaffolding? It's...there's nothing else there. It's hollow. It's broken."
He covered my eyes with his hands, pointed me in a direction and hissed "walk" in my ear.
I had presumed this was going to be a date. Clearly I was incorrect.
I could feel the ground beneath my feet alter, and suddenly everything felt different - I was enclosed, and yet not enclosed at all (there was light spilling in,...
Water. I wish I were drowning in it now. That my car veered into the canal while I was driving home. Somewhere I shouldn't have been. A blue-house, now painted tan, that I've visited 100 times. A house where I rang the doorbell, felt stupid there was no answer, and drove home. On the way, I turned into an oncoming lane by complete accident... Cars beeped, and luckily no one was hurt. Startled, I made a U-Turn, and headed home. I wished there was a thunder storm, a hail storm, something to cover my windshield to make my car just...
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...
Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up.
Mrs. Baer had not picked her for the reading group, but that didn't matter, because it didn't mean she wasn't good enough, it just meant that Mrs. Baer didn't KNOW how well she could read! Mom would say it, loud and clear Emily could hear it in her head, "If you'd just made yourself noticed, Emily, then you would not have been ignored!" This is what Mom always told both of her older sisters when they became too meek.
"You get...
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...
I, Emily Agha just received my acceptance to UNSW and flowers from my beloved fiancee. Everything was going well. My fiancee and her where driving home until suddenly Josh went to fast. He may have been drunk. One little mistake can turn into a big one. "I'll always remember you Josh". I don't remember much from that night, all I remember is the sound of sirens, a few heartbeats and Josh's voice telling me he was sorry. His last words were "find someone, please." I'm thirty now and am still single. I still have all his bits and bobs that...
Before the crone could lift the latch, the outsider entered unbidden; not something wisely done at a witch's door. The boy seemed to need folding to miss the oak lintel. Felt cap respectfully in hand, he spilled over the urgent threshold.
"Some rich master has stolen my Bess away from me!" he blurted out.
The old woman assessed him bending his way through the old wooden doorway. Green doublet. Old but smart. Yellow hose. Bachelor. Sixteen Summers. Mayhap a little more, but large - she smiled - in every respect.
He hadn't noticed the maid, half shoved behind the door,...