Until now, she'd never thought of herself as pretty. She'd never looked in the mirror and seen what ever it was that society defined as beauty reflected back at her. She had never looked at a picture of herself and thought, "Wow" or even "Not bad".
But as she flicked through the photographs from the night before she found her breath being stolen at the gorgeous creature in front of her.
Nothing was different, not her hair, not her teeth, her eyes or her clothes. And yet, everything was different, miraculously changed, as though a fairy godmother had waved her...
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...
I am really nervous. It's there. Looming. And I feel like if I move it will know, and everything around me will crumble.
So I wait and I wonder. Why I came. Why I am still here. Why there aren't forces out there that could rectify what is clearly the most dire of situations.
But I know there are no such forces. It's just me. Alone. Except I am not alone. It is still here. There. Moving closer.
I know there are only two choices: stay and await my ultimate defeat. The ultimate death. Stagnation...darkness. Or move closer to it,...
Sophie stood at the window, the curtains snug around her shoulders,trailing behind like a dress, or veil. The sun was dipping down behind the trees across the way.
He should be home by now, she thought, chewing the already ravaged thumbnail on her right hand.
She thought about the fight they had the night before. How she had held onto the seeds of those feelings for so long they had germinated and grew and soon the roots were twisted around with her insides, and the branches and leaves moved with her arms.
The anger had grown and become parasitic. And...
Set down the light
set it down anywhere
The pure clean of a random weeknight on the coach staring at the white ceiling. So many balls in the air so much that I can not control. I have given control to others.
It is my human condition.
I will set this ball here on this perfectly lit field. Void of trouble. Maybe someday I will throw it to you and wonder, as I lay here in this white clean apartment,
will you throw it back?
The first few days she hadn't noticed the bars. She'd noticed very little about her surroundings other than that they were wrong. As her head became less fuzzy and she began to understand why they were wrong, that this wasn't where she was supposed to be she tried to learn everything there was to learn about this unfamiliar environment.
It was on the tenth day that she'd counted, that the sun shone for the first time. Whereas it had looked grey and dreary outside, the glowing sunlight made it look full of possibilities. The bars were on the inside of...
The episodes were getting more frequent. I'd forget where I was. Friends looking at me strangely as I carried on conversations finished ten minutes ago. Losing my new phone. Girlfriend called off our holiday, fed up of getting ignored. The tests showed it wasn't epilepsy. I felt strangely calm as though it was meant to be.
During my time away I lived a different life, on a different plane. Soon I knew it would be my permanent home.
I could hear dad's voice at a distance, feel mom's hand on mine. Fear.
I was slipping away in the hospital bed....
Iridescent, the water moved silently over her head as her toes grazed the soft sand beneath her. In an equilibrium, almost floating but almost standing, she let the water raise her arms. This was limbo.
People always said it was best to keep your feet on the ground, so to speak. When the mind wanders, ideas get lost. Was that the way it really worked, the woman wondered, exhaling and releasing small bubbles of her life-breath into the water. The bubbles traveled upward to the surface, releasing her breath for her over her head. It was true, water made you...
"I have something to tell you."
These are not words you want to hear from your girlfriend when you first walk in the door after a late night at work. Still, Lewis tried to stay calm, tried not to let his imagination get ahead of him. He sat down at the formica kitchen table, looking up at Sadie. She was actually wringing her hands. He thought that only happened in stories. A long pause...
"Well, honey? What is it? You're making me kind of nervous here."
"I know, I know. I'm sorry. I just... Ok. Here goes. I'm... I'm a...
Outnumbered. Jezebel stands on the ledge, hands fluttering up and down the slick chains. Outnumbered. She tries to breathe, but her lungs are collapsing.
The flavor of hospital-stale, taste of bitter pills and pomegranate streaked on the sheets permeates her stupor, glitterdust before her eyes.
Flash. She is back to the ledge. They dance around her, ritual motions, holding soft torches and reaching out to stroke her draining carcass. Jezebel leans over, testing the water. There is gulping sea bellow, and beyond that, empty. She will fall into the turquoise sheet and then past it, going going gone.
Outnumbered. She...