Becky hoped Tom saw what she had written before her teacher did.
Mr. Smith was notoriously tidy about the things in his classroom. Desks were wiped down once a day, not by the school janitorial staff but by him personally. In other classes she knew friends who would write on the desks, leaving messages for the students who sat there after them - a sort of school texting service between students without cell phones, but Tom took only this one class after her. Would he see her message? She could pass it off as a doodle and if he said...
She always felt a little self-conscious about wearing headphones in public. She didn't want to seem anti-social, or too cool, or appear totally oblivious to the bike rider frantically ringing his bell as he approached from behind.
That's why she visited the gardens so much. Not so much for the flowers but butterflies had secrets of their own. They listened to their own songs and drifted through a world of their own. They wouldn't judge her musical tastes and she would be silly to judge theirs. After all, who are the deaf to judge those who can hear in color?
I have come to dread the raven's caw that signals moonrise. It is the dread noise that warns me of worse to come, when I can feel the change come upon me. I beg this of the sun, do not set, do not leave me. Leave me alone with myself and the thing that I carry within me.
This is my anti-aubaude. Leave me with the rest of humanity, walking on two feet. Leave me to tools, to society, to love and all the rest that makes us man. Keep me from hunger, keep me from rage, keep me from...
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...
He was dancing the enchanting dance of resurrection: Resurrection of his father.
His noble father that had told him everything: how to hunt, how to dress, how to speak, how to love. He was waving his arms frantically above his head as had been told when stranded. Stranded with no food, no shelter, no companion.
He pointed towards the only thing familiar to him: a round weathered ball with the threads worn out and its surface dull. He looked pleased as he glanced towards its vicinity - almost relieved even - as if it was the only thing tying him...
The car stalled. The roads were half washed out and the rain pounded like a blacksmith's hammer on the hood. The storms began a few days ago, but before that it had been a dry summer. After the first downpour, people started smiling and stopped fanning their faces. Life strained under the drops in vegetable and flower gardens.
After the first whole nights of dark heavy clouds, the constant grumble of thunder, people were still trying to be positive. Good for the forests, dry as tinder, they'd say. The river was too low anyway.
After a week and flooded basements,...
She didn't look at him. She couldn't. He used to be her father. He used to buy her sunflower seeds at the little convenience store near their home. She used to sit on his shoulders as he walked the dirt road, both of them searching the skies for the crows they could here.
He told her stories of a time when her mother dressed her in frilly dresses with lacy bloomers. He told her of how she would look all over the yard for Easter Eggs hidden within easy reach of her tiny little hands. He told her stories about...
She hated kids' parties. She had had to be blackmailed into taking her niece to this one, and it was only because she couldn't stand Lucy looking at her with such disappointment in her great big eyes that she'd caved. Lucy had the guilt trip thing nailed, even at four years old.
So she'd promised herself a drink afterwards to blot out the horror, strapped on the most unsuitable shoes she could think of for a party, put her make up on and braved the church hall.
It was worse than she'd imagined. What, had they invited 100 little monsters...
Chaz and Elinor tear-ass through the forest, hands raised ineffectually above heads, sodden shoes slapping on undergrowth, alternately laughing and yelling "Ow. Ow. Ow!"
The hailstorm pelts them from above, chunks of ice the size of large coins, not nickle-and-dimeing today but quartering and Susan B. Anthonying. Chaz gets a Kennedy fiftycent piece to the top of the skull and takes a header, facefirst into the soggy pine needles below.
"I think that one actually trepanned me," he shouts.
"What? Get up!" Elinor hauls him to his feet and they keep running.
The tent, they're sure, is just over this...
The lamp wouldn't turn on. That was really the least of his problems. It meant the electricity had finally been turned off. So had the water, the cable, and the gas. At least they had waited until the spring. It was warm enough to not risk freezing that night.
Jacob wondered through his house, filled with useless possessions. He touched the television and the fridge as he walked by them, exiting the house and into the beautiful April morning.
The birds were chirping and a steady drone of cars racing down the highway filled his ears. He took a deep...