You can count me out. You really think I'm going to use that thing? that dangerous, weapon-like thing? You really think I'm going to lug around four pounds of dead animal flesh? Think again. Don't even get me started on the sphere of death as I like to call it. Have you noticed how it comes toward its victim, hurling itself through space at a hundred and seventy-five miles per hour, no conscious, just aim and fire. It's not for me. I'm not saying I'm a wimp, I'm not saying you're crazy. I'm saying I have no wish to die....
"One scoop chocolate, one scoop..."
"Let me guess, vanilla." the man behind the counter grinned at me.
Was I really so predictable? I felt the colour rise to my cheeks.
"Erm..."
"I was right. I remember." he threw his head back and laughed.
"Actually..."
"2.53 every afternoon. One scoop chocolate and one scoop vanilla. Like clockwork."
He was starting to annoy me now.
"Actually, I was going to ask..."
I stopped. I was going to ask for vanilla. Truth is I only like vanilla and chocolate ice cream. Always have. But now I had started something. Alex was right, I...
The singer still held onto his microphone as he slumped to the stage. He felt as through a very large hand was pulling him very quickly through an ocean of green water. The crowd retreated, their faces elongating. Their cheers elongated, too, as though one corner of the cheer had been nailed to a doorway and then stretched around the world.
The world is elastic, he thought, and couldn't imagine why he hadn't noticed this before. Everything has a soft suppleness to it if you look hard enough, or perhaps if you learn not to look so closely.
Even the...
"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...
"What's the worst thing you ever done in a Church, Sunshine?"
I looked at Beloved, I shrugged, although goosepimples and ice water prickled my body. "I killed a pigeon once."
"What?" Beloved laughed, his mouth pulled, his cheeks puffed and he pinched one lens of his glasses, pulling them up his face. "You're kidding."
"Nope," I said and I walked away from him, my arms clasped behind my back and I looked back and forth, up and down, and touched the smooth paint of the white-washed pews. "I killed it dead."
"WHY?" Beloved was still smiling, I did not have...
If I had a box full of pounds from every time someone said if I had a pound for every time
It would probably have like £50 in it
Because although that's a common phrase
It doesn't come up THAT often
Think about it
How many times have you actually heard someone use that phrase
Probably like fifty
Yeah?
I thought so
So next time
Put a pound somewhere you can forget it
And then when you find it
You'll remember this story
And that way
As long as you are alive
So am I
And if you told it...
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...
Her joints screamed as the winter chill ran through her veins and iced her skin. It was so cold out and this blizzard was never-ending.
Julia huddled around the oven pumping heat into the 500 square-foot apartment, something her mother said to never do but it's not like the heat worked.
"Why the hell did I go out there?" Julia said aloud to the appliances.
She threw Ryan out for a reason but months of anticipation made the actual act much harder. She wasn't even sure if it was going to be today, but in the end it was. He...
Kent was stabbing someone. I think it was Mary. Maybe it was Bill. I don't know. The important thing is that it was a person and he or she was in the process of being killed by Kent, who everyone called "The Guy Who Likes to Stab People." Once he tried to stab Tony buy Tony was wearing chainmail so it didn't work. Later they went for figs.
Kent finished stabbing the person, who then died. The person was red, slick with blood. I didn't know if it was a man or woman. When he was done, Kent wiped his...
The wires passed from hand to hand in the complex trading ritual. THe boy watched raptly, taking his training with the serious concentration of surgeons and chess-masters.
"You wrapped the wrong red and pulled the wrong green," he noted to his papa in mixed Spanish. The wires were then braided into his hair, the auburn hues mixing with the artificial Christmas tones.
"The day your hair grows out of these strands, you will have all there is to desire in this world. On that day, you may cut these colors and move on to the next."
The tea kettle screamed...