The conversation lasted two words:
"Get out."
Get out of my car. Get out of my heart. Get out of my head.
Get out of my life.
He left after that. I think he heard all of the things I didn't say. I was angry with him, and rightly so. He never told me that he was already seeing someone when we started dating. He made me the Other Woman and I had no idea.
His sweater is still under the passenger seat of my car. His handwritten notes are still in the glove box. His voice is still in...
I had to bind myself together. I could feel pieces of me falling away, an arm, my left toe, my sense of grace under pressure. My lips struggled to speak as my tongue became unattached, my teeth loosened in my gums. My heart threatened to beat itself right out of my body, and I feared that it actually would.
The curse of unbeing is a cruel one indeed. I thought this as I wound the linen around my eyes, working to keep them in my skull. I wondered what I could have done to anger someone of such great power....
'Vanquished. V-A-N-Q-U-I-S-H-E-D. Vanquished." Poppy smiled, proudly, scanning the audience for her parents. There was her mother, beaming at her. Camera in hand, ready to capture every last moment of the Spelling Bee. Her mother was so embarassing, thought Poppy, but at least she cared. Her eyes flickered across the room, until they settled on her father. As usual, he was standing at the back, his eyes glued ot his Blackberry. Typical. at least he was here, usually he missed every dance competition, every spelling Bee, every sports day. He wasn;t really there, though. His body might be standing there, but...
Sandy was impressed. Her son, John, had never thrown a ball back like that before - so hard and fast that it bypassed her completely and flew over the wall at the bottom of the small garden they shared. "Nice one, Johnny!" she yelled. "Let me go and get it, I'll be right back!"
She yanked open the wooden gate recessed into the red brick wall and entered the narrow alleyway at the back of her house - and all the other houses like it. She looked left and right and spotted the ball rolling away from her, towards the...
When I was in Beijing, my dear, I saw a small lass with an ape of a face crouched in an alley and weeping for who knows who. I noticed she was wearing the cheap red cape I bought for you in H&M. When I was in Istanbul I saw a knock-kneed street performer whose laugh was the same as yours. Some graffiti that I ran across somewhere on the east edges of Paris resembled your handwriting, when you scrawled notes left for me coming home legless and too late. I say this not to make you think there are...
When he went to the pet store Mark Anderson thought it was going to be just another day. He was going to pick out the goldfish for his nephew's birthday and head on his way. Boy was he ever wrong.
It started as soon as he walked in, the cashier was giving him a very funny look that Mark couldn't exactly place. The pets were even weirder. They all looked as though they'd been through hell and back, but Mark, startled as he was, kept looking for that goldfish. If only he'd left then.
He got to the aquarium section...
The trick was picking the tired, lost ones. That was the trick. Many passengers coming into Warsaw Airport had been warned about 'unlicensed' taxis, but if you chose well they would be too confused to argue. The trick was getting their bag. Once you had that, with a "Let me carry your bag, Sir/Madam," they would have to follow you.
The trick was to walk fast enough to scare them into following you, for fear of losing their baggage in the busy arrivals lounge, but not so fast the airport police would think you were stealing something.
That was the...
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...
OK guys. Calm down. Yes, I am standing on the edge of a cliff. No, I am not contemplating suicide.
For a start, my life is worth living. I have a new girlfriend, a great job, an apartment with a mortgage and a loving family. I don't drink and I only smoke after meals.
So, what am I doing here?
I am thinking of my future and of the choices I need to make. Like today, when I phoned my girlfriend (gorgeous, blonde and randy) and she said she thought it was time for commitment. But am I ready for...
When I was twelve, I went to sea with my father. My mother had protested out of worry saying that I was not yet ready for the trials of life at sea, but once she had been persuaded to allow me to go, I went with excitement behind my eyes and the song of the gulls ringing in my ears.
I remember the very first time I set foot on the deck of my father's small sailing ship. I instantly fell in love with it. The clear blue waves, the crisp air, and the reflections in the polished wood...