.. 2080 ... 2090 ... 2100. 2100 NE Swenson Avenue, that was the address. Harold was certain of it. He could almost feel an unnatural attraction to the simple white door with blue finish that innocently faced the street, surrounded by colorful flower pots.
A hesitant step after another, his heart pounding, he approached it. His thoughts were hundreds of miles away, in his home country, where his family was held hostage. They were watching his every move, listening to his every breath. If he failed, his wife and children would die.
His hand rested on the doorknob. The windows...
They had forgotten to close the window flap on the tent the night before. It was early morning now, and the light had started to come in; a cool, damp air had already come in and settled into the corners.
She had been awake for about 20 minutes, annoyed by the light that irritated her even through her closed eyelids. Michael was curled up in the corner, half in his sleeping bag with one leg hanging out. His shirt was undone and had spilled open, and even now he smelled like booze. His bandage had bled through the night and...
The cold bit at her toes. Pulling them to her body, she peered over the top of her blanket. The world was beginning to come alive. People hurried on there way to work, lights flickering on across the pale grey skies.
It was an odd time of day; it brought with it relief and pain. She was glad of the sound, the sights of other people. The nights grew monotonous, full of nothing. Every minute seemed like hours, every hour like days as nothing but black emptiness stretched out before her. As day broke, cutting through the darkness, she often...
"Wait, so he hit you?"
We had been over the story several times by now, as Carl sat down bringing a fresh round of amber colored liquid in pint glasses.
I ignored his question as I tried to figure out if this was another IPA or something different.
"Yes," I said, snapping back to reality.
"Damn dude, that fucking sucks," Carl said taking a sip of his beer.
I shook my head in agreement. Took a sip. It was the IPA. Damn that is a good beer.
"Yeah, he just snapped after I told him he was being an asshole...
My father and I were lying on the beach wondering why the moon looked larger than usual. My father argued idly--something about the flat terrain and the empty skyline. "If we could see a house, or a tree, or a traffic light, it wouldn't look so big."
It was a stupid explanation, but we are not the kind of people who carry iPhones, and whip them out to settle any debate. We hate those people. They ruin everything.
We'd been drinking wine from the motel's paper cups. We'd run out of wine a long time ago, but occasionally we still...
"Light. I feel light"
"I should think so, you lost about half of you."
I struggled to open my eyes, afraid to see what had happened. The last thing I remembered before the darkness was the light, the bright light that had surrounded and suffused me, that had seemed to consume me. A hand waved in front of my face, and at first I was certain it wasn't mine, couldn't be mine. I had never been that skeletal, I had always been a rather large man.
"Easy there, you just did something stupid or amazing, and you're rather week. We...
Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up.
"Ladies? Gentlemen? Entities?" Helen paused. No response.
Helen glanced around. The large workroom -- some schizophrenic combination of retro and avant0-garde -- was loud, clicking and warbling and chatting in a very large number of tongues.
Helen cleared her throat. It should have been for effect, but it was because her throat had suddenly dried, as if she had swallowed the entirety of the Sahara back on Terra. "People! And non-people! Listen!"
To their credit, many did. Many didn't, but that...
I am the apple of her eye.
All of them in fact.
I have five aunts, and a mother.
Mom calls me the Little King, her little Emperor, the man of the house. Where is my father? I don't know or care.
My aunts have always been there. Mom defied everyone when she got pregnant, as far as I know my aunts have never been courted.
They are my court. They laugh at my jokes, they bring me snacks, they make me cocoa, they run my baths. When I write stories they print them and paste them in a book,...
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...
I'm with stupid. That's what his t-shirt says. the arrow points at me, because I always walk on his left. People read it and look at us and laugh. They don't know that he doesn't wear it for jokes and giggles. He means it. He always wears it when we go out together, which is only once a week. He allows me to do the weekly shopping with him. He makes the list but I have to carry it, because he always pushes the trolley.
Somewhere deep down I know he's a control freak and I should break away. Amy's...