Travel light, but take everything with you. They were father's last words to me before he took my mother and sister down the wooded trail opposite mine and my brother's.
The cossacks had burned our village to the ground an hour ago, and he told us we had to flee into the woods, where they would have more trouble finding us.
When I was young, we used to play in the forest, so I knew it well. I would take my young brother Sasha to a lake a few hours' hike from here, that the cossacks don't know about.
I...
“Come here.”
The little boy looked at her, then back at the kitchen door.
“Come here!”
Something crashed in the kitchen. The boy turned away and stumbled over to her. She took him by the hand. “Come on, we have to go.”
“What's wrong with him?”
“Doesn't matter, just come on. We have to hide.”
“Why?”
“I did something, and now he's mad.”
“What did you do?”
“We have to hide.”
“What did you do?”
“I stole all of it.”
“What?”
“After school today, I stole all his drinks.”
“All of them?”
“Yeah.”
“You know he gets mad when he...
The gods used the lake as their mirror, reflecting their beauty along its still waters, awash with azure skies and billowing clouds of purest white. The earth goddess tolerated their use of her lake, because it suited her. The heavenly colors complimented her own, golden shores and the brown shining mountains that surrounded the blue waters. If only the heavens could grant her wish, she would trade places with the gods of the sky and walk upon her own shores. As maudlin thoughts filled her like the waters of that same lake, she changed her mind and only wished to...
Loved him for an evening.
Sienna had a way of loving them that way. In one evening her compassion for the man at her side transcended adoration.
The men usually left quickly, a blur of parties, cigarettes and alcohol. She was happy enough that way, and of course so were they.
The man in the red hoodie was a bit different. About ten years younger than her if she cared to admit it. As slim as her, with large, dark, cow eyes. Sweet as pudding and she let him linger a week.
Apparently had found religion recently, tried bringing her...
I stopped running and gasped for breath. My brother caught up to me and dropped to his knees in exhaustion. My hand traveled silently to the weapon at my waist. I stood behind him breathing heavily.
"I'm sorry brother, but I can't share this time." In one swift motion, I brought the metal down on his head. His body crumpled in front of me and lay motionless.
The audience stared open mouthed at me. The thundering applause filled me and my brother sprang up from his crumpled heap on the stage floor and grabbed my hand for our final bow.
They gathered in the woods. Huddled together, shoulders pressed against each other for warm and support and that deep basic desire for some sort of human contact.
"It's good to see you again John," an unclean, wirey man nodded to his fellow and they clapsed hands.
"You too. Have you news?"
"None. There hasn't been much activity the past month." The man nodded grimly as he listened.
"One of our nests got hit, we lost a few, but the rest of us are fine."
"How about the rest of you?" The other members of the circle, three men and one...
Kenya. She said her name was Kenya.
And then she laughed. I couldn't hear it, not over the music in the bar, not over the shouting of everyone around us. But I saw the laugh, starting in her stomach, and traveling up and out of her mouth.
She leaned closer and said that her parents had grown up with Black Power and Africa awareness, and decided to name her Kenya. That they had grounded her the first time she straightened her hair.
Her voice, the part of her voice I could hear, had a huskiness to it that really appealed...
The man in the yellow shirt entered the elevator and pressed the lowest button, which was marked 'B3'. The light next to the word 'DOWN' lit up, and down we went.
"Down?" I exclaimed in confusion. "I don't want to go down. I want to go up. I pressed 31. Why is the elevator obeying you and not me? I was here first."
"It likes me better," said the yellow-shirted man.
"Why would it like you? You're ugly looking and your shirt is stupid."
"How do you know what an elevator thinks is ugly? Maybe it likes my shirt."
I...
Shannon sat up, her eyes wide open. She wasn't sure if she was awake or asleep. She looked around the room (dirty socks, cat puke in one corner, empty Miller cans, a laundry basket filled with clean clothes) and wished it was all unfamiliar. She looked at the man next to her. His back was smooth and tanned. A tiny mole winked at her from his left shoulder blade. She wished he was a stranger.
Shannon lay back down. The pillow was damp with sweat, her sweat. Had she been dreaming or coming out of a fever?
"Where are you...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. She shielded her eyes from the flashes of light that arced across the blackened sky, her face soaked with tears, her heart pounding in her chest as the cacophony of noise rattled her skull.
In London, a family huddled together in a corner of their living room, across from the window that had blown itself out from the force of the first impact. They held between them the grandmothers crucifix, praying to their God as if he could save them.
A man stood atop the Eifel...