Eternal life.
That's what he'd promised, wasn't it?
Jane didn't know the tall, dark-haired man who had approached her late that night. He appeared as if an apparition as she exited the lonely subway terminal on the way home from an excruciating double shift.
He had spoken just two words. Eternal life. It was a dreamlike declaration - not quite a question, not a statement, just a whisper. But that was impossible.
She had looked at him with a mix of fear and curiosity before shaking her head and walking briskly up the dimly lit staircase. Just before walking into...
Waves. Waves lapping at the scarred coast line, the sound of gulls cooing above, the smell of the salty seawater.
The therapist had told her to imagine her happy place, every time she felt a panic attack coming on. Every time she felt stressed, which she was prone to, she came back here.
Her happy place.
She was nine years old, her strawberry blonde hair in pigtails, her jade green coat pulled tight to keep out the bitter wind. Balancing atop a weather warn log, she had pretended she was walking the tightrope at the circus.
She had always dreamt...
They crouched to peer beneath the stairs. They were surprised by how small it was -- "I don't even think an adult could fit in there," he said.
"Sure, if it was an adult midget," she said.
"How big of a midget?" he said.
"We're not really going to discuss the relative sizes of midgets, are we?" she said, turning to look at him for the first time since they found the passageway.
"I think dwarf is the preferred nomenclature anyway," he said with a tired air, pushing the hair out of his eyes. His glasses had slid down his...
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...
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...
War. Criminals. Theft. Violence. These things could not settle in his mind. As soon as they floated in they flew out. His thoughts were too preoccupied with positive, nostalgic memories. He felt no more sadness, anger, frustration towards the world. The only concept that could attract these ideas to his head is the same one which invokes passion, determination, hope into his heart. His love was an oxymoron. Numbing him to the world yet causing so much strife within himself, within his ideas of romance.. of Rome. The only thing that had any significance in his life lived a thousand...
It was the fall that surprised me most.
I had never intended to move to the Northeast. Strange set of circumstances. Long story. Really long. Maybe not too long to relate, but longer than I'd like it to have. I just sort of ended up there.
Anyway, I got there in early December. I thought, having come from California, that that was "winter".
That's not winter.
Winter is bleak. Winter is white death. Winter is hell -- not just for Chekhov, mind you. For Vermont, too.
The first week I was there, I was talking about how poorly-equipped Southern California...
The results were in, she said. And he ran and ran and ran and ran, disregarding the shouts of teachers behind him, just running and running and running till he reached the office. It was up on the bulletin board, sandwiched between changes in the lunch menu and posters for bake sales. He stopped for a moment, breathless, eager. Slowly he let himself look at it. The names were up. He scanned through them: Joe Malone. Hendrick Smith. Jerry Pandrip. Jonathan Sinker. Hetty Carbuncle.... so many names. He knew most of them: they had been his companions during the test,...
You can count me out. I'm over it. Through with you, done with everything....That's a lie. Count me in, it's about time, right? Six years is long enough to be apart. I've waited for this; you, maybe not. Either way, the date's approaching. Count me out, though, it might be a bad decision. No...count me in, I can't wait to see you. Remember that summer? Remember that WINTER? No, no, I can't see you, count me out. Count me in, count me out, I can't decide one way or the other. No, for sure, count me in, what am I...
Tom said my neck tasted of honey. When I told Jasper he laughed hysterically, dropping the crystal glass of champagne onto the thick white carpet. Snorting like a horse, slapping his black Parisian jeans, contorting his face like a fairground mirror image. I didn't think it was so funny but didn't say anything. I laughed too.
One thing that Jasper would never know about me is how lonely and disgusted I feel with myself when I tell him about Tom.
When I walked away from the car, turned back and waved at Tom who had wiped the condensation from the...