You can count me out.
You can count me out.
How many times do I have to say it? Count me out of your scheme. I have no desire for riches, fame, or even immortality. Just life.
That's all I want. Just to live my life. My peaceful, ordinary life. And the only way I can do that is for you to count me out of this.
I wish you'd make the same choice, but as things stand, you had a good life.
Well, a decent life.
Oh, who am I kidding? When you meet Beelzebub, try not to give...
I think I have died.
There was a strange man looking at me, clothed in black with blue eyes gleaming from behind a hood. I tried to peer into the darkness of that hood but could make out nothing save the eyes.
He explained to me that I had died, but not to panic. Death was not as bad as people would have me believe. Rather than the end it was a new beginning. He was here to point me in the right direction, then the journey was my own.
Journey? I knew nothing of a journey. I just guessed...
When I was 12, I went to sea. When I was 12 and 1/16th, I knew it had been a terrible idea after all and swam for shore. Shore turned out to be not where I started. I ate monkey brains with a wooden spoon, I wore voluminous silk pants in a brighter blue than had ever been seen before in my hometown so far away, I stole. It was a fine adventure. When I arrived home, dusty and below the dust a crusty layer of salt, and below the crusty layer of salt my skin nut brown, I was...
In the little house, Brigid waited for the big lady to leave. She wanted peace, and the special sound of wind when no one was around. Kneeling people interrupted the woosh of air that made her forgetful. Kneeling people made her remember everything about praying and wanting things outside her little house. This was a House for Not Praying, for Not Wanting. But all these big people came. A miracle had happened here and she couldn't get rid of them. The gravel she laid out specially over what had been soft grass cut into their old knees and young knees...
I stood on tiptoe to see what the catcalls and commotion were about. "Let her breathe!" someone shouted. "Get a room!" called a tall man next to me. I watched the jubilation, the adoration, with partial mortification. The people around pushed and jostled as the couple became the sideshow.
"Don't let go," my mother said, squeezing my hand tightly in hers.
I preferred her hand to the passion going on above me. The clutch of bodies surged ahead, straining to see. The couple was quickly forgotten as the crowd's attention was captivated by the parade ahead, passion finding another outlet.
She always felt a little self-conscious about wearing headphones in public. She didn't want to seem anti-social, or too cool, or appear totally oblivious to the bike rider frantically ringing his bell as he approached from behind.
That's why she visited the gardens so much. Not so much for the flowers but butterflies had secrets of their own. They listened to their own songs and drifted through a world of their own. They wouldn't judge her musical tastes and she would be silly to judge theirs. After all, who are the deaf to judge those who can hear in color?
You can count me out.
That was what he had said as he had stormed off.
It wasn't as though the plan had been so ridiculous. It would just have been time consuming and time was the one thing he did not have in abundace.
He still had to write his paper, read five chapters worth of background material, prepare his meal chart for the week and continue training for the marathon.
No, he did certainly did not have time to mess around by climbing flagpoles and pulling practical jokes.
Just like he hadn't had time to go out with...
On the journey back from the Reichenbach Falls, Sherlock Holmes began writing his memoirs. The book was sent to a trusted friend and kept hidden until 2013 when it was accidentally found in an attic.
John Watson was clearing out his uncle's house, lugging down old boxes of musty clothes, books and Christmas decorations down the rickety ladder and throwing everything into the skip on the driveway.
The book fell out on top of his paint stained trainers. Something about the handwriting caught his attention. He's just read a book on graphology and thought it would be interesting to see...
The dream had been wonderful, yet it would never be real. All property already let. Already sold. Already gone.
"Renting or buying?" The neat young executive type, sipping his coffee next to me, pointed at the property paper. I'd been looking for 6 months and it was killing me.
"It's murder." I shifted to give him space to sit, and sighed. "I own a small shit hole I've got to get out of. You an Estate Agent?"
"No, but these guys will get you somewhere to rest your bones…" My gaze followed his finger to a small ad tucked under...
"Grandpop's teeth didn't look like that."
"How do you know?"
"Because mom always said you got his teeth. Do your teeth look like that?"
"Maybe after they'd been in the ground for fifty years."
"Not even. Look at the length of them."
"No, teeth keep growing after you die."
"That's nails, dummy. And they have to be attached still. You think teeth keep growing if they're just loose like this?"
"Who can say?"
"You know who would know?"
"Yeah, but she can't exactly tell us, now can she?"
"Well, she'd know for sure."
"Grandma's probably the one who did it...