This wasn't supposed to happen. You weren't supposed to feel this way; about your mother-in-law. But didn't the saying go, if you wanted to know what your wife would look like in 30 years...and that was another thing. She only had another few years in her. Her husband wasn't giving it to her. I'm a goddamn octo-phile, he thought. Was that the word? But she was perfect -- an insurance commercial, the cover of Mature Living, hell, the centerfold.
"Theo, is everything all right, dear?" Theo had begun mumbling to himself.
"Yes, mom. I'll have another hot dog, if you...
"You don't like her, do you?"
"I don't have to."
He glanced at her, although kept his eyes on the road. "You have to try."
"Really, my feelings towards her don't matter, what matters is that you like her, and she likes you." Her feathers were ruffled now as she looked out of the window, most decidedly not at him. "Besides. I am trying."
"Then maybe you should try harder."
They didn't speak, the sounds of the engine the only thing keeping them from awkward silence.
"The others all like her."
"I don't have to like everyone - "
"You...
"The sheep were at pasture," Daniel typed into his screen. Monica slinked up behind him, read the screen and mocked, "Wow Dan, that sounds like the beginning to a dirty joke, not a children's story."
"Thanks for the encouragement. Hey, I thought you were on your way to get your nails done?"
"I'm getting ready to go, I got stopped by a phone call from your mother."
"What did she want?"
"Nothing really. She just wanted to know if she could throw a surprise party for her little baby boy's thirtieth."
"Shit. I told you I don't want any of...
It approached. The deadline was upon him. There was no more time, no more stalling, no more pleading and simply no more giving. It was time, a harsh fate was to be met. Failure on all accounts, many unsuccessful attempts, it was not good enough. Their eyes met, tears sprang to hers and determination hardened his jaw. There was no way out, this was it. They would not see him cry. They would not see him ground down. He raised his hand and placed it on the window that separated them. She did the same. They had each said all...
There is a crow somewhere in the trees, unseen but seeing all. There are a million tiny eyes beneath the grass that feel our footsteps and send out warnings.
Somewhere in the world is a man who would do us harm if we were to cross his path at this moment. It's midnight. A few cars drive past us, and each might contain a demented murderer.
The moon shows its bellyful of craters, and some of the stars are planets. There are a million tiny eyes up there somewhere looking out at us.
This is the eve of something momentous....
When the colors first started disappearing, no one noticed. After all, the first to go was chartreuse, and no one ever used chartreuse. Almost no one even knew what chartreuse was, most people thought it was a purplish-red color anyway.
So when a few bottles of French liqueur went grey, no one could tell, it might have been a trick of the light and the glass. A particularly terrible shade of salmon, popular for a brief period in the mid-40s was next to go. But most examples of that were already buried beneath years of garbage, or hidden behind five...
She rolled onto her side, the duvet rustling, pulled back to reveal a slender leg, almost too slender for a young woman of 24. Her eyes opened slowly. The expression on her blank, disinterested face was a striking contrast to the expectant face of the girl kneeling next to the bed. The little girl clasped the woman's hand in both of hers and shook. Pulling away, the young woman disappeared back under the covers.
"Mommy! Mommy, wake up today, okay?" Pleas were answered with silence. There would be no waking up that day.
Fourteen fish
bunched
like a silver
artichoke
They are traveling
farther
than their fathers
who never
left the river
Their futures
are
in lemons
and
bread crumbs
Leonard stumbled back. He almost fell. His heart raced and sweat stuck his shirt to his belly and back and armpits. He'd had patients worse off than Bea, patients with bloody ends, with pointless existances, tortured creatures that lived and died hooked to electricity and strapped to beds. None with the relative safety and comforts that he'd been treating Bea in, the comfort of home.
This was a scheduled meeting in the garden, she'd come from the trees, barefoot, bare arms, makeup garishly applied and with the gauzy veil over her face. His boy would laugh, he imagined, would point...
In the time of stone and wood, when you and I walked through shady forests surrounded by the scent of roasting ptarmigan and flint-struck fire, we loved the world and all it contained.
In the time of iron and silk, when you and I rode through across the land surrounded by the scent of rotting bison and coal smoke, we possessed the world and all it contained.
In the time of silicon and glass, when you and I flew through the sky surrounded by the scent of soymeal and ozone, we eschewed the world and all it contained.
Now, in...