An old sepia photo can be a bullet. It can tear through the lineup of neurons, neatly lined up like socks on a bed. It can make you aware that you are your latest incarnation. That you have been here before.
A mother and her child. Doesn't that child look familiar? Who remembers his own birth? Especially when it was 70 years ago? Today I am 27. I have been 27 many times now, projecting myself a year into the future so that I could live as 27 for a year, then my past self projecting himself a year into...
The alien craft exploded invisible to the human eye. The inhabitants had exited over an hour ago, running amazingly fast past the animals lying lazily on the sun scorched land who barely gave them a glance, such was their speed.
Marsha's mom said a second rosary just before going to bed after the long and happy day that was Marsha's wedding. She had never believed that her plain yet loving daughter could have made such a good match. Tom was not only clever, strong and good looking but he was such a homely man, loved helping with the farm, crops...
Hello city, hello Amy's boyfriend way down there. Hello penny. Let's see if it's so, what I remember from 4th grade about what happens when you drop a penny off the Empire State. On this street we walked and I wanted to yell at people who cat called her and to ask them if they had mother's and shame them. Down by the sudsy Hudson River we laid out and looked at the buildings and talked about Kenya, about the merits of going away and trying to talk ourselves into a compulsion to stay. On that bench she cried at...
His hand skimmed lightly over the cool metal bumps. His brow furrowed as he struggled to remember the meaning of the pattern, feeling the warmth of his girlfriend pressing close to his left.
"D-down?" he asked softly, biting his lip as his fingers lingered, heating the Braille with his own touch. Braille. Just another sign, along with the sudden paranoia for his safety, that he was no longer the young man he'd been before the accident. Just another sign he was no longer going to be independent, not really.
Just another milestone.
"Yeah," Jessica replied even more quietly, her voice...
"No, absolutely not, that's completely ridiculous."
"But why, John?" asked Amy, staring at the tigers in the enclosure. "They're just big cats. It can't hurt."
John snorted, his unique way of showing contempt, disgust and amusement all in one foul sound. "They're tigers, Ames. Tigers. You know, man eating wild animals? They'd sooner eat us than live with us. You're mental."
"But I want one. And you said you'd get me whatever I wanted. You promised. It's my birthday." Amy pouted and stamped her foot.
John rolled his eyes. "Within reason, sweetheart! I mean within reason. And don't stamp around...
"But why are there cracks?"
"Each of them is a single stone."
"Where do the stones come from?"
"Stones are made by the Earth. These stones..."
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why does the Earth make stones?"
"Time and pressure."
"Not how. Why?"
"I don't know. But these stones are shaped by people."
"Why?"
"To pave the road."
"Why?"
"So we can walk on it."
"That stone is broken."
"It will be replaced."
"They have more stones?"
"They will make more."
"What if they don't?"
"What if they don't what?"
"What if they don't make more?"
"They will make more."
"But what...
Spinning. Thirteen years old and with my friends in some suburban backyard, spinning. Looking up at the nightime stars and spinning. Spinning until a single star became the axis around which the universe revolved. Spinning until everything made momentary sense and then dissolved away in fits of giggles and pratfalls on the grass.
Spinning, the car catching my rear bumper and turning me in a full circle so that the city became a blur.
Spinning in the pool, three somersaults in a row is what turned the pool into the ocean filled with the giant squid and the great white...
One hundred and eighty thousand pounds. Sterling. Sitting on her dresser, in tight little wads of cash. One hundred and eighty thousand pounds is a lot of money. Hell, before today, one thousand was the absolute maximum I had seen in any one place at one time, and that was in the hands of Stu, the dealer, and he was just flashing it around to show off. One hundred eighty thousand? It damn near crowded everything else off the dresser. And she was just, what, going to leave it there?
"Where's this from?" I asked.
"You know where it's from."...
If your parents are going to name you after a song, there are a few things they should think about.
For a start, it needs to be a good song. Actually, no, it needs to be an actual name. Nobody wants a kid called "You know what they do to guys like us in prison."
But it still needs to be a good song. A really good one. Not some one-hit-wonder.
And it should be subtle. I mean, "Penny Lane" - that's obvious. "Layla"? Not so much.
Maybe I'll change my name to Layla, when the forms come through. Or...
The Potentate surveyed his creamsicle tower cooly.
"Were my instructions not clear," he asked in the calm manner so many of his associates found so frightening. "Was the language I was speaking truly so difficult to decipher?"
Nobody spoke up at first, though everyone knew two things: the longer he went without an answer, the angrily the Potentate would get. The second fact, whoever spoke first stood a good chance of receiving the brunt of his displeasure. As was often the case, everyone opted for an intense anger spread over the whole group, then face being a direct target of...