I'm in love with a robot, thats all there is to it. When his parents tell him how to live his life, where to go to college, where to work, even when to go on dates, he just goes along with it. He makes me so upset sometimes. I know that he has brilliant ideas and knows exactly what he wants to do with his life, and yet he lets others decide everything for him. If only he would stand up for himself. I know who he really is. He is wonderfully funny, incredibly smart, and full of ambition. But...
As he wandered through the countryside, he couldn't quite believe he'd done it. He'd done it. Gene Black had actually done it. Finally. And although it had been something he had been planning for months, years, maybe his whole life, he didn't feel quite as good as he thought he would.
He had dreamed of being a murderer for as long as he could remember. He had wanted to feel life draining away in his hands, to watch as the soul departed the body. If it did. It was all about experimentation and, perhaps understandably, there was nothing he could...
"I have something to tell you."
These are not words you want to hear from your girlfriend when you first walk in the door after a late night at work. Still, Lewis tried to stay calm, tried not to let his imagination get ahead of him. He sat down at the formica kitchen table, looking up at Sadie. She was actually wringing her hands. He thought that only happened in stories. A long pause...
"Well, honey? What is it? You're making me kind of nervous here."
"I know, I know. I'm sorry. I just... Ok. Here goes. I'm... I'm a...
There's nothing like a few moments watching television while eating popcorn and drinking lemonade. Kelly absolutely loves watching television.
Unfortunately, she works second shift and misses a lot of her favorite primetime shows. Thank God for TiVo, right?
Right.
She can fast forward between comercials, record anything she likes and relive all her funny, tear jerking, pulse racing moments at the click of a button. So long as she has the room on her beloved TiVo, Kelly can rule the world.
Right now, she just wants to pause. All that lemonade and popcorn from the begining is starting to catch...
"It worked!" He stood, startled by the sound of his own voice. What had worked?
Looking around, he wasn't quite sure if he should be more worried that he didn't know why he had said something he didn't understand, or about the fact that he was in a place he didn't recognise with no memory of having arrived there. A word caught his eye. Phone. He rolled it around his head. Yes. He could make a call. He should make a call. A number emerged from his growing consciousness. Should he be worried about that feeling of expansion, as though...
She didn't look at him.
"So that's my answer, is it?" He stared at her, hoping, praying for - well, anything. Any kind of response. A show of emotion.
She didn't look at him.
"Fine. If - if that's how it is, if that's - fine." He wanted the weight to lift from his shoulders, now that he knew the truth, he wanted something to happen, some kind of change - he wanted to feel something.
There was nothing. He was numb. He wasn't even angry, he just felt cold.
"So I'll be going then."
Her back was to him...
Sandy was impressed. Her son, John, had never thrown a ball back like that before - so hard and fast that it bypassed her completely and flew over the wall at the bottom of the small garden they shared. "Nice one, Johnny!" she yelled. "Let me go and get it, I'll be right back!"
She yanked open the wooden gate recessed into the red brick wall and entered the narrow alleyway at the back of her house - and all the other houses like it. She looked left and right and spotted the ball rolling away from her, towards the...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway.
After a carefully judged amount of time she stood up and retied the bow at her waist.
"Sure, you stood me up at prom, Adam," she said, "but THIS is for calling my dissertation 'feeble-minded and a stunning waste of recycled pulp' in front of my advisor."
She retrieved her bike and stuck a hardbound volume titled "AN OPTIMIZED PROGRAMMABLE BINARY ARCHITECTURE FOR A SCALABLE DIGITAL THEOREM ITERATOR" into the handlebar basket.
Then, whistling, she hiked up her skirts, straddled the seat, and biked off into...
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?
"I can do this," Jimmy thought as he ran across the field. It was early Sunday morning; the light was pale and there was still dew on the grass. At 5 A.M., Mom had woken up in a cold sweat groaning and swiping at imaginary demons in her bedroom.
"Go get Aunt Jane," Dad had said. Jimmy had never seen his hands shake or heard his voice crack.
After the first mile, a stitch built in Jimmy's side. He was breathing heavy. Another mile ahead was Aunt Jane's tiny cabin. She lived alone and had a garden of herbs. When...