The episodes were getting more frequent. I'd forget where I was. Friends looking at me strangely as I carried on conversations finished ten minutes ago. Losing my new phone. Girlfriend called off our holiday, fed up of getting ignored. The tests showed it wasn't epilepsy. I felt strangely calm as though it was meant to be.
During my time away I lived a different life, on a different plane. Soon I knew it would be my permanent home.
I could hear dad's voice at a distance, feel mom's hand on mine. Fear.
I was slipping away in the hospital bed....
It was cold. Freezing, really. There at the stoop, on the street, glowing in red. Dark, straight hair raking her face. She shivered, stood and walked down the street. To me, this place is foreign. To her, she knows the environment like the stories her mother told her. She walks down the road away from the doorway. Where they threw her out. Spit on her. But now she walks down the road trying to keep warm. She coughs. The shivers shake her again. The cold day drops her onto the street, rejecting her and the brightness of her clothes. The...
Joey stood sucking on his wine gums. Lime was his favourite, tart and bitter; made him think of summertime grass and his turtle Matlin. Today was supposed to be a fun day; his Mum had brought him to the theme park. He 'love' it she had said. He wasn't so sure. So far he didn't like it but he was trying to pretend. Otherwise Mum would be sad again, and she'd been so sad lately. And angry. She was angry at Daddy because Daddy couldn't come to the theme park. Joey didn't mind though as Daddy had given him two...
that's my sister
o, she was a riot, she was
Always with the arms
HAhAhaha
it was natural, ya know
used them to talk-
but you gave her a sip of alcohol-
o girl
Wam Wam-
even my brothers would avoid standing too close
i've had many bruises over the years due to a night on the town with that girl
.. now, not that she'd fight-
just scream and laugh and ..Punch your shoulder instead of slapping it
"she's singing in this photo though, correct mrs. Neel"
o, well, yes of course she's singing, boy.
she had a beautiful...
In hindsight, the solution was obvious. It always was, that was the glory of hindsight. And it wasn't so bad when you didn't have someone crowing at you, not quite saying "I told you so" but thinking it very loudly indeed.
She wasn't sure why she put up with him. Twenty-something years they'd been friends. You got less for murder (she'd thought about it - not for long, but it had still crossed her mind). He was cocky and insufferable, and the best friend she'd ever had.
Very irritating, the way these things seemed to dovetail together so neatly.
They'd...
She'd always come running when I called. I forgot myself at one point, and went to call her name, which made me feel even more isolated. It was so strange to be up on our hill alone.
A bitter wind whistled around the crest of the hill. I tugged my scarf tighter around my neck and wished I had worn a hat. It was so cold. Far too cold for a morning in March.
As I looked to the tiny ant-like people walking along the river bank below, the scene misted up before my eyes. It was not the same...
Gradually. That's what the doctor tells me. Gradually I will get worse. My liver will gradually fail; my arthritis will gradually turn my hands crooked.
So gradually, you mean, I'm dying? Isn't that bullshit? Could there be something worse for me to hear? So gradually since the age of 13, I've been killing myself. That first drink, to the last, I "gradually" ruined my insides? All because my parents failed to tell me what drinking really does to you? So it's my fault that during summers, parties, college, and beyond, that I "enjoyed" my life while ruining it at the...
The snow had hardened overnight and was crisp now. It wasn't what you would call a cold day and Fran had left her jacket unbuttoned. She was looking at the children off in the distance.
"I'd forgotten that it was today."
Alan was looking farther away.
"I wasn't looking forward to it or anything."
He reached in his pocket and found and empty packet of cigarettes.
"Dammit."
"When did they start doing it?"
"I don't know, maybe 3 or 4 years ago."
"Do you remember the first one?"
"No. It's just a thing that happens."
She felt very bad then...
The drugs were beginning to wear off. Minute by minute the butterflies, those glorious, evanescent, friendly butterflies, were fading. She pressed the earpiece of her headphones to her ear. Pink Floyd were sounding like a noisy nightmare. As she gazed out across the valley, with its endless vista of trees, trees and more trees, she came down to earth with a bump. She should get back to work - artificial props might give her a brief respite, but she had a deadline to meet and a quota to make. Sighing, she pressed stop and slipped her headphones down round her...
The gods used the lake as their mirror, reflecting their beauty along its still waters, awash with azure skies and billowing clouds of purest white. The earth goddess tolerated their use of her lake, because it suited her. The heavenly colors complimented her own, golden shores and the brown shining mountains that surrounded the blue waters. If only the heavens could grant her wish, she would trade places with the gods of the sky and walk upon her own shores. As maudlin thoughts filled her like the waters of that same lake, she changed her mind and only wished to...