f18000. that was what he was being paid for murder. She'd seen to much. She was the key to blowing the case wide open. He scanned the crowded mall, looking for the face in the photo. He spotted it, and reeled back in surprise. She was just a teenager, barely old enough to drive. He pulled himself together, then put the newly loaded gun back in his waistband. He tracked the victim out of the mall and into the parking lot. She was completely oblivious, laughing and talking with her friends. She said good bye and made her way across...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. She was the last surviving member of the Yoshi Crew, a band who had until recently been quite the rage amongst the in-crowd of Berlin. Her devil-may-care attitude and foul mouth had won her a place in the hearts and minds of Berlin's anti-establishment, anti-casual, anti-everything crowd. In Beijing, things had gone more than a little wrong. Mechmal, the under-fed, over-exaggerated singer had found them a gig at a nightclub in the centre of Beijing's equivalent of Soho as they worked their way around the world....
It was the fall that surprised me the most.
The winter, she was fine. Spring, slowly getting sick, Summer, even sicker.
In fall, she fully recovered from stage 3 liver cancer. There was someone to thank. God or someone.
It could have been the praying, or just hoping we didn't lose her. She was only 7. 7-year-olds aren't supposed to just die from liver cancer. Ella's better now, though. It's easy to believe in something when a dying child makes a full recovery from something so evil as that.
So God, or someone, thank you. It was God or someone...
"One scoop chocolate, one scoop..."
"Let me guess, vanilla." the man behind the counter grinned at me.
Was I really so predictable? I felt the colour rise to my cheeks.
"Erm..."
"I was right. I remember." he threw his head back and laughed.
"Actually..."
"2.53 every afternoon. One scoop chocolate and one scoop vanilla. Like clockwork."
He was starting to annoy me now.
"Actually, I was going to ask..."
I stopped. I was going to ask for vanilla. Truth is I only like vanilla and chocolate ice cream. Always have. But now I had started something. Alex was right, I...
My grandma had this incredible house. Like one of the ones you see in movies. Like, this is going to be a really crazy example, but did you ever see "The Tigger Movie"? Like Winnie the Pooh. There's this part where they're in the attic and I always remember wishing we had an attic with all that cool old stuff to explore in our house. Then I found Grandma's attic and I knew I'd hit something special! There was actually a stand-up mirror covered in a sheet and a few large trunks full of old clothes! So great.
I think...
She was the most delicate girl in town. Small, pixieish, with willowy limbs and and small features placed evenly on her round face. She dressed delicately, too, with long, floaty skirts and light fabrics such as cotton and lace. She seemed to float when she walked, flicking her skirts and jumping lightly, like a fawn. But her eyes were, well, disturbing. electric green, with long, slit, vertical pupils, like a cat's. I wondered who she was, and where she came from. But one day, she just, dissapeared. Not a trace of her was found. one day, they found her at...
Sal couldn't breathe. And he couldn't stand running through a huge group of people. They didn't have much to hurry for. Some of them were walking calmly to trains, while others were meeting thier loved ones after riding in on one.
He was the only idiot in the place litteraly pushing through people. He would have to apologize to the old lady with the walker he knocked flat on her butt later. Right now, Karen was his main focus.
Karen. She left Salvadore a message on his answering machine. Something about leaving him, because she couldn't keep playing house anymore....
They gathered in the woods. The darkness entwined itself around everything it touched. Filling every hole, every space it could claim.
It was not the darkness that was so frightening, it was that which hide inside. Using it as a clever camouflage.
Something hid, something stalked and watched and he could feel it. It was looking at him, watching and waiting. Its gaze crawling across his skin like tiny spiders.
He hid within himself not wanting to accept it. He built up the layers to keep the darkness out. He would not fear the thing in the dark. he would...
She sat staring at the skin of her hands. Her eyes traced the many lines, imagining the skin to be the brown, scorched earth of deserts, thirsty for life.
The wrinkled skin gathered above her enlarged knuckles, reminding her of dried fruit.
She continued examining her hands, wondering how the finiteness of life had come to suddenly feel so tangible.
Her veins somehow looked foreign. Her age had caused her veins to become like strange, throbbing, river-like threads of yarn, sewn to her flesh, invading her hands.
She rubbed the underside of her index finger against the rough surface of...
I cannot be old as were, but I'll be as old...
No springs, no machination, no burn, can retreat the circle
but the circle will come round
--not old as were
Along the shore they did not remember
Walking until their flesh and their ligaments
Wasted
No mercy for the parched
And she stood staring from behind pa(in)
And he paced
And he destroyed
And he ripped--because
This is not the girl I wanted
This is not the girl I knew
This is not the girl I ordered
Custom made behind a pa(in) of glass
Darling or darling oh darling...