When he went to the pet store Mark Anderson thought it was going to be just another day. He was going to pick out the goldfish for his nephew's birthday and head on his way. Boy was he ever wrong.
It started as soon as he walked in, the cashier was giving him a very funny look that Mark couldn't exactly place. The pets were even weirder. They all looked as though they'd been through hell and back, but Mark, startled as he was, kept looking for that goldfish. If only he'd left then.
He got to the aquarium section...
Marvin's head jerked up from the desk when he heard that ring. It was an awful ring - one that he should have been used to, and probably would have been, under normal circumstances. But the reason why this ring was so horrendous and annoying was because Melinda accompanied it, with her terrible voice, saying "Marvin! Pick up the damn phone!"
Marvin wanted to go back to sleep, but he knew that he shouldn't have been sleeping in the first place. And that voice, "Marvin, Pick up the damn phone!"
The trouble, of course, was that the phone had been...
The cool water soothed her. She had to get out of the stifling heat, and the stifling company. Why she had agreed to this trip she would never know, but he had insisted.
'It will be good for us,' he said.
No, it won't, she thought. It will be sheer torture, because we both know we're flogging this horse beyond it's natural lifespan. But she packed anyway, not realising that lying beside his sweaty body would be the final nail.
She floated for a while, staring at the stars. They were bright in the cobalt-blue sky, pin prinks of brightness...
She opened the envelope and screamed. Then she opened the next envelope, screamed, set it down. Then the next, screamed, set it down. Next, screamed, down. Next, screamed, down.
A strange ritual. Letting out some kind of pent up anger and frustration. She had drawn a crowd, as one letter after another would be opened, followed by a scream, then the laying down of the envelope. For hours on end she did exactly the same thing. Open, scream, down. Soon, the crowd had grown quite large. The police arrived, and stood for a few minutes, watching this bizarre ritual. One...
Gradually. Ever so gradually, he noticed her work routine. She'd come into the shop below the CCTV camera that gave him his vantage point. She'd stop, check her skirt, then turn and wave. Wave straight at him, it seemed.
Once when he spilt his coffee he swore she looked up, about to greet the camera (or him?) and then the smile vanished. As if she had seen what had happened and was sorry for his stained pants.
In trawling through the back footage, looking for a pattern. Something to identify who had planted the device that had wrecked half the...
I jumped clear out of my skin, I did. Well, I wasn't es'pectin' him to come creepin' up behind me all quiet-like! Nearly gave me a heart attack, I warrant. It's like I always said; that boy's gonna get his self in a heap a trouble if he don't shape up an' learn his self some manners. Come girl! What's got you all google-eyed out the window? OOooohhh no. No, no. It just ain't right; you givin' him so much of the good Lord's precious day as you do. Come away from that window now, girl. That's not a good...
she didn't look at him. he had been absolutely horrid. he had simply taken off to the other corner of the world and hadn't even thought to come back and see her first. "Oh, darling. I missed you so much. Sweetheart - is something wrong?" "No - it's nothing." he begged her to tell him what wa wrong. she looked at him with her intense stare. "Why don't you guess? You can't just leave me like that! You said you loved me!" "I do love you.." "If that were true you would have come and seen me before leaving again....
Drip. Drip. Drip. The blood plopped to the concrete floor like a leaky faucet. He contemplated about the throbbing pain he felt with every plop.
He enjoyed that feeling. Concentrating so much on one pain over and over again. The first time he asked his boyfriend to blindfold him and punch in him the face - his boyfriend thought he was being dirty.
"You like it rough..." he had coyly responded.
The problem was it stopped being about the pleasure and more about the pain. He wanted to feel the warm liquid glop from his mouth and puddle to his...
"Ugh," Shiloh said, rolling her eyes over the steaming cup of coffee that she had been holding for the last twenty minutes.
Her boyfriend Micah looked across the table and couldn't help but let out a very quiet laugh. "What?" he asked, still laughing as he did.
"Don't what me," she replied softly, shaking her head as she took a very long sip of her still piping hot coffee. "Don't, Micah. You know exactly what that ugh was for."
After Micah had graduated from university with a degree in chemical engineering, he had convinced himself that he didn't want a...
I sat there every day waiting. But nothing ever happened. I hoped if I sat there long enough that she would come back and everything would be back to normal. I knew that when she was pulled from the car that there was no turning back. I thought maybe if I had her in my mind, it could reverse that awful event that caused so much pain and grief. At least I am not alone on my journey back to recovery with my family and friends by my side hopefully I can move on. But I know truly that I...