I woke up hung over, my head throbbing. It felt like mini-jackhammers were destroying my frontal lobe, something I am sure the Scotch took care of last night.
The room was unfamiliar, but I had seen it plenty of times laid out in some IKEA or Sears catalog. I was on the bed with an Oak, maybe Maple, night-stand next to it. The room smelled, not good or bad, just different from my bedroom. Clothes covered the floor in front of the closet, where I suddenly saw my pants. A desperate roll to my side brought back the mini-jackhammers.
The...
She'd have preferred the electric chair, at least that one bloody moved. She could get up a good speed on that one, maybe she could get out of it, escape their sympathetic looks. It was bad enough losing the power in your legs without their condescending looks. Idiots.
Apparently it was a "power chair", but, frankly, bollocks to that. Jokingt that she was living out a death sentence was one of her few pleasures left - that terror in their eyes, the "oh god how do we respond to that" was what she was living for right now.
Actually, that...
Ceci n'est pas un garçon.
"I hope we never grow up," Kate said.
"We will," answered Petra, "But we don't need to grow old."
The memories of that day forty years ago raged like a swollen river in Kate's mind. They had been 10 years old, dressed up in her mother's too large dresses, jackets and hats. They had a tea party and Mr. Bear was making some very funny jokes. Dolly was being quiet and nibbling at her cookies. But Petra was singing and dancing.
"I'll marry a handsome man who will take me to dances in castles," she had said.
A tear pooled...
Atop a ferris wheel the poor anxious squirrel found himself above the world far far away from the comfort of his tree and pile of nuts. As the wheel spun behind him, Mr. Squirrel ran ahead trying to keep up as he felt with every turn he would fall. As he lost ground he noted ascending higher and farther away from the ground. 'A telephone pole... a cable... a branch?' he thought could perhaps bring him to safety. When suddenly a gush of wind caused his tiny claws to slip across the rusty painted metal and he slipped. Falling, falling,...
"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...
She cradled the faun's head. She listened to its soft breath, listened to its complaint, listened its petition. But what could she do? What judgment could she give that would hold in the face of her ever-shrinking kingdom. Every year she shrunk, every year there were more men, and every year there was less.
At night under the moon she called her sisters, who had all once been close, close enough to be one, but now far and spread. They came if they could, sent emissaries if they could not. They talked until the edge of the sun, bloated and...
"Constellation of freckles."
I made a face. "Oh, that's going on the list."
She nodded with a degree of authority - she hadn't needed me to tell her it belonged on our list of paticularly purple prose, our list of phrases that were to be avoided at all costs.
"Can you even get a constellation of freckles?"
"Well, of course you can, it's an arrangement - it's the implication I resent. That freckles are like stars - who'd have starry freckles? You can't wish on a freckle."
"You could. I think that could be quite a romantic scene."
"Depends on...
What was that? I swear to god, something just went under the boat. I don't know what it was, but it was shiny, and it was fast.
Is it lunch time yet? I like lunch time. Everyone gathers near the front of the boat, eating their sandwiches and chips. Most usually share, at least a little bit. It's not like everyone can eat all of that. Most usually share, but you gotta watch closely. Gotta be vigilant. And be careful of the gulls. They'll sneak up on you in an instant. They scare easy, but man, are they sneaky.
I've...
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...