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...
Heather had never found her talent.
The smallest amount of knitting made her arms feel like they'd fall from her shoulders. Her paintings looked like they'd been crafted by a toddler. Even decoupage, just gluing paper onto things to decorate them, seemed beyond her reach; in every project the images were wrinkled and unattractive. What was she doing wrong? Time and time again she struggled to release her creative genius, the one she had been told lived inside each and every person, but evidently she preferred to stay hidden deep inside.
Standing on the bridge, she watched the churning waters...
He set the plate before her. It steamed, smells of carmelized meat and cinnamon wafted up to her nose. "This is my lust."
He still spoke with inflection, they had not dined upon his theatricality, his sense of timing, his desire to surprise. There was an order to these things, and while he still had that order, he would continue. The assembled guests mumbled their appreciation, though Dowager Harriet was still chewing through the last bites of his shame.
When the Boddhisatva-to-be had announced this meal, the good and great had tittered that he had finally lost his mind. Spent...
"Wow, that was a fun."
"Yeah, it was."
Water dripped on the floor as they ran through the house and out onto the deck watching the lightning. It scared her at first but then it was like she had never seen anything so beautiful and menacing. Except perhaps her 8th grade Science teacher, Mr. Hanson. He was an odd man, with a thick black unibrow and wrinkles that resembled an old cartographer's first attempt at the East Coast of South America. He had a sinister laugh, not unlike the thunder shaking the ground under her feet.
She remembers thinking he...
She stared down into the shallow pond from where she stood on the banks, and sighed. There was world just below the broken surface of the water, a world that she longed to understand. The lillypads floating on the surface seemed to hide their world from hers, but she knew better. The world below, it was alive and well. It was something that she could feel, from the tips of her fingers, up her arms and across her heart, and all throughout her entire body.
All she had to do was jump.
Though the pond was only a foot or...
"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...
The water was clear but her conscience was not.
Carla gazed into the crystal goblet's depths, the sparkling liquid reflecting the sunlight that filtered through the kitchen's old fashioned windows. It was one of the things that originally attracted them to the old, refurbished barn. The glass irregular, thicker at the bottom, letting the natural light unevenly through its depths, like the sun seen from underwater.
Carla smiled at the memory. They had been happier then. Happy and in love and carefree, despite the financial uncertainty of starting a new life together. But they had scrimped and saved for their...
So close, yet so far. Matey the Pirate never understood the phrase until these last few days of his life. The woodpecker would get closer and closer to the nub that was left of his leg, chipping away at the wooden peg that was left. He had to make it to shore. The ship was not going to last. The gapping hole in the bottom was filling the ship with too much water. This all meant that Matey would have to float to shore. Alone, he had not enough buoyancy to make it. In such a situation he though could...
I'm dead. It wasn't part of the plan, but I'm really dead. The plan involved Scotch tape, 10-gauge wire, and a grey kitten. It ended me, though. And I guess that means the plan didn't work. Because me being dead wasn't part of the plan.
I'm dead and it's no one's fault but my own. The bridge was a last minute addition to the plan. So was the kite. It was one of those kites from the drugstore--cheap plastic, make in China or Poland or somewhere. There were thin wooden dowels. Not quite strong enough.
I'm dead and I think...
It was a cold day in May when Saffy and Blaze visited the zoo. They weren't too keen, but the weather was adverse enough to prevent bikini clad beach visits.
Saffy perked up when she realised they zoo had lots of tigers in residence. They trailed around behind a school group. Twenty or so seven year olds trying to behave in a way that kept their friends entertained, yet the teachers happy. The zoo was better than being cooped up in a classroom anyway.
Blaze said, "come on Saff, let's hear what this keeper has to say," as the twenty-something...