The ghost girls kept appearing on the photographs. Even on the really old one of my grandfather.
I wasn't that concerned, it was bound to be an effect of those new pills from the doctor. The leaflet had a million and one side effects including hallucinations.
On my seventy first birthday all the family were round my house and I was just blowing out the candles on the three level chocolate cake when there was a pounding on the door.
Police.
They took me into the kitchen and closed the door. Sparing the rest of the family the embarasssment of...
We sat on our toboggan at the top of the hill behind the house. It wasn't much of a sliding hill, but it was easy to walk up, so, there you go.
Me, Jenny, Eric and Becky took turns sliding down on the hot pink crazy carpet and then struggling up the slope in ski pants and too big boots. It was only the third or fourth snow of the season and between the melts there was just enough of the white stuff to pick up a bit of speed on your descent.
Eric or Jenny came up with the...
Shannon sat up, her eyes wide open. She wasn't sure if she was awake or asleep. She looked around the room (dirty socks, cat puke in one corner, empty Miller cans, a laundry basket filled with clean clothes) and wished it was all unfamiliar. She looked at the man next to her. His back was smooth and tanned. A tiny mole winked at her from his left shoulder blade. She wished he was a stranger.
Shannon lay back down. The pillow was damp with sweat, her sweat. Had she been dreaming or coming out of a fever?
"Where are you...
"Do you think we'll be there in time?" Annette didn't care but she felt as though she should say something to break the awkward silence in the car.
"No." Paolo answered. Annette waited for him to say something else. He didn't so she just continued staring out the window, watching the world pass by outside the car.
They had been traveling for two days, stopping only briefly at a run down motel on the outskirts of some city to catch a night of sleep. Yesterday had been Annette's birthday but the occasion passed by without so much as a balloon....
Raisins are evil. They just don't belong... anywhere really. They're grapes that couldn't make it and have a second chance as rai-sins... that's right. Sins. You read it right. You have to admit that it's pretty strange that sins is right there in raisins. They're evil little wanna bes that wreak havok on all things good and wholesome. Cinnamon buns for instance. What's worse in a cinnamon bun than raisins? Nothing! Raisins are the poops of the fruit world! And they end up in your cinnamon bun like little turds. Little fruit turds that have to be picked around and...
He ran into the room, his heart pounding, and his clothes soaking wet.
"I just ate a fire hydrant," he said.
Mom and I were drinking tea by the fire. Now mom's brow furrowed.
"Donald, whatever do you mean?"
Donald peeled up his soaking wet shirt so we could see the hydrant protruding through his skin. I could see flecks of red paint trying to break through the skin above his solar plexus.
Mom went into the kitchen and came back with some pliers.
"We have to remove that hydrant," she said.
She stuck the pliers down his throat and...
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...
One rainy street was much like another, it turned out. It didn't matter where in the world you were, whether it was city or town - it was the same.
People acted the same. They hustled and bustled, tugging coats around them, hoping that collars could be turned up and their necks could be saved from uncomfortable raindrops. Some - prepared ones - had umbrellas, using them as a more sophisticated method (supposedly). They wore smug smirks - until they bumped into one another.
Nobody had perfected walking down a street of multiple umbrellas.
They all rushed, eager to escape...
TWIST.
The World Is Still Turning.
It was months after the destruction. We knew it was coming so we headed to the shelters that our grandfather had dug, in the deep mountains. We went in and closed the doors, sealing out the world and sealing ourselves inside.
Eventually, cabin fever struck. We decided that living like rats, in a hole, was not acceptable. We had to know what was going on.
We opened the seals and felt the rush of truly, fresh air. Everything outside looked the same. We decided to venture out to see what was what.
Part way,...
Becky hoped Tom saw what she had written before her teacher did.
Mr. Smith was notoriously tidy about the things in his classroom. Desks were wiped down once a day, not by the school janitorial staff but by him personally. In other classes she knew friends who would write on the desks, leaving messages for the students who sat there after them - a sort of school texting service between students without cell phones, but Tom took only this one class after her. Would he see her message? She could pass it off as a doodle and if he said...