"The water was clear," he kept insisting.
We all had been there. There were pictures, and a video somewhere posted on youtube. The water had been far from clear. Anything but clear. It was thick almost to the point of gummy with chocolate brown sediment, and tiny detritus the likes of which I didn't want to contemplate.
"I saw it," he said. "Perfectly clear. Purified. He was standing in the middle of it, and he made it clean by his presence. I tell you I saw him!"
We all said we believed him. Some even went further than that.
"Yes,...
If humans are mostly water, what happens when you remove it?
This was the idle yet macabre thought that raced through Remdrick's brain as he performed routine maintenance on his vehicle. It may not have been the most current model, but Remdrick's needs were few. It needed to be space-worthy, it needed to have ample power, an electronic library, and living quarters sufficient for him and his pet. Though if she died during the nearly 120 year-long trip, he wanted a way to preserve the body- it would be nice to bury Mildred on the new homeworld. As things stood...
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...
In hindsight, the solution was obvious. It always was, that was the glory of hindsight. And it wasn't so bad when you didn't have someone crowing at you, not quite saying "I told you so" but thinking it very loudly indeed.
She wasn't sure why she put up with him. Twenty-something years they'd been friends. You got less for murder (she'd thought about it - not for long, but it had still crossed her mind). He was cocky and insufferable, and the best friend she'd ever had.
Very irritating, the way these things seemed to dovetail together so neatly.
They'd...
"Quack quack quack!"
*Translation: OH NO! BP!
"Quack quack quack quack."
*Translation: I'll have to move to another pond now...
"Quack quack..."
*Translation: Stupid #$#@%$%$#^#$ humans.
"Quack quack quack..."
*Translation: Or maybe I'll just steal all their rubber duckies. See how they like losing something.
"QUAAAACKKK!"
*Translation: MWAHAHAHAHHAHAHA
Mr Duckie went to become the Robin Hook of all ducks, stealing rubber duckies from all the human children and all the grownups who still like flotation toys. Right now he has a large organization, SOPWRD (Save Our Pond With Rubber Duckies) and has declared Ernie from Sesame Street as Duck Worlds...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. She hugged her shoulders and shivered in the form fitting dress. Too little cloth and too much cold collaborated to goose-pimple her flesh.
The man on the bed behind her called her back. She waited as long as she could before she knew he'd start complaining, and then she turned. He told her what to do. She did it. What choice did she have?
Later that evening, the Madam demanded the money she'd collected that evening. The girl pulled up the straps of her dress. "Yes,...
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 used to follow my grandfather up the field, gathering potatoes. He would pull them up and leave them like gold nuggets, glowing on the topsoil. I came behind with a trug that was big enough for my baby brother to sleep in. I struggled when the trug was nearly full, and I'd have to set it down every few yards and watch my grandfather as he worked mechanically ahead of me.
I daydreamed that, one day, there would be a real gold nugget lying on the row. I would take iot to the bank and a big man with...
Sasha stretched as she woke, the cold early morning air stinging her skin. Looking around, it took a moment to figure out where she was. The woodland near the playing fields. She had never come out this far before. She should hurry back before anyone realised she was missing. There was no way she was going back to see Dr Williams again. He gave her the creeps. There wasn't anything wrong with her anyway. She knew her parents despaired at her stories, but they weren't just stories. Why couldn't they see that? They were every bit as real as she...
My mother loved colour. She spent the last weeks of her life in a hospital bed, with its monotone greys and whites. People gave her all kinds of gifts and cards. But her favourite one was a bright purple robe with pink stitching.
That gift was from me. Truth is, I'm more of a tactile person. Yet I knew this was what she craved most--her two favourite colours in the world.
At her funeral, we released balloons in pink and purple. Or, rather, everyone else did. I held onto mine. I wasn't ready to let her go yet.
Today, though,...