Being punched in the face for the first time is always a shock. Even with the gloves, it still hurts, and that mouth guard, well, sometimes it does mor harm than good.
I staggered against the rails and spit into the bucket, feeling around with my tongue. Are my teeth in tact? Yes.
"You out, Sam?" Called the ref.
"No!" I yell, adjusting my bandana and flying towards my opponent again. For a little thing, she is surprisingly strong and fast. She lands an uppercut and swift solar plexus blow that leaves me winded before plowing me over.
She pulls...
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...
The contours of her form were clear under the light shining through my window. She was laying there nude on my couch as I drew her. My eyes, flicking back and forth from the paper to her. My hand, gliding wildly across the paper in motions similar to a snake whipping it's way across a desert. I had asked her to model for me. Not because I have a crush on her. Not because I'm trying to date her. But because her body is so gorgeous. It flows with every move she makes, twisting and bending and flowing. She lays...
He's as tall as the door, my obsession, and almost as wide. His shoulders hold the promise of strength and safety, his tapered torso slims to promising hips that I try hard not to stare at. His eyes look through my soul, piercing my resolve and dissolving my barriers until I can no longer bear to be in the same room.
He doesn't know this, of course. I smile and nod and grab my files as if I am incredibly busy, then walk to the end of the office. Even though my back is turned and I occupy my shaking...
"Damnit Christine, god damnit, call 911!" I shouted, dropping my sisters limp body on the bed. There was froth around her mouth, and her eyes were closed. Her lips were bee-stung swollen and blue.
It was too late. Here dark curls were tangled in my lap, wet with leave in them.
I turned her on her side, and water dribbled from her mouth. CPR, how did it go? It didn't matter. My little girl was gone. That foam told me all I needed to know.
My sister came in, the phone in her hand.
" they are coming."
" tell...
The wind blew across the plains, picking up clods of dirt as it ran past, and I gripped my son's shoulder, as if by some instinct. Soon the dust would blow through the cracks in our log cabin, and the kitchen -- the tiny corner we called the kitchen -- would soon fill with what looked for all the world like soot. That we could take. The ground and the wind had been trying to kill us for years. We were used to it. But lately we'd had to contend with spiders. Tarantulas. Tough sons of bitches that put their...
He couldn't see through the rain. The rain covered everything in sight, like a thick veil of mosquito netting had been thrown over the city.
It was a dilemma. The once wished-for, prayed-for, blessed rains that the Americans had provided for the desert nation had turned into a curse. They washed away everything, buildings crumbling on what had been sturdy foundations in the desert. While the crops suddenly flourished, the cities were dying. The culture was dying. The people were dying.
Now the americans were threatening to take the rains away.
Sophie stood at the window, the curtains snug around her shoulders,trailing behind like a dress, or veil. The sun was dipping down behind the trees across the way.
He should be home by now, she thought, chewing the already ravaged thumbnail on her right hand.
She thought about the fight they had the night before. How she had held onto the seeds of those feelings for so long they had germinated and grew and soon the roots were twisted around with her insides, and the branches and leaves moved with her arms.
The anger had grown and become parasitic. And...
“We are such stuff as dreams are made of.” Smith quipped. “The Tempest. Act four…”
“…Scene one. And it’s ‘on’ not ‘of’.” I retorted. “It continues. And our little life is rounded with a sleep.”
Smith snorted. “Ever the pessimist. And yet.” He paused for effect. “I propose to travel forward in Time by one second.”
“Smith, you can’t. Except by the traditional route. Which just takes one second to do. Except we are moving in Space-Time. Not just Time. Only light can do that without feeling the time pass.”
Smith shrugged. I tried to explain. “The Earth spins 460m/s....
"I hate you! Get out of my face!"
Wow. That's just the way any teenage girl wants to start her day: the most popular guy in school declares in front of the entire gym class that he hates her guts.
Well, that's just the story of my life these days. Everyone who's anyone hates me. As if to emphesize that point, a red ball crashes into my face, knocking off my glasses.
"Simmons! You're out!" the gym teacher's voice echoes though the gym.
So, I go settle on the bleachers with the rest of the people out of the most...