Waves. The sound was the first thing she noticed. She had to be somewhere near the ocean. She took a moment to register her immediate situation. Her right hand grasped a jutting piece of rock, and her left held tight to a thick branch that had somehow taken root in the cliff face. Her feet rested on a narrow ledge of rock that was no more than a few inches. She was thankful for her small feet, which her mother used to say were her best attribute.
She had to be at least 20 feet up. The ocean was too...
Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up.
"I must protest!" she shouted, above the din of the room.
The man at the other side looked at her quizically. "Miss Whitely, would you please sit down? You're not allowed to speak out until it's your turn in the witness stand."
"But this man is slandering me! I never did any of those things!"
"Miss, that's how court works. They tell their story, and you tell yours."
"But it's wrong!"
The prosecutor sighed. This was going to be a long...
"I'm having no part in this. I'm having nothing to do with any of it. Because it's wrong. You're wrong. This entire thing is...it's wrong. It's just...wrong."
"Have you always been good with words?" He sauntered closer, pale fingers tracing my cheek, my neck. "You're relying quite heavily on that word. Wrong. Have you thought about what it really means? How damning it truly is? I don't think you have."
I hated the feel of his fingers across my skin, hated the jolt that had run straight through me, hated the tingling, hated the - I hated it.
He was...
He heaved a sigh as he walked down the hallway. The revolver hung heavy in his hand. He had no idea what model or brand or whatever the gun was supposed to be. He'd gotten it at a pawn shop for $15, along with a little blue soldier toy for a mere 50 cents. It was cheap. The paint on the toy was chipped, but its expression of determination haunted him.
He was exhausted. He was done. He couldn't take this any longer.
"Hey, kiddo..." He called. He'd reached his son's room. This was probably the first time they'd talked...
Travel light, but take everything with you. They were father's last words to me before he took my mother and sister down the wooded trail opposite mine and my brother's.
The cossacks had burned our village to the ground an hour ago, and he told us we had to flee into the woods, where they would have more trouble finding us.
When I was young, we used to play in the forest, so I knew it well. I would take my young brother Sasha to a lake a few hours' hike from here, that the cossacks don't know about.
I...
I'm dead. Really dead. Not in the "there'll be a twist at the end and I'll be saved" kind of way. Just dead.
It occurred a while back, and while I was living, I thought it was pretty unfair. Most people get 60, 70 years of life. Enough people got 30 or 40 years of life.
I got 25. By the time you're 25, you're only finally getting your last degree, your first bit of experience, stepping over that last big stone in your path before you enter the real world. The one where you earn enough money to do...
I jumped.
I know it was dumb but at the time I didn't really think I had any other choice. Besides, it's not like I really thought about it. I just did it. Just took that leap. Stepped off the edge without looking down first. He was coming after me and my instinct took over and I am now lying in the bed that I made.
Of course I had the choice of socking that guy at the bar, the one who chased me, the one weighing about 300 pounds and all of that muscle. Of course I could have...
She leaned over, sideways from her stool, all tits and lips and curly hair falling in his direction.
"Got a light," she asked, sticking a cigarette in the corner of her painted mouth.
He set his beer down, just foam left and dug into his right pocket. Pulled out a lighter and slid it across the plywood painted like mahogany bar. She looked at the lighter, and moved her lips into a pout. Leaned in even closer and said "A gentleman would light it for me."
"You're in the wrong place if you're looking for gentlemen," he grunted, looking straight...
There is no point to seeing the forest, all you can ever see are the trees. And the trees are not the forest. You'll never comprehend the true size of the forest, for it is the world. You'll never understand that the forest is everything, and everything is the forest. You are the forest too.
So do as our people have always done. Wander, wander through the dappled sunlight. Wander, wander through the glades and covers and hidden places. Wander, wander without direction, because there is no direction. There is only forest.
Find the place that is your own. You'll...
As Darvo walked into the glaring sunset on the western horizon ahead of him, he wondered to himself about the Yoga studio he passed by minutes ago. There were so many beautiful women in there doing flexible things that he knew that his own body was not capable of.
Darvo had actually passed by that same Yoga studio almost every day for the past six months when he took up a job as a salesman at the screen door factory next door.
Everytime he walked by, on his way home, he made a point to look inside the window of...