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,...
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...
Our eyes locked right before she went for the stuffed duck. I watched her bite it with resolution, shake her head back and forth like a dog. Her eyes met mine again with a clear and concise message: "My duck."
The duck became her best friend. I hardly talked to her unless she was eating my food. Then I yelled. It probably wasn't the most mature thing to do.. but what the hell. I fell in love from afar. I fell in love with her maple brown eyes, with her glistening nose, with her adorable whimper. She didn't know it...
Ridiculous. He was being utterly ridiculous.
"Married? You want to get married?" She stared at him with dumbfounded annoyance. He looked completely serious.
"Of course I do. Don't you? What is so absurd about getting married? I thought we were happy."
She closed her eyes for a moment, held them shut tightly, and reopened them. Nope, she thought. Still there. Still looking at me, waiting, expecting.
"Jim, we can't get married. You must be crazy. I was going to ask you to take me home, but I think I'll call a cab." She reached into her purse to pull out...
"She'd have preferred the electric chair," Melanie said.
A half grin sat on her lips as she stirred the crinkle fry in the ketchup far longer than anyone stirs crinkle fries in ketchup.
"You know when they were discovering the electric chair, they would like pay kids to bring in stray dogs and cats to electrocute to get the voltage just right," Beloved said.
"That's horrible," Melanie replied and she dropped the crinkle fry. "Why would you say that?"
"They finally tested it on an elephant!" Beloved said.
"Wait, who is they?" Melanie asked. She lifted her nose in the...
The cool water soothed her. She had to get out of the stifling heat, and the stifling company. Why she had agreed to this trip she would never know, but he had insisted.
'It will be good for us,' he said.
No, it won't, she thought. It will be sheer torture, because we both know we're flogging this horse beyond it's natural lifespan. But she packed anyway, not realising that lying beside his sweaty body would be the final nail.
She floated for a while, staring at the stars. They were bright in the cobalt-blue sky, pin prinks of brightness...
"Do you like the cats, young one?"
Lilibit pressed her white, lacey gloved hand over her throat, "Yes, my Lord," she breathed. "I've always wanted to see them, since my childhood!"
Sajin laughed, the bells at the bottom of his robes jingled, "You are a child yet, Little One."
Lilibit scowled, "I am a young woman. At the very least. I am not a child."
"Do you feel such?" Sajin asked, squinting, his dark skin shining from cheek to forehead in the way everyone did in this humid, emerald land. Lilibit for her part, felt sweat from head to toe...
It was midnight on the roof,the stars bright and shining, the moon full and gleaming. Sat up there alone I contemplated my own existence. As this speck in the whole tapestry of existence, can my life have meaning? Will I be able to understand all that life presents to me?
These questions plagued my mind for a few minutes, turning over slowly whilst I search for any answer, to questions I knew would be impossible to find one for. In the tranquility of the night, the mind often wanders to such matters. Within the idea of the unknowable, is the...
I woke up hung over, my head throbbing. It felt like mini-jackhammers were destroying my frontal lobe, something I am sure the Scotch took care of last night.
The room was unfamiliar, but I had seen it plenty of times laid out in some IKEA or Sears catalog. I was on the bed with an Oak, maybe Maple, night-stand next to it. The room smelled, not good or bad, just different from my bedroom. Clothes covered the floor in front of the closet, where I suddenly saw my pants. A desperate roll to my side brought back the mini-jackhammers.
The...
Baby, it's just one of those things. You dream of hexagons and get triangles. You hope for a bit of moonshine on your paperback and a black cloud splits her in two.
You concentrate on windows and carbon paper and a pigeon drops dead on the ledge. It's not the city or the suburbs. It's just everything.
Me? I work in a cubicle. That's the shape I'm in.