Marvin lunged towards the stand upon which sat an old, analog phone. He almost made it. Melinda tackled him from behind and they fell, hard, onto the wood floor. The phone kept ringing, its strident cry begging someone to answer. Marvin kicked back at Melinda but she evaded his foot and bit his ankle. Marvin howled and turned back to try and disentangle his leg from her grasp. As soon as he turned, Melinda sprang up from the floor and jumped towards the phone, kicking Marvin in the head as she passed. His head hit the floor with a dull...
Tom said my neck tasted of honey. When I told Jasper he laughed hysterically, dropping the crystal glass of champagne onto the thick white carpet. Snorting like a horse, slapping his black Parisian jeans, contorting his face like a fairground mirror image. I didn't think it was so funny but didn't say anything. I laughed too.
One thing that Jasper would never know about me is how lonely and disgusted I feel with myself when I tell him about Tom.
When I walked away from the car, turned back and waved at Tom who had wiped the condensation from the...
"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...
He didn't know that yesterday was the last day he would see her. He had no doubts about the marriage, but he knew that his life would change in a way he wasn't sure he was ready for. He couldn't live without her; he knew that. He couldn't go a day without hearing her laugh or seeing her smile-her smile that made her eyes twinkle and her dimples flash. He thought about how much he loved her smell. Whether it was the smell of her herbal shampoo, the smell of her sweet sweat after she got back from running, the...
They panic was reaching heart-stopping momentum now. Jake was sure that at any second his body would give up, surrender, break apart or explode or melt away into the once beautiful sea. It wasn’t beautiful any more. The fear had seen to that.
One minute having the time of their lives, the next…
“Shark!”
That one word was enough to instil panic into the entire group, even the captain, the tour guide. Everyone. And no one had known what to do – it hadn’t been covered in the onboard safety announcements at the beginning of the day, so many long,...
What was that? I swear to god, something just went under the boat. I don't know what it was, but it was shiny, and it was fast.
Is it lunch time yet? I like lunch time. Everyone gathers near the front of the boat, eating their sandwiches and chips. Most usually share, at least a little bit. It's not like everyone can eat all of that. Most usually share, but you gotta watch closely. Gotta be vigilant. And be careful of the gulls. They'll sneak up on you in an instant. They scare easy, but man, are they sneaky.
I've...
"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....
The dream had been wonderful, yet it would never be real: she knows, even as she wakes, in the taste of bitter almonds at the back of her throat.
She tries to still herself completely so she can relive it in the morning haze. There was a boy-- no, a man-- and he had called her somewhere, taken her somewhere--
She breathes. In, out. In, out. Maybe there's something in dreamcatchers after all.
There had been a man in the dream. That is certain. There had been a man in the dream, and he had--
The fan drones incessantly. She...
"I feel boxed in," she said.
"I'm sorry?" he replied, not quite understanding.
"Well, the basic thing is this: the image is quite boring, and the color scheme is obnoxious, a weird, misguided attempt at the painterly surrealism that Richard Linklater's Waking Life first presented in film. Add to that two gigantic butterflies, and the whole thing just falls apart. But despite the silliness of the painting, however, there's really no room for absurdity. Characters can't wave pistols around or smoke cigars or get hit in the forehead with boards. I'm boxed in. I have nowhere to go. It's too...
Time stopped the moment I recognized the driver. I clenched my fists and stepped back onto the curb but the car screeched to a stop and I knew he'd recognized me.
I could have run back into a building, found an exit into an alley. Instead I bolted into the middle of the street and froze on the crosswalk. My eyes met the driver's and I heard as if from a distance the honking horns and screams of cars and people.
My throbbing pulse sent cold pumps of blood through my body and my skin prickled, and my clothes dampened...