"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...
"Constellation of freckles."
I made a face. "Oh, that's going on the list."
She nodded with a degree of authority - she hadn't needed me to tell her it belonged on our list of paticularly purple prose, our list of phrases that were to be avoided at all costs.
"Can you even get a constellation of freckles?"
"Well, of course you can, it's an arrangement - it's the implication I resent. That freckles are like stars - who'd have starry freckles? You can't wish on a freckle."
"You could. I think that could be quite a romantic scene."
"Depends on...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. It wasn't a normal doorway because when I say doorway you think of things like wood and brass nobs and, possibly, hinges.
This had none of those.
And it was hardly a red gown, because you are likely thinking of something you'd take to a ball, or if you're the really twisted sort, and I can tell you are, there's an image of a piece of clothing given out to a somewhat disturbing institution, or asylum, for those less inclined to modern verbiage or intent on...
There's somebody standing in the corner of my room.
He showed up yesterday. Waltzed in through the front door like he owned the place. Maybe he does, actually. I certainly don't.
I've been here for a couple of months. When the sun's up, I'm usually out doing something else, like fishing in the creek out back, or building a dam with rocks and fallen branches. It passes the time. Every now and then it even gets me something to eat.
But in all my time here, I'd never known anyone to even step off the sidewalk onto the lawn. Never...
"I have something to tell you."
These are not words you want to hear from your girlfriend when you first walk in the door after a late night at work. Still, Lewis tried to stay calm, tried not to let his imagination get ahead of him. He sat down at the formica kitchen table, looking up at Sadie. She was actually wringing her hands. He thought that only happened in stories. A long pause...
"Well, honey? What is it? You're making me kind of nervous here."
"I know, I know. I'm sorry. I just... Ok. Here goes. I'm... I'm a...
He ran into the room, his heart poundinf, and his clothes soaking wet. He had never felt sich all consuming fear as when he had walked into her bedroom to find her gone.
His darling, his little one, the part of him that was part of his wife as well. His Bella.
The ransom note was pretty standard so the police said. £5000000 pounds. Non sequential. Not marked.
He had the money, so he got it together and walked to the meet.
They got the money, but his Bella wasn't there. He heard no more from the kidnappers.
The police...
Atop a ferris wheel the poor anxious squirrel found himself above the world far far away from the comfort of his tree and pile of nuts. As the wheel spun behind him, Mr. Squirrel ran ahead trying to keep up as he felt with every turn he would fall. As he lost ground he noted ascending higher and farther away from the ground. 'A telephone pole... a cable... a branch?' he thought could perhaps bring him to safety. When suddenly a gush of wind caused his tiny claws to slip across the rusty painted metal and he slipped. Falling, falling,...
She didn't look at him as she gingerly opened the sketchbook he had laid in front of her. Carefully schooling her face into it's most neutral expression, just in case she didn't like what she saw.
She needn't have worried.
For as she opened the book and began to gaze over the imagery, the concepts, the scribbled annotations that sounded like he had been talking to himself as he wrote them, she became lost in the world he was describing.
She could feel him tense next to her. She understood that, by being shown his work it was like she...
The waves were bigger than she'd ever seen before. They were not waves tonight. They were destructive bombs, pulverizing everything in sight.
The ship groaned and twisted. Her efforts and those of the crew around here proved futile.
She gasped as a larger wave loomed in front of her. She braced for impact as the icy cold water plunged her into nothingness.
Deeper and deeper she went, her lungs gasping for air. She held fast the rope around her waist.
Then nothing.
She opened her eyes to a bright light. So bright. Where was she? Shielding her eyes she saw...
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...