Water. It was flooding into the windows and through the doorway. It continued to rise and I continued to panic.I couldn't die. I couldn't die. I HAD to make it out of there. No - I gave up. Just after letting myself slip beneath he water I felt two stong arms wrap around me and pull me out of the water that was killing me. When I was above the water, Ilocked eyes with him. He came back for me! I was shocked - especially after what I'd said to him earlier that day. "Why are you here," I managed...
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,...
We are made of fluff and light.
We are made for a continuing struggle to come together in our floating.
When I fell in the garden and you laughed I knew it was not from cruelty, I knew because we are the same you and I. Unable to keep out the beauty that is the terrible world.
We whisper the standing wave form that is the one true light.
We will collapse back upon ourselves and drift into the unrecognizable dawn.
But today
My love
We will kiss with muddy knees and full laughing hearts, and God will smile.
I looked through my photo album, my fingers flipping the pages quickly, as I looked for that one photo.
There it was, towards the back.
I stopped and smiled.
I could still hear my voice demanding to have this photograph taken.
A woman stood to my right. Her smile shining with pride as her hand held mine. She had always been there for me. Almost as far back as I could remember now. I often thought of her as the source of my conscience because she always seemed to give advice that pointed to the moral north, but at the...
"I want grandchildren."
"I know, ma. But, I'm just not ready for-"
"-Did I ask you what you're ready for?" ma interrupted me, once again. "I'm old, lonely and in need of grandchildren. As my only child, you owe me that."
I closed my eyes and sighed heavily. Why? Why does my mother torture me so? "Listen, I really do have to-"
"-When are you going to get a man?"
"Mother!"
"Don't act surprised. You're 28. You've never had a steady boyfriend. The girls in my book club are starting to wonder about you."
Embarassment covered me from head to...
He hadn't wanted the light there.
She had insisted - there was light on her, light on her voice, lifting her up, letting them all see her. He was playing too (had a solo during one of the songs, actually) so why shouldn't they see him?
He'd tried to protest that it wasn't traditional, and she'd just given him one of those looks, the one that made him certain that if ever (...when) she did get signed the record label wouldn't be able to force her into one of those moulds they seemed so fond of.
He'd stood his ground,...
It had been a long morning. The shouting and screaming had been relentless, as it always is with three children under six. She had spent the hours trying to patch up arguments, mollify sulkers, and generally bring a sense of cheer. Even the thought of their friend's birthday party had not raised a smile at one point. She felt like she was near the point of giving up completely.
The twins eventually seemed to decide that if they got ready they may enjoy the upcoming festivities. By quarter to twelve they were dressed in their finest party outfits and starting...
The dapper man picked up a penny. Having stopped, he was hit by an unsuspecting driver who failed to see him get skewered by the starting handle from the high cab of the grocer's van. At first I smiled for having placed the coin, specially bought at auction 68 years from now. And then… absolutely nothing happened.
When SciFi authors tell you of the Grandfather Paradox, don't believe a bloody word. I'd spent a fortune, and most of my adult life pushing the boundaries of Quantum Symmetry, SuperStrings and a host of other areas of Science and Technology. All for...
Jesus, this guy. I only wanted a ride to the temp agency, and he was all, "sure, I got a sweet set of wheels in the parking lot." So after I finish up my application for the Donut Hut -- fucking powdered sugar in my hair, I'm not taking this hat off all day now -- we go out to the lot, and it's like, it's his GRANDPA's car right there, a Packard or some shit. The seats are made of red leather and they squeak like I've farted when I get in, and there's cigarette burns on the edge...
In these parts, they could not afford trains. Instead, they strapped the Jews and leftists and gypsies and cripples and social undesirables onto sleds on the back of a Volkswagen and hauled them to the camp, which was really a slapdash cardboard affair. The guards were lazy and disinterested. They really didn't see a point in the whole thing, but they did their jobs nevertheless, smoking cigarettes with the more gregarious prisoners. They resented the prisoners and beat them - After all, they thought, why should I have to waste my life standing around guarding these people that the Reich...