The man in the yellow shirt entered the elevator and pressed the lowest button, which was marked 'B3'. The light next to the word 'DOWN' lit up, and down we went.
"Down?" I exclaimed in confusion. "I don't want to go down. I want to go up. I pressed 31. Why is the elevator obeying you and not me? I was here first."
"It likes me better," said the yellow-shirted man.
"Why would it like you? You're ugly looking and your shirt is stupid."
"How do you know what an elevator thinks is ugly? Maybe it likes my shirt."
I...
The day had dragged on. Lari looked around the street as she left work. She felt as if she had just ran a marathon with cement shoes on. You wouldn't think that being a marketing assistant would make someone so tired.
The street was full of the regular faces. People that she saw everyday, but never really looked at. Lari sighed as she waited for her bus. I need a vacation, she thought.
A young girl walked by, licking a dripping ice cream cone and holding a large red balloon. The girl didn't care that she had dripped chocolate down...
The episodes were getting more frequent. I'd forget where I was. Friends looking at me strangely as I carried on conversations finished ten minutes ago. Losing my new phone. Girlfriend called off our holiday, fed up of getting ignored. The tests showed it wasn't epilepsy. I felt strangely calm as though it was meant to be.
During my time away I lived a different life, on a different plane. Soon I knew it would be my permanent home.
I could hear dad's voice at a distance, feel mom's hand on mine. Fear.
I was slipping away in the hospital bed....
Thou wanted to enjoy his iced latte
Thou wanted to bring the mood down in this joint
Thou wanted these tourists to be gone
Be gone tourists!
Thou forsakes thee!
Tourists
Poseurs
Wanna bees
Beardos
Thou is the grumbly heart of your demise
Thou is real
Really real
So frightening
So fucking real
Thou is not on tourist maps
Pamphlets
Brochures
Thou will burn away all this fake tourist bullshit
Thou will bring the mood down
in
this
joint
You know damn well the head is in the box. You know damn well how this movie will end. But her legs are across yours and she shaved. They're smooth like you could have only guessed, because in winter she was all jeans and tights.
You've been hovering with your hand on her knee and she's so into this damn movie that you've seen one hundred times. She hasn't mentioned that she thinks about sleeping with Brad Pitt, but you see the way her eyes get when he comes on screen. She has yet to give you those eyes, but...
"I think we need to take the Easter eggs back," Gerald said.
Louise looked up from placing an Easter bunny on a table. "Why's that?"
"Because one just hatched."
Louise frowned, crossing the room to where Gerald was coddling a small bird in his hands. She was hoping for some kind of explanation, which proved to be difficult to do when he looked more confused than she did.
"What do you mean," Louise said, rubbing the back of her head, "when you say that it hatched?"
"Well, I was getting some of the eggs out for the hunt, right? And...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. The rain was falling around her and she looked out into the street, wondering when she should make her break for it. Sensing that the rain wouldn't let up for quiet some time, she dashed onto the streets holding her package close to her chest. Her eyes flitted from side to side as she transversed the narrow streets and alleys.
She saw the blue door ahead of her and pumped her legs harder, eager to reach her destination. She threw herself against the door with a...
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...
After my first day on medicine clinic, my head was spinning like a top. I couldn't believe how disorganized the modern American hospital could actually be. If anyone had told me, "dear, when you finally become a doctor, your colleagues will constantly be trying to kill your patients, and you'll have your hands full trying to stop them from practicing medicine," I would have just laughed nervously and moved on.
Yet, here I was.
Nothing could have prepared me for the carnage I was witnessing, and not just in terms of my coworkers being lazy, stupid, and sometimes downright malevolent....
what to do in the gutter
with your mind all aflutter
one could tie their shoe
or sniff glue
you could clip your nails
or make trails
i could learn to flip it
or just do a whippit
he could switch his socks
or sleep with a fox
she could play with pip
or learn to nip
they could read a book
or just get hooked
whatever it is they you or i decide to do
be quick
there are only so many minutes
to