“Pob lwc.” the elder of Saint Joseph’s had wished me, after his strange warning. I presumed he meant for my first Mass to be held, as traditional, at Midnight on Christmas Eve. It went well, the service, with a fuller than expected attendance, to see the ‘new man’, I presumed.
Later, sat still in just the candle light, I sighed, thinking I’d found a final home. It was then that the Bwgan Fawr sighed too. A man of middling years, he seemed, from one of the middling centuries, but as translucent as chip paper fat.
He pointed at the great...
Whenever she had balked at doing her homework in high school, her mother had always turned to her and asked, "Nadine, would you rather be a big fish in a little pond, or a big fish in a big pond?"
Nadine was pretty sure her mother was misquoting that aphorism.
Not entirely sure, of course. She hadn't been entirely sure of anything in years; she didn't feel entitled to feelings of certainty without a diploma or GED under her belt.
These days, Nadine was definitely just a small fish, little more than a fry. She was the fish that all...
In the morning, he'd wake up, stretch a bit and roll up his things into a small bundle and be on his merry way. There was a gym nearby with public access to the showers, where he'd wash his clothes and hang them to dry on a curtain bar somewhere as he brushed, shaved, showered and took care of his other personal grooming.
After that, he hopped on the back of a trolley and got his exercise for the day walking from the trolley stop on the edge of town to the orchard just a mile down the road. He'd...
I'm with stupid. That's what his t-shirt says. the arrow points at me, because I always walk on his left. People read it and look at us and laugh. They don't know that he doesn't wear it for jokes and giggles. He means it. He always wears it when we go out together, which is only once a week. He allows me to do the weekly shopping with him. He makes the list but I have to carry it, because he always pushes the trolley.
Somewhere deep down I know he's a control freak and I should break away. Amy's...
Sophie stood at the window, the curtains snug around her shoulders,trailing behind like a dress, or veil. The sun was dipping down behind the trees across the way.
He should be home by now, she thought, chewing the already ravaged thumbnail on her right hand.
She thought about the fight they had the night before. How she had held onto the seeds of those feelings for so long they had germinated and grew and soon the roots were twisted around with her insides, and the branches and leaves moved with her arms.
The anger had grown and become parasitic. And...
We are there. We are in the shadows, in the gaps, in the spaces between words. We are in every moment where you pull away, where discretion replaces narrative, we are there.
We are there in the knowledge that you do not write all things that happen, we are there, waiting in the wings, filling in the gaps, in the spaces.
You did not write us - you never write us, nobody writes us (and who would read us, who would read every banal moment, every second, what soul could stand the painful inevitability of one moment following the next...
The anti-grav boots were worth every penny.
Shelly had saved for weeks, mowing lawns, delivering papers, collecting coins from every cushion in the house, to earn enough hard cash to buy them. Her mother had told her not to waste her money, that they were probably just galoshes with springs on the bottom, but the girl refused to be deterred. The magazine ad had proclaimed them anti-grav, and there was a Truth in Advertising law on the books, so they must be the real deal.
And she was right.
But not in the way she thought she would be.
Instead...
The cold bit at her toes. Pulling them to her body, she peered over the top of her blanket. The world was beginning to come alive. People hurried on there way to work, lights flickering on across the pale grey skies.
It was an odd time of day; it brought with it relief and pain. She was glad of the sound, the sights of other people. The nights grew monotonous, full of nothing. Every minute seemed like hours, every hour like days as nothing but black emptiness stretched out before her. As day broke, cutting through the darkness, she often...
Okay, Mary. Don't panic. You've planned for this occasion. First, you've gotta find a way to contact your employer and let them know you'll be home sick today. Hopefully they still have phones in the future. Actually, first thing you've gotta do is look in the mirror and then find the date.
Wow, I haven't aged well at all. When did I let myself get so fat and wrinkly? What happened in college? Do I have kids? Hooboy.
Eureka! There's the office. Nice. It looks like computers are much more sleek. ACK! It powered on by itself. 2030? Holy crap,...
Fireman? Firewoman? Fire...person?
Esme sighed as she approached her firetruck. The trouble with magic, she reflected, was that while it got you where you need to be quickly, that sometimes meant that you skipped over important parts of the path.
It had been a simple enough spell of purpose; she paid her fifteen hundred dollars, and in return she got given her perfect career. The career that she would enjoy the most, be most suited for...the career that would make her happy.
Purpose was a popular spell-type, and it had definitely resulted in a happier populace, but no one had...