Sarah sat down on the concrete bench and stared at the couple locked in an embrace.The city lights across the water blinked glowed and highlighted them against the dark sky.
The light also highlighted what Sarah lacked.
"Lousy tourists," she said fumbling through her purse for her pack of cigarettes.
She found the pack and pulled one loose and lit it.Hoping to get the bitter taste out of her mouth.
The couple hugged and kissed each other's cheeks foreheads and ears. They whispered softly and then laughed.
They stared out at the city skyline, they hands searching desperately for the...
She found the key on the internet.
It seemed silly, a little, to buy a physical and tangible thing like that to open up a locked trunk in a dream. But it was necessary, she was sure. She'd been trying to get into the trunk in the bedroom of the house of doors - the house she returned to over and over again in her lucid dreams - for years. For as long as she could remember.
The trunk, solid and wooden, banded with brass and locked. It was impenetrable. She'd tried peering through the keyhole, picking the lock, everything....
She hated kids' parties. She had had to be blackmailed into taking her niece to this one, and it was only because she couldn't stand Lucy looking at her with such disappointment in her great big eyes that she'd caved. Lucy had the guilt trip thing nailed, even at four years old.
So she'd promised herself a drink afterwards to blot out the horror, strapped on the most unsuitable shoes she could think of for a party, put her make up on and braved the church hall.
It was worse than she'd imagined. What, had they invited 100 little monsters...
My feet ached, but it was well worth it. I mean, how many times in your life do you have the opportunity to attend a championship? Sure, I had to park about three miles from the stadium. Sure, I somehow missed that city bus that was barreling directly toward me until it was too late. Sure, once the bus rolled over my feet, I experienced agony beyond anything I could have ever comprehended to that point. But we're talking CHAMPIONSHIP, man!
I had to drag myself the remaining half of a mile, crawl to the turnstile, beg to be admitted...
When the butterflies are high in the afternoon sky is the best time to sit by the lake. I am lucky to have the view I do, not many people can just waltz out their back door and be in the wonderland that is nature. I can.
I take my walkman (don't judge me) with me whenever I go down to the lake. I like to think about the day and all the wonders tomorrow will bring. It's not so lonely just being me and my walkman because a few butterflies always join me. Their gilded wings brush the water's...
As I sat on the edge of the meadow, I wondered if I'd been wasting my life. Yeah, I know, everybody thinks that. But not a day goes by when I don't leave projects undone, conversations unhad, stories untold.
And even now, there's so much I could do, but instead I stare at the horizon. I imagine butterflies, and wonder what simple lives they must have. No-- not simple, meaningless. Though I suppose the two are one and the same. After all, it's easy to get through a day when there's nothing you want to accomplish.
I lament the wasted...
Capriciously, I repudiated the sky and all its lighting and thunder, snow and rain, and changing colors.
The paradigm wasn't there. Or was it?
Well, if it wasn't and if it were grounded by gravity, then so many Big Things are just frivolous.
Like love.
And losing a lover.
And even being born here, gasping for breath at first, and fighting through a mob just to climb some ranks and "make it." And those were the Big Things, too.
The paradigm here can't hold such Big Things if it was made to only hold such small, ambiguous entities like eating,...
"The sheep were at pasture," Daniel typed into his screen. Monica slinked up behind him, read the screen and mocked, "Wow Dan, that sounds like the beginning to a dirty joke, not a children's story."
"Thanks for the encouragement. Hey, I thought you were on your way to get your nails done?"
"I'm getting ready to go, I got stopped by a phone call from your mother."
"What did she want?"
"Nothing really. She just wanted to know if she could throw a surprise party for her little baby boy's thirtieth."
"Shit. I told you I don't want any of...
The conversation lasted two words: Alright? ...Yeah
It wasn't groundbreaking, it wasn't revolutionary, it wasn't even poetry, but it was all they needed to say.
They had been the best of friends once, closer than brothers. George had had his own room at Jack's house, Jack had had his own shelf in George's fridge. But somewhere along the way, they had lost that.
Was it because Lissy, George's ex-girlfriend had hated Jack, was it because of the fact that Jack went off to uni while George stayed in their hometown, or had it merely been because of the fact that...
The wind blew across the plains, picking up clods of dirt as it ran past, and I gripped my son's shoulder, as if by some instinct. Soon the dust would blow through the cracks in our log cabin, and the kitchen -- the tiny corner we called the kitchen -- would soon fill with what looked for all the world like soot. That we could take. The ground and the wind had been trying to kill us for years. We were used to it. But lately we'd had to contend with spiders. Tarantulas. Tough sons of bitches that put their...