You can count me out. I'm over it. Through with you, done with everything....That's a lie. Count me in, it's about time, right? Six years is long enough to be apart. I've waited for this; you, maybe not. Either way, the date's approaching. Count me out, though, it might be a bad decision. No...count me in, I can't wait to see you. Remember that summer? Remember that WINTER? No, no, I can't see you, count me out. Count me in, count me out, I can't decide one way or the other. No, for sure, count me in, what am I...
The lamp wouldn't turn on.
Strange, she thought, I just changed the bulb yesterday.
Feeling her way through the dark living room, Camille passed into the dining area and saw the stairs leading to the second floor were lit with tiny tealights. Following them up, she called out, "John?" No answer. A little louder, "John, are you home?." At the top of the landing, more candles lit a path from the stairs and into the hallway. Camille started down the hall but paused when she passed the closed bathroom door. Thinking John might be inside the bomb shelter-like walls, she...
"Well, if you don't feel like telling me her name, at least tell me what she looks like."
She's perfect. Skin as unblemished as the first snow fall, dark blue eyes that always dance when she sees me, brown hair that shines in the moonlight when we meet in the garden behind her house. Her voice is smooth, young, and playful and I love her. But if they knew who she was... Who knows what they'd do if they knew that the one I love is a Capulet? I'm Romeo, for goodness sake! The son of Lord Montague, enemy of...
They crouched to peer beneath the stairs. Michelle lay there in a drunken, unconsious heap.
"Ok, how are we going to get her up to bed?" sighed Peter.
"You're going to carry her." said Natasha, flatly.
"No, not again. I didn't move into his houseshare just to spend my Saturday mornings carrying my alchy housemates around". said Peter.
Natasha turned towards Peter and said in a hushed tone, "She's not alcoholic, she's just not over Steven yet".
"He dumped her 2 months ago!"
Suddenly, there was some movement beneath Michelle's still body.
Peter and Natasha peered beneath the stairs again...
It was inexplicable that two latino, hipster twenty-somethings from East Los Angeles would talk like 85-year-old Jewish retirees from Queens, yet that was how it was.
"Pull ovah and ask fuh direck-shuns," shouted Isabel.
"I know where I'm going!" Ricky replied with a Yiddish accent that seemed to come from nowhere. "You always do this! You always want to undermine my AUTHORITY!"
He exclaimed very loudly, mostly because he was hard of hearing and couldn't monitor his own pitch. Isabel was silent for a second, silently mouthing words to herself. Then, as if in an afterthought, she said, "You just...
Sandy was impressed. Her son, John, had never thrown a ball back like that before - so hard and fast that it bypassed her completely and flew over the wall at the bottom of the small garden they shared. "Nice one, Johnny!" she yelled. "Let me go and get it, I'll be right back!"
She yanked open the wooden gate recessed into the red brick wall and entered the narrow alleyway at the back of her house - and all the other houses like it. She looked left and right and spotted the ball rolling away from her, towards the...
In 1921, he flew from the Great Rift Valley. That was the foundation of his reputation. Whispered, announced, stated, introduced, it always provided a collective puckering of lips, a breathing of "oohs" and then sips of champagne as fingers were taken into hand, and warm, hearty pats on the back offered. What a way to enter a party, what a ticket into every party!
He never tired of these parties, the compliments on his swarthy, sun embraced flesh, and the women who plucked at his sleeves and asked what it was like up there, racing against clouds. A man could...
The curtains were the safety.
I could never sleep unless the curtains were draped and folded over each other, obscuring the window completely. I could not even take a shower in the evenings, because once the dusk and dark hit I would become convinced that the moment I closed my eyes as I washed my hair, that something.... THE SOMETHING would be staring in at me when I open them.
I believed the curtains hid that same darkness. The moment I pulled the curtains apart I would see The Something.
He laughed at me for that.
I'd buried that fear,...
Loved him for an evening.
Sienna had a way of loving them that way. In one evening her compassion for the man at her side transcended adoration.
The men usually left quickly, a blur of parties, cigarettes and alcohol. She was happy enough that way, and of course so were they.
The man in the red hoodie was a bit different. About ten years younger than her if she cared to admit it. As slim as her, with large, dark, cow eyes. Sweet as pudding and she let him linger a week.
Apparently had found religion recently, tried bringing her...
"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...