Silence.
The vicar cleared his throat. 'Do you Isabella Riley take....'
'I heard you.' she said, suddenly reappearing from the dream world which had captivated. 'I er... I don't.'
Suddenly aware of a hundred pairs of eyes, she took a deep breath. Ben's mouth fell open. Shock visibly clear on his face.
'Iz?'
'don't Ben.' she murmured. She had to get out of this church. She couldn't possibly marry him. Be commited to one man for the rest of her life. She just couldn't do it.
'But Iz. What? I mean, why?'
'I'm sorry Ben. I really am so, so...
There once was a man who live on Richmond street, he died a few years back. Took care of his elderly mother who used to shave her head and named her pet cat Winston Churchill, she had a few pet birds too. Anyway, the man was a Musician. He used to park his van down by this old run down building in the center of town and sit with the door open playing his guitar. He wasn't the greatest and he wasn't the worst, he just really enjoyed what he did. I forget his name but I haven't forgotten the...
Well, I wasn't prepared for this. Genetic engineering really is only my minor. I majored in Music Education, and do a helluva good job at it, if I do say so myself.
The genetic engineering project was supposed to be more kid friendly. A cockatoo and a persian cat, gene spliced, to for some sort of mutated mix. The math (something I'm freely admitting to be poor at) implied more of a cat's head. I got the bird head. Must have not carried the three.
Anyway.
I'm going to have to raise it now. There's no getting out of that....
Did you hear what happened to Ol' Morlane? Word got around, I mean, I heard it from Skeets who heard it from Fuller but I checked around with some other people and they all heard the same so it's true I guess. You didn't hear this? I mean, I don't know where you been you didn't hear this. Once Skeets told me I musta heard it nine-ten-twenty times in the past few or four days. You been out somewhere? Somewhere secret? Rustlin' up something good for the rest of us? Don't worry about it. Anyway, before you go in there...
Midnight on the roof. She stood alone, shivering, cold, the wind blowing her hair across her face, blanket wrapped around her. It had gone all wrong at the party, and she knew it. She had meant to approach him, to say she was sorry, to ask him to forgive her. But instead, she froze, watching carefully from across the room while her friends chatted on, oblivious. He never once looked her way. Did he know she was there? Could he feel her presence? The truth she had spoken aloud in anger only a few days before seemed not so true...
That night everything changed. She would never think of the stars in the same way. Or the grass, or the flowers. In five minutes her whole perception of the world changed. She could acknowledge that the thoughts running through her head at that moment were not what she would have imagned she would be thinking in a scenario such as this. Her thoughts were clear and concise. Practical almost. She blinked. It hurt. A seering pain shot from her left eye through (what it felt like anyway) her brain. She tried turn her head to the left where she knew...
"Tell me what you did. Tell me what you did yesterday."
She was at the bottom of the stairs in her own house. She was alone, but she knew she wasn't. The lights were off and it was dark.
"I was home. There was nobody there, except him."
She put her foot on the first step, and slowly pulled herself up. When she reached the second floor, she put her hand on the railing to steady herself.
"I felt like I was going to pass out. It was because of him."
She walked into her bedroom, looking nonchalant though there...
I walked along the flat stones that made up the busy road and let the bustling crowds swallow me whole. My heart pounds in my ears. I hear a sharp shout from behind me and instictively dive over the bright green barrier. I press my body into the lush grass and take shallow breaths. The sound of thousands of footsteps set my nerves on edge. For a moment, my mind wanders to the many times my friends and I used to play hide and seek in this garden when we were younger. Children squealing in delight and running in circles....
There's nothing like being in a parade to let people abandon their sense of self and do things that make them appear foolish to outsiders.
You may have seen this as a child and thought nothing of it. You may not have even noticed the people, marching lockstep, standing on top of highly embellished vehicles, or pulling desperately to prevent enormous cartoon characters from flying away. You may have just been taken in by the symmetry, music, and good cheer of it all.
Now, as an adult, there you are, dancing like a fool in full view of the entire...
Th dapper man picked up a penny and turned it over in his fingers, scrutinising it.
"Yes, this is definitely his," he said, after some time.
"How do you know?" his companion prompted, with bemused admiration.
"We know our chap must have had a lucky penny. This one is worn, as if it has been rubbed many times - for luck, you see - but it is still dirty. Our chap is a dockhand; it is grime from his workplace that has become ingrained in the coin. He must have dropped it when he realised he was being pursued."
"How...