I jumped. I blacked out. When I awoke, head ringing and eyes spotted with colours, he turned round slowly.
"You ever heard of an Ox Bow Lake?"
"nuhuh" I said. Mind you, the gag would have rendered the same result as a Shakespeare soliloquy.
"sahwiwochee" Hell, it was different. Maybe if you were a dentist, this conversation would be less one sided. I eyed the man who had broken in to the lab, wondering if he'd had orthodontist training. He knew his way round a physics lab alright, but fiddling with the quantum accelerator probably wasn't the best idea. That...
The floorboard creaked. The house came alive and... walked.
It did not walk as people walk, as things designed to move would move. No, a house is not meant to ambulate, not meant to be in a place different from the place it had always been. That was the first trial, overcoming years of inactivity, millenia of tradition.
But the house was determined to leave its lot, after its lot in life had fallen. All around it, other houses had fallen, eaten away by neglect, time, disuse. And while this house had not had resident or human inhabitant for far...
The daring were punished.
It seemed almost contradictory, but that was how They wanted it. Ever since the capital-t-They had taken over it, a systematic reduction of risk-taking had been put into place, until the daring were trained not to dare, the mavericks removed and replaced with the mundane.
My sister Joan had wanted to be a baker. You would think that was sufficiently uninteresting for Them, but you'd be wrong - I have no idea how They found out, but after a few bottles of wine at my house, she told me her dream of opening her own bakery....
Malcolm's coo became a cry. It had been hours since we had locked ourselves out of the house but it made no difference to him or his needs. The boy wanted his parents but was incapable of the simple act of walking over to the door and unlocking the deadbolt. The life Malcolm led was one of constant need, one of dependence.
The debilitating accident last year 'scrambled his circuits' as his mother put it but while the rest of the family wrestled with the fact that my son would never walk, eat, speak or function on his own, she...
Gradually, that was how the world where it was okay to be a geek, a fangirl, a dork, herself, came into being.
It started with an acquaintance who knew the animated series who became a best friend.
It grew with a sister who accepted everything and opened her eyes to new worlds.
But it finally became real to her when she met him, the boy who pushed her fringe out of her eyes and led her onto the dance floor when she was sad. Who had moved closer in the fog and who had taken her hand without asking. The...
Sam pulled the tuque tighter around his ears and hunched into the wind. Spring, hah! With no snow to melt, there was no way to tell the difference between today's nasty wind and yesterday's blistering sun.
He banged his way into Tim's and leaned a little too close to the muscle mass in front of him, seeking warmth, if not comraderie. The dude turned, looked down into Sam's wrinkles and coughed. Once. With phlegm.
Sam stood firm and bumped into the plaid workjacket when the line shuffled forward.
When he heard the words, "Large double double...and a Boston Cream for...
Monica Mistaikov
I stood on the old wooden bed I always slept in. There was always a window up high and I would always look up to it at noon and see the clock chime. There were so much out there waiting for me to learn. I wanted to go out there, explore the world, make friends. But I couldn't, because I can’t. Where I am from is a powerful city, Nastavbriki. This city, we have to protect it with our lives so no rebels come. But my anonymous parents dropped me to an orphanage when I was very...
She knelt on the tile floor, carefully picking up the shards of glass. Why did it have to be this one that broke? The dust swirled from the broken jar as water trickled out, bits of greenery carried along with it. World jars were expensive, and none to easy to make or acquire.
Another small little universe left to dry on the floor. She wept a bit as she tried to sweep the glass together with her hands, avoiding the sharp edges. She really should get a broom, but the strength to stand seemed to have left her. Why did...
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...
My feet ached, but it was well worth it. There was blood on one of my insteps, the left one, and when I walked around the floor I tracked her blood around with me. The room, nothing more than an abattoir, had fit the bill perfectly. There was the pen I'd led her to. I said nothing more than, "You'll like it. It's the spookiest little spot." And she had crawled inside without the least hesitation. And as soon as she did so, the smile left my face, and the grimace reappeared, and I thought, "This is for all those...