Sarah felt a little guilty. This wasn't her bed after all. But to each his own. This isn't some pink kiddie playgroundworld where cotton candy feeds you until your next meal, and mommy and daddy are there to catch you when you scrape your knee. In this world, houses are foreclosed, children are taken away by Children's Services, and husbands beat you after a late night out with beer. If you're lucky, he passes out before you have to fight him and shout NO. In this world, anything is possible, things you couldn't fathom happening to you as a 7-year-old...
"Where did you come from?"
The little devil sat on my hand.
"I'm from your head. I'm here to distract you."
He pried the pencil from my fingers and heaved it above his head.
"You won't be needing this anymore."
He tossed it down, into the trash.
"Hey! I need that!"
I needed to study for my standardized tests tomorrow.
"You don't need that. You need this."
He got up from my hand and patted my closed laptop.
"Why would I need my laptop?"
The little devil danced atop the shut black device.
"What are your friends up to? What's...
Peasants. Every last one of them, with their cheap hairspray and horrid distaste in bowties.
I stood at the edge of the sixty second annual GreatVac vacuum door-to-door salesmen conference in a state of disbelief. These people were my peers? My coworkers? My confidantes? Not a civilized, educated human being appeared to be in the room.
Barbarians. You would think that GreatVac, a company founded in 1904 on good American values would have a bit more poised and elegant populace.
And clearly the organizers of this event had very poor catering skills, as the punch was repugnant and the finger...
Monica Albott had never been beautiful.
Sure, she had been cute, pretty even, but never beautiful. She said this over and over, because she believed it and because it was true, but all she ever heard was, "oh Monica, you're just curvy!" and "I wish I were you!". Nothing anyone said ever helped. And so slowly, little by little, the hamburger she at on Friday's for dinner became bread and lettuce, then a tomato and vinegar, then nothing. Her usual coffee in the morning became skin milk and no sugar and her usual snack after school became a salad instead...
Goodnight…
The cracks of light from the dusty attic had faded. Even through the lid of this chest, it seemed obvious that evening had fallen. Why had the young master not returned? Why was I so thirsty?
I'd not wanted to play the young master's silly game of Hide and Seek. He'd insisted. Just after his gentry friends had laughed at him, when they'd spotted the way he looked distractedly at me cleaning the grate. His high and mighty friends had laughed and joked the way the Butcher's apprentices did at market day.
The young master seemed upset and shot...
I waited for her, all night long I stood there waiting. As the crowd dissipated, I was left erect and waiting. I make a promise and I would not break it. I stood until the last form had left the room and I remained. I now wonder if I had left, would she have came? Was it pure expectations that had pushed her to break a promise? Was it the anxiety that came with battle.. in the end was it my fault? For standing up when no one else would, when keeping a promise that was broken before spoken and...
"The day after tomorrow, this will all be over. I will stop being sick, I will no longer be a whale. I will be able to touch my toes again. Heck, I'll be able to see my toes again.
"I'll have a tiny body to care for. I will no longer be a me, but an us. I was an us once, but now I'm a me. But the day after tomorrow, I will be an us again. I will be stop being sick. Did I mention that? Maybe. I will be able to look at food without retching. I...
I was nearly there. The red top of the lighthouse was within my grasp. Just a few more steps and I would be in a place my father had talked about during many a bedtime story.
Pride emanated from him as he used to whisper to me about the foreign vessels that he was witness to on the shore.
I remember shivers radiating through my skin as he once described the stolen ship that had been taken over by the French pirates. Shaving so close to the rocks had caused much of the treasure to fall overboard into the sea...
My head is pounding, three days of this. The wind has been blowing. I look out my office window and it is either the eye of the storm with it's fits and starts or we're near the end of it. The trees are bending, but there are little black leaves, birds. They're sitting swaying in the tree, calm. When they fly off, they all fly off. Its like watching a school of fish. One makes a subtle turn that sets off a wave and undulation.
Its an eerie view, because suddenly I thought of those childhood explorations in the woods...
Travel light, but take everything with you. Pack your life into a suitcase. Compress a room of memories, dreams, nightmares, hopes, pain and happiness, take the few essentials and clear out.
That's what this feels like. I have to choose which of my memories are the most important to me. Pack them away into a suitcase and walk right out that door, never again to see the ones I left behind.
Clothes. A necessity. As many as possible-- I might not have the money to get more for a while.
Toiletries. Also a given.
Books? Well, with three shelves filled,...