The train in which Natalie happened to sit
Was the train that another train managed to hit
The noise was quite loud,
And in the tracks were a crowd
To which the conductor exclaimed, "holy shit!"
The year was 1986. It was a Tuesday, at night. 7:58 PM. I couldn't wait until 8 o'clock to enter the world. I'm sure I came out screaming like most babies. I'm sure my eyes were closed, and that the October chill had me wanting a blanket.
The year was 1990, and I remember asking my dad for days when I was going to be 4 years old. My eyes were wide and hazel, my hair blonde and short.
The year was 1994 and I got to wear a sundress in October. Never ever in New York can you wear...
This is the doctor sewing the corpse
They kept locked up with the crowd in the morgue
That wicked Judas Priest all shaven and shorn
That harried the Dick all battered and worn
That missed the murderer all forlorn
Who sicked the cow with the crumpled skin
That lost the dog that woke the cat burglar
That nicked the hat then took the wallet
That lay on the louse that Jack killed
She could tell I was faking it. Every time I cracked a smile or choked out a laugh. All of it a fabrication to please the people around me. An attempt to lie to everyone, especially myself, about how screwed up my life really was, about how everything around me truly was going to hell.
When you've lost everything, why shouldn't you laugh? The bitterness of it is cathartic.
Yet... She stays around. Keeps an eye on me, noting my dulled eyes and chronicling every irrational action. Hearing the broken glass edges of my voice, seeing the glint of tears...
There's somebody standing in the corner of my room. The shadows play with the darkness but I'm not sure who it is. I look into the black trying to find clues as to her identity. Was it Heather? Perhaps Julie. The dunken stupor of waking in the middle of the night was never good for my senses.
The previous hours were engrossed in crime, passion and recharge. Our time moving towards Ethan's death came forth at lightning speed and before he knew it, the small stainless dagger had plummeted into his chest. You could call it an accident (and we...
She listened, intently. The night was quiet, and she might be alone. Then again, she might not. The girl in the red gown wished she were somewhere other than Beijing, huddled in a doorway in the night. But where would she be, if she could choose? Back in England, probably. There, she would be fearless. There, dangerous men would not be chasing her across the city, seeking to recover an ancient idol - really, it was an ugly thing, wooden and splintery. She wished she knew what all the fuss was about. James had wanted it, though, and so she'd...
Ten! The crowd rose their voices to join the leader. Nine!Feet were stamped, hands raised in celebration. Eight! Faces were upturned towards Big Ben, the hands counting their lives. Seven! Some had tears beginning to roll down their cheeks. Six! Someone was screaming, but the sound was muffled by the bodies. Five! The mass chanting, the crowd undulating back and forth. Four! Liquid spattered down, someone's beer bottle flying out over the crowd, still full. Three! The chanting was getting louder. Two! Everyone was suddenly still. One. It was a whisper, Big Ben rang out as the hands came together...
We never spoiled that. We visited it, claimed it, and then we left it as is. We may not have meant to, but we did. We left something alone.
She smiles through her bleeding gums and plucks some more skin from her face, just to pass the time. She was young, so she'll last a little longer than the others. But in a day or two, it'll all be over. That tree won't last long either.
But the moon is still the same as it ever was, save for a few bits of scrap and a flag.
The world has changed. We have all become compeditors in someone else's game. 6 Minute Story has changed for the worse. One night, a woman jumped from 23 stories in New York. She landed safely in a dumpster full of pillows. We had coffee the next day, and she explained that she was suffering from a mild case of "I don't care". I found that a reasonable excude and bought her a cruller. She was happy, but pulled a gun out of her purse and shot hersself in the head. Damn. Now I have to get the tip. Good coffe,...
Ridiculous. Absurd. Absolutely and beyond all normal standards of decency, indecent. That was how I looked in the mirror the morning that I discovered my first gray hair. Or was it my third. I was faced with the overwhelming reality of a head of lustrous, youth-infused auburnness marred by the upright and wiry soldier who insisted on taking up some precious real estate in my brain that could have been much better utilized by a sudoku puzzle or a cure for cancer. How were things now to possibly proceed in a direction other than graveward? What was the sense in...