"This is it?" Leila said with a wrinkled nose, her hands were clasped behind her back as she slowly approached the animal.
Myron stared at the blue ribbon sitting in a bow on the back of her head, eclipsing her dark brown tresses like an enormous butterfly. His eyes traveled down to her feet and the way her calves flexed as she walked on her toes around the creature.
"I wasn't lying, was I?"
"Dunno," Leila replied, and she hopped on a crate, her lanky, boyish form backlit by golden rays. It shone through her hair, making it more like...
"Grandpop's teeth didn't look like that."
"How do you know?"
"Because mom always said you got his teeth. Do your teeth look like that?"
"Maybe after they'd been in the ground for fifty years."
"Not even. Look at the length of them."
"No, teeth keep growing after you die."
"That's nails, dummy. And they have to be attached still. You think teeth keep growing if they're just loose like this?"
"Who can say?"
"You know who would know?"
"Yeah, but she can't exactly tell us, now can she?"
"Well, she'd know for sure."
"Grandma's probably the one who did it...
Marvin lunged towards the stand upon which sat an old, analog phone. He almost made it. Melinda tackled him from behind and they fell, hard, onto the wood floor. The phone kept ringing, its strident cry begging someone to answer. Marvin kicked back at Melinda but she evaded his foot and bit his ankle. Marvin howled and turned back to try and disentangle his leg from her grasp. As soon as he turned, Melinda sprang up from the floor and jumped towards the phone, kicking Marvin in the head as she passed. His head hit the floor with a dull...
When he went to the pet store Mark Anderson thought it was going to be just another day. He was going to pick out the goldfish for his nephew's birthday and head on his way. Boy was he ever wrong.
It started as soon as he walked in, the cashier was giving him a very funny look that Mark couldn't exactly place. The pets were even weirder. They all looked as though they'd been through hell and back, but Mark, startled as he was, kept looking for that goldfish. If only he'd left then.
He got to the aquarium section...
He sat in the truck parked on the gravel drive, his arm hanging out the window, a cigarette dangling from his finger. The radio was on and Bon Jovi's Bed of Roses was blaring.
She watched him from the behind the closed screen door.
He lowered the visor so she wouldn't be able to see his reddened eyes. Def Lepard's Pour Some Sugar On Me came on next, and he tweaked the volume nob. He could tell she was still looking at him.
He finished his cigarette and flicked it out the window. He took a long drink from the...
It would be a long walk. To no where. Ending some where. A where long off. Tulle of mist. Footage of stage. A wide glow of white pixels condensing to green. Corridors of sparkling black. A long walk but he took it.
He couldn't see through the rain. The rain covered everything in sight, like a thick veil of mosquito netting had been thrown over the city.
It was a dilemma. The once wished-for, prayed-for, blessed rains that the Americans had provided for the desert nation had turned into a curse. They washed away everything, buildings crumbling on what had been sturdy foundations in the desert. While the crops suddenly flourished, the cities were dying. The culture was dying. The people were dying.
Now the americans were threatening to take the rains away.
Gene started thinking up missions. Find a tapedeck, sparklers, foam hats, and a Tears for Fears hat. Re-enact a concert in the parking lot of some three dollar hotel. Load the back of Dave's truck up with lawn furniture and mailboxes - whatever isn't tied down. Cut down all the trees on one block on the East side under the guise of city workers.
Gene fumbled with the cats. He hat taped their four tails together and begun the arduous process of spraypainting them gold when some three Spanish children skidded to a halt in front of Gene's yard. "Making...
The car stalled. The roads were half washed out and the rain pounded like a blacksmith's hammer on the hood. The storms began a few days ago, but before that it had been a dry summer. After the first downpour, people started smiling and stopped fanning their faces. Life strained under the drops in vegetable and flower gardens.
After the first whole nights of dark heavy clouds, the constant grumble of thunder, people were still trying to be positive. Good for the forests, dry as tinder, they'd say. The river was too low anyway.
After a week and flooded basements,...
Wait ... for a green-clad man. He will come to you either at dusk or at dawn if you stand by this gate. When he comes, you must say to him, "I see, they have dammed the brook below Piper's copse." He will stop and fill his pipe and make small talk with you about this and that. Speak freely and let him know of your grief. Tell him how your crops have failed these last three years for want of rain or too much of it and how sick your children are. He will listen to you quietly and...