Midnight
On the roof.
A shouldn't-be time in a shouldn't-be place,
Thad pecked a shouldn't-do cigarette from the packet and lit it with a burst of flame that violated the darkness and fizzed against the silence.
He exhaled a plume of smoke, pushing it away from his body with his breath, but it hung about in his personal space as if it was reluctant to go too close to the edge.
He looked up. Some mist up there was blocking out the stars and, for now, the moon was balling along behind a strip of cloud. There wouldn't even be...
"Lola."
"Lola?"
"Lola."
"Of all the songs ever written, his favourite is Lola? You can't be serious."
"Dead serious."
"Wow. That's a guy who really needs a friend."
"I know. So will you do it?"
"Why on earth would I?"
"Out of the goodness of your heart?"
"There's goodness in my heart?"
"You might be surprised what you'd find if you went looking."
"Calling all spelunkers! Is there anyone out there daring enough to embark on the most dangerous of quests, the search for goodness in the depths of my heart? Finders keepers, down there!"
"Very funny. So you're not...
Deep beneath our feet lies a maze of tunnels, crypts, secret passages, large and small pipes, cables, each layer added over the centuries dependent on current needs. For most of us we would only consider water pipes from the bathroom, utility wires, sewage. Our ancestors needed secret ways to travel undetected, our enemies wanted places to hide.
Jim looked down at the blueprint of the basement, the house renovation had taken far too long. The cellar in the right hand corner didn't seem to exist anymore all he could find was a rusty metal trunk full of strange photos, black...
You get so used to one set of reality that you don't really consider that another one could exist.
Which is a very pretentious way of saying that feelings change without us even noticing it.
It's only when I'm reminded of the intensity of feeling that I notice that I am simply not feeling it anymore. What once felt like lifeline and lifeblood is now just a passing memory. A potentially entertaining thought process, but not worth obsessing over. Barely worth my time.
It's simultaneously comforting and distressing, to know that such intensity can be felt one moment but in...
The dapper man picked up a penny.
Then he picked up a dime.
"Which of these is worth more?" he asked the children arrayed in three neat rows on the floor in front of him.
"The dime!" they chimed in chorus.
"Very good!" said the dapper man. "And why is it worth more?"
"It's shiny!"
"It's pretty!"
"It's more specialer!"
"I've got three of 'em in my pocket!"
"Great answers, children!" said the dapper man. "But actually, a dime is worth more because it's so much easier to use a dime for Rhyme Time!"
The children cheered and began to...
Dressed as a blue cow-like demon, the boy started taking pictures of the wall. The camera was heavy in his small ungloved hands. When he pressed the red button on the top an audible click could be heard and helped persuade him to take as many pictures as quickly as possible to hear that sound in rapid succession.
The camera was his fathers, an old one, one that was locked up until the recent garage sell his mother had. When she got to the box labeled 'Dave's' she sat on it and cried. It was a welcomed moment and she...
Never before had he witnessed such decadence. In every direction he sees strangers from a planet he has not lived on. They do not share his world. Humongous flashing screens paint the slopes of this urban valley with a grotesque LCD glow, electrifying the smoggy night and blotting out constellations he was accustomed to observing. A foreign land indeed.
They had told him about these men, and their women and children, of their social clubs and religious events and twenty-four-hours-a-day informational overload. He had watched the training videos explaining how to communicate in their language, how to mimic their gestures...
The gate closed behind them. That is what George wanted me to convey to his grieving son. I did not understand what this meant but it is part of the course of being a messenger for the dead. You don't really know the significance of what you are being told.
The worst part of all this was trying to tell people their loved ones want to them to know something. Many will be very rude to you, others will ignore you. The part of it I dislike the most is when you know they are so vulnerable they will misinterpret...
The gate closed behind them. It was a screen door, really. The three stairs led up to the kitchen; they stood and talked for a few minutes. His hand brushed her neck, in his ever-so-charming way. She wanted to believe him this time, that this time he wasn't the boy who held scissors to her neck, or threatened her so many times before. She wanted to be friendly, and not kick him out that night in February. He was charming, and deadly. Forceful, and mean. With her ponytail in his hand, he covered her mouth, her parents just upstairs. His...
Absent. The perfect word to describe the situation.
Paul and Maria Strickland sat at their kitchen table eating breakfast, as they did every day. Forks scraped against plates as they lifted their scrambled eggs to their mouths, chewed, swallowed. All in silence. They'd been married for twenty years, eating in silence together for fifteen. Eating in silence was the only thing they ever did together anymore, except take care of their son, Mark.
The boy watched them from the den, where he'd taken to eating alone as he watched TV, a tray attached to the armrests of his black Quickie...