There was nothing like getting the supplies in every month with the boys to lift everyone's spirits. Goodies, magazines, and letters abounded and everyone was excited waiting anxiously for their packages.
Sergeant Thomas was sorting through the packages and arranging them into groups to deliver when we came across a package for Lt. Roger. The Lietentant was a quiet sort that never received any sort of mail and never wrote any letters. But here before them was a nice package addressed to him that smelled of perfume and tobacco.
Thomas, thought it would be good to give the package to...
Marchiel stared into Francis's twisted visage. The black rose stood just behind the broken man and Marchiel wanted her. Francis put a hand on Marchiel's chest as the younger man started forward.
"No, brother. You will not have her. She has chosen me. ME!" Francis crowed in triumph. It was true. The Black Rose had chosen his twisted, fire-marked brother over Marchiel. Marchiel's heart ached at the rejection.
"You have placed a spell on her, Francis. I will break it with true love's kiss." Marchiel brushed his brother aside and continued up the steps towards his love. "Chereal," he whispered...
Sixteen years, almost to the day. He wasn't sure what was worse: how sad it was, or the fact that he knew how sad it was.
If only he could be one of those losers who didn't /know/ they were losers - a self-deluded idiot. Sure, they get laughed at by the world, but at least they're happy in and of themselves. They don't know that their dream is unreachable, that they're doomed to spending the rest of their life watching something they can't have.
Tom Hamil had been selling flowers for sixteen years at the same shop, in the...
I shot my butler.
No, actually, I did.
Yea, I know what you're thinking. "This lady's crazy if she's just gonna write about shooting her butler as if it's no big deal. She's probably writing from jail."
Well, I'm not in jail. He's actually fine. It was just.... In the craziness of that day... I didn't even know it was him. One minute there was no one there but the smoke in my eyes and screams in my ears, and the next moment I had a gun in my hand and there was the butler. He took a step toward...
It was a surpise to discover that grandad's home disappeared down the sink hole. The ground literally swallowed him up, not a trace for over ten years.
Now I was grown up, I was allowed to stand around with the paramedics and police and watch the removal of the body. I didn't avert my eyes like Mrs Wozniak standing next to me, one moment excited and chattering, eating ham and mustard sandwiches, spitting crumbs, next moment for once in her life she was quiet. The reality of life versus CSI on tv. Soon after turning her thick neck away she...
"Faster Faster Faster Faster!!!!" he yelled from the front seat. "OK." the other guy punched it. "Too fast! Too Fast!" he yelled, white knuckling the armrest. The other guy hit the brake. He flew forward and met the windshield. "OOF!" "Don't crack my windshield." the other guy said from the driver's seat. A phone was dialled. "Ian broke his face!" At home... "Ian, let me see..." "No." "It'll only be a minute..." "No. No. NO!" "*gasp*" "What happened? ouch ouch ouch..." it's a little crooked."
The visitor asked, "Can you write a story without a prompt?"
"I don't know," said the writer. "I've never tried."
"Really? You mean all those stories you wrote arose from something you'd seen or heard?"
"Or something I'd read. Tasted. Felt. Wondered about."
"And the novels? The poems? That terrible album you wrote and recorded?"
The writer smiled. "Yes, all of them. I need to have something to start from, some germ of a concept that I can build on. It's like the way a jazz musician riffs off a set theme. They start with what they have and make...
Death. As kids, we are terrified of this, but always reassure ourselves it won’t happen for a while. But for the past year and a half, reassuring myself has done nothing- I’ve already known the truth.
“She has one month.” My doctor whispers, leaning against the navy blue doorframe I know all too well.
“What do you mean, one month?” my mother questions him, matching his volume.
My father strokes her arm gently. “To live.” His voice is hoarse, as if he’s been crying. And he has. He looks into the door and I immediately sit back in my chair....
Goodnight sweetheart, well it's time to go...
Goodnight sweetheart, well it's time to go...
There's a contentment there. I find myself humming that, especially when everything has gone to hell and the day is a loss, and yet there is still the final evening bits to get through.
It's Sha-NA-NA in my head. A sense of contentment settles over me, a sense of belonging - to another time, a younger time - a time before pain. Well. A time before this particular kind of pain, or even the pain of what was coming a few years after that song stopped...
Absent. That's what I was called by my fifteen year old daughter. The absent father. She did not know the truth, I worked undercover. Danger. Security. Empathy. Love. I had it all but I had nothing for my own family. That isn't true, I thought about them in the spare moments, pulled up images in my mind. Reflected on those special times tucking Beth into bed while she slept, unaware I'd be staring at her, a light in the hall illuminating her face.
I knew Beth thought I didn't care. I know because that's how I felt about my own...