Light shone through the gap in the thick black curtains. I could see people sitting round the table in candlelight holding hands. I knew what they would be thinking, hoping, that the spirits would speak to the woman sitting at the head of the long table. I could easily imagine their desperation, hope, excitement.
Cassandra had been an actress before she took on this role, this deceit which gave her more money and adultation than ever before. These gullible grieving people wrote out checks without ever hearing a message, they just wanted to know someone cared, listened to their hesitant...
"Good night," the bar manager said, as he tapped a stack of bills on their side to even them out. The waitress dumped another pile of crumpled bills, coins and receipts on his desk.
"Good as any other," she said. The manager paused in his count and looked up from beneath a heavy forehead.
"Something wrong sweetie," he asked.
"No," she said and left the office, heading back to the front. The manager watched her walk away, thinking about what her ass looked like twenty years ago, and smiling to himself. He finished counting the money she'd dumped and dropped...
the birds on the telephone line have heard me talking
the birds on the power line have felt me typing
one bird two bird
the wind that bristles the oily feathers
the light off the moon through the black air
have all heard me
I can't remember what I've said
I've said so much
but the crows
I hear
don't forget a thing.
Pollution is an artist
and poison is a poet
Death is the brightest of colors
Noise is the sweetest song
Pollution won a grant
and poison won a fellowship
We're meeting for drinks downtown
to celebrate their well-deserved
recognition.
The woman watched Martin run into the snow. She could see him for couple of meters, but the lost him in the snow. Through the binoculars she watched the shed. If he ran away, she would be dead. She knew this was risky, but getting that teleporter was more important than surviving in this camp. She could hear her own heartbeat, when she saw Martin, running up to the shed, opening the door and going inside. She let out a sigh of relief, but became all the more nervous. He can't use it now, he has to take her with...
The general stood in the grand ballroom, waiting for everyone to clear out. Yes, the guests had a great time at the victory party; the rebels had been routed, and victory for his king had been ensured. But no one knew the price better than him. As the upper class cheered him, shook his hand, and touted him as the grandest of the grand, he mourned for those on the side of so-called evil. He knew many of them, if not personally, then through family. He hadn't grown up in this environment, but in that of the rebellion. Sure, his...
When I was 12, I went to sea. It was a hard life, scurrying around on the ship, hiding from the sailors. I was a stowaway, you see. I wanted to see what it was like. My dad was the ship's cook. He knew I was on board. He was risking everything by not reporting me.
We used to play hide and seek, late at night. My favourite spot was in the engine room, on top of the engine itself. It was bloody dangerous up there. I won every time I went there, because my dad never wanted to climb...
The summer was new, the grass was having that wet green quality when it is the first time in a long while the sun have reached it. It is happiness distilled.
They where moving in together, this was the first spring of the rest of their life. It was their love that made them set the mirror down on the grass and frolic in the spring.
Lifes sadness had not yet reached them, they did not know that this spring of love would turn into a winter of despair as they would argue the content of their lifes but somehow...
She didn't look at him. She didn't want to. The idea that he was pleading for her forgiveness didn't soften her heart. Rather, it was hardened by the fact that she had given everything to him and had given up everything for him only for him to betray her.
"Please look at me," He pleaded, "Look at me and know that I'm sorry."
"Looks can be decieving," She said harshly, "YOU taught me that!"
He fell at her feet and grabbed her hand, which she shook away violently. Only then did she look at him and he almost wished he...
Leaving was the easiest decision to make, and the hardest action to take. He fingered the photograph of his wife and daughter, remembering the last time he'd held them in his arms, crying as the rain washed away his tears. He remembered the wailing sirens, the questions, the looks on people's faces - faces filled with a mixture of sadness, suspicion, and contempt.
He thought about the judge, the look on condemnation as he sentenced him, as though the loss of his family wasn't punishment enough. He visualized walking past the liquor store, his steps heavier as he forced himself...