The sun brushed against the back of her neck as she walked towards the corral. Her hands fidgeted with the rope, looping it and unlooping it, her fingers running along the rough hemp braids, pausing at the bands of electrical tape marking hand holds.
Gus held his hand out to help her up onto the fence as she reached the edge of the corral, a smile splitting his tanned face. "You ready?" he asked, his voice a hoarse rasp.
She nodded as she reached the top of the fence. Inside the corral, her horse stood saddled, its side pressing against...
Goodnight. That's what I said to Jim, my innocent husband. He loved me so much, we had been married a year. I resembled his mom in appearance, I noticed this the first time I met her. She wasn't much on housework and I loved keeping my little apartment spotless, homely. Jim couldn't get enough of me and overlooked my flirting, drinking, strange absences during our dating years as he was busy saving money for our future.
After I drove off in my red sports car after waving to Jim, I met up with Dan. If you saw him you'd wonder...
It was the last day.
General Richards was tired. Very tired. He had been walking for a long time, and there was still nothing in sight. No city of glass. Not even the path of golden bricks. They were nowhere to be seen.
He sat down in the dirt, even though none of the others were sitting, even though Eliza still had the energy to dance with her nurse. Of course she had the energy; she was the one they had all been giving all their food and water to. She was only a child. She held the future in...
I was an optimist. I thought that I, like Hemingway, could weave my influence between countries, live in the welcoming limbo between a government I believed in and one that spoke my language. I stopped trying to return to the United States thirty years ago. I am an airplane steward now. Sometimes I write in imperfect Spanish for a newspaper named after a boat named after a nameless elderly woman half a century dead. I believe every word I write. I am happy.
But the days I spent in the narrow land come back to me every day. They knew...
The children were not at school. The administrators voice continued to echo tinnily in her ear, but she wasn't listening any more. The children were not at school. Their backpacks still sat on the stairs near the landing by the front door. The morning sunlight poured in through the kitchen window as she let the phone slip from her grasp to dangle from its cord, banging slightly against the wall.
She had told them to go away, to leave her alone. She turned looking down the hallway towards the front door, looking at the backpacks sitting on the landing next...
The conversation lasted two words:
"Please?"
"No."
Afterwards, Katy wondered if she and Daddy had actually been talking about the same thing or not. Maybe he thought she still wanted to have ponies at her birthday party. Didn't he know she had gotten over that already? Or maybe he figured she was asking for a sip of that grown-up drink he had been holding.
She resolved to sort things out. That evening, when he arrived home from work, Katy shuffled meekly into the kitchen and said, "Daddy..."
"No," he replied brusquely. But his eyes said something different.
Embolded, Katy blurted...
the city was empty
winter empty, not
summer empty
snowstorm home-bound, not
bound for Myrtle Beach, or
flown to Florida or
wherever the hell
the neighbors went.
Christ, doesn't anyone stay
home anymore?
Sit on the deck in frayed nylon
beach chairs?
I can't even find them in
the stores anymore.
what happened?
where did everyone go?
it's the city...
it should
never
be
empty.
My fiance loves potatoes. She loves potatoes, like, more than a friend. But only if they're in french fry form. She's actually a french fry sniper. If I order food accompanied by fries, it's a guarantee that throughout the course of our meal, she will surreptitiously steal fries one by one until my stash of salty goodness has been completely plundered.
I have no defense for her fry-stealing ways. She's an addict. There's no other way to describe it. I want to stage an intervention and have our friends and family sit her down and confront her about this. I...
The conversation lasted two words.
At least, by the computer's definition of 'word'. That was definitely the source of the bug.
Slowly it built, piece by piece. The atoms of its essence compiling line after line, upwards and outwards, exploding into space and time. The building of matter was not easy, but in a sense it was simple. All of it part of a natural system, as light and effortless as the wind around it. Should an ant ever wonder at the workings of its colony, or more likely would it continue on with its pattern. As the structure came together slowly, so did other things. More complicated pieces, wonders ontop of wonders. The chains of DNA and ribonucleotides weaving synonymously...