It was him. even now my breath drew short as I thought about it, all the things he used to do, all the million little ways that he would never let anything go, every little rumer that he spread or whisper behind my back.
Richard Delany had just walked into my board room. Mine.
I saw him look up and I know that he recognised me, I wished that I had chosen to wear the stilettos this morning instead of the practical comfortable shoes that are my fail safe whenever I know I am going to be in long meetings...
The clocks and the teddy bears I could understand, but the fruit really threw me for a loop. If you'll pardon the... well, actually, don't worry about the pardon. The time for pardons has passed. Yes?
I would have thought there'd been more books, but I guess I should be thankful there was one at all. One book, two shoes. That's a bit mortifying, really, but it's only fair. One couldn't get very far with just one shoe. I mean, I couldn't. Then again, I never got very far with just one book.
And seeing Her again after all this...
The gate closed behind them and there was no looking back. What went on inside would be difficult to remember anyway; like a dream that fades after the first cup of coffee, leaving one with but a shadow of a strange feeling that lingers over the rest of the day.
Anne and Bobby had been walking in the woods as the snow fell and Boris, Anne's Laborador retriever, ran ahead. They stopped to kiss in the falling snow, and suddenly noticed that Boris was missing. Running and calling, they came upon a fence they could not recall from any previous...
My dad believed the island to be the end of a search for a cure for mom.
The promise of a healer that would finally reverse the soul destroying illness that was taking mom away from us.
Dad didn't care anymore what it would take, money, hope, nervous exhaustion from the endless searching, trying, failing, crying. He had to give it one more go.
Mom wanted to go home as soon as we got into the hotel room. She always wanted to go home even when she was in our house. She could only remember her childhood house and her...
Ring, ring!
Ring, ring!'
"Hello, this is General Kuznetz", I stated. "Yes, I understand".
"There has been a change of plans Lieutenant. We must send in our ships".
I clenched my wrists together. The moment was here. The sound of the ships' engines filled the area. Slowly but surely they can began to move. My palms were sweating profusely and my lips compressed together like a lid on a jar. I closed my eyes together, unable to look at the scene unfolding before me. A slight but stratling tingle ran down my spine.
I'm dead. Really dead. Not in the "there'll be a twist at the end and I'll be saved" kind of way. Just dead. I had died probably 15 minutes ago by a raving lunatic. I know, drastic way to go right? Actually, it was quite thrilling.
So, there I was walking on Park Street when I hear this noise coming off from the left. It wasn't like anything I'd heard before. I shouldn't have done it. I'd still be alive. Those are the choices we make I guess. Anyway, I go over to see what's up and this guy jumps...
Millions spent on public health are inflationary. This is why we should kill people when they're born. That's right. When a baby is born, you flip a coin. If it comes up heads, kill it. That's what they do in China, only they don't flip a coin. They say if the baby has a vagina, kill it.
And this is a little creepy for a six minute story, isn't it? I got the first line by opening a Kurt Vonnegut book to a random page and writing down the first line I saw. Everything flows from there.
The word flow...
Everyone's a joker, until the joke's on them, thought the fish. Swimming in the fluorescent green waters was hell on the eyes, which they could never even close by the way. Just because a bloke swam in his own feces didn't mean he needed to be the butt of every little orange-finned wiseguy that happened to be dumped into their river. Who did he think he was anyway?
The boy that had dumped the little orange fish had left in a hurry. Probably glad to be rid of the little bugger, honestly. The fish swam up to the orange monstrosity,...
The water was clear and the sky, a burden. That clear, opening water annexed from infinity by the murky, swollen sky. Everything the sky held glared and grimaced like sweaty bustlers at a flea market.
And then I look back at the water and eke out a smile before the groaning creak of the sky turning darker toward the night pulls out my grin like a bad tooth.
The water was clear, so clear I couldn't see the bottom.
Lousy sky.
We are plagued, wretched, cursed...
doomed to be followed by the multitude, hounded by paparazzi, our flesh peddled to feed the teeming multitudes who wish to consume every morsel of our existence.
Our every action scrutinized, our every facial expression or turn of phrase. Is it any wonder we act so... so... is it any wonder? Put any normal person under this sort of microscope, they would doubtless appear as insane as ourselves.
Of course, there is the whole nasty business of inbreeding. Keeping the gene pool pure? Hardly. Rather limiting it to royalty has caused countless genetic problems; our...