The bully grabbed me and Billy by the collar. He started dragging us in the direction of what looked like a soccer goal, but had strange metal bars around it. It seemed as if there was already someone in there.
"Get in there, Squirts!" Chase growled. He kicked us in the goal like a soccer ball, except we didn't score him any points.
"So you're here too, I see. What did you do to him?" The strange girl said. "My name is Lara. I didn't give Chase my money when he asked. I should've just given it to him." She...
Half a life lived
within four walls
the once unthinkable
now familiar
with endless routine
a strange comfort
a life reset every day to run
the same sweep of hours
One small act
stealing from my future
thinking to be happy
now...then
realizing too late
the mistake
giving hostages
to my good behavior
Moments of quiet
hours of noise
time in the yard
never solitary
taking comfort
in the dark
giving in
the dark
Twenty years
one more small act
now here I am
standing
outside those walls
a life lived as half a whole
now to be lived
an...
I knew it would be two foggy to see the dock from the top of Crescent Hill but Grandfather had insisted, and so we went. It took nearly an hour by carriage but we had a grand old time. Millicent Hedgegrove was with us. I knew that she had been sweet on Grandfather but never really wanted to admit it. Mother and Father took turns laughing at the antics of Celeste and I and fussing at us for being too silly.
The carriage could only take us so far and then we had to climb the half mile up...
"Who are you?" Gene didn't want to know the answer, but hurled at the woman sitting across the cafe table regardless. It was because of her that he was alone, it was her fault his wife no longer slept at his side.
She sucked at her cigarette, delivering her answer on a ribbon of viscous blue smoke. "Heather. Who're you?"
Gene, ever the copywriter, bit his tongue as his mind snatched the apostrophe from her words. 'Whore' he wanted to scream at the girl who shared the bed of the only woman he'd ever fucked.
'Liar,' the little voice in...
"Do you remember?"
"I remember"
"We were so..."
"Young"
"Stupid."
"We were kids."
"Would you still buy that excuse if one of yours said that to you?"
"Ha, I guess not."
"Because we were idiots."
"Clearly we haven't learned our lesson."
"Of course we have, there's some method to the madness these days."
"You call it method, I call it being surrounded."
"Go out with a bang though?"
"Always."
And with a nod, the two old friends picked up their paint ball guns.
"On three?"
"On three."
"One... two..."
Into the battle once more they ran, best friends who had...
One scoop chocolate, one scoop strawberry, it was amazing they hadn't seen each other for twenty five years but he could recall her favorite ice cream tastes. Wow she though,t he really did remember everything about them, maybe he was sincere, maybe he did love her, and never forgot about their deep, close, tender relationship.
"When I saw you again just now my heart really skipped a beat" he said softly, "I mean look at you, you have hardly changed at all, you are beautiful,l you look just the same, you look,well radiant" He was gushing with compliments, surely he...
Tears dripped down her cheeks. She was alone. Finally, sadly, happily alone.
Her husband was searching for her. She prayed that he would not find her. She had managed to escape her home while he searched for weapons to use against her. When he stomped towards the kitchen, dripping angry sweat and hurling abuse, she thought of the knives.
She didn't remember how she got between her home and the doorway. All she knew was that she was safe, for the time being.
Where next? She had no family. Her friends were his friends or the wives of his friends....
I wanted to give him everything I had. He was my love, and I knew, at long last, what I wanted out of life.
I wanted him.
Foolishness, of course. We couldn't have been more different if we had been created that way. Still, I tried. Someone once told me that you should always reach for the stars. Whether you catch one or not, at least you will have risen above the mud for a while.
That's why I ran for Congress, because I thought that was where my destiny lay. When the corruption scandal was laid at my feet,...
(To read Part 2, follow this link: http://sixminutestory.com/stories/somewhere-better-part-2.)
Gigantic.
The voice was gigantic, though how such powerful sound came out of such a small creature was beyond her.
The furry animal was sitting back on its haunches in the tall emerald grass, looking up at her as if anticipating something.
She shifted uneasily. "You said you call yourself Someone Good?" she said. "What kind of a name is that?"
"We name ourselves by our attributes," said the creature, in its gigantic voice, which seemed to be full of every meaningful thing. "We are good," it continued. And from behind her,...
Smell of moss, picked up by wind and lifted by trees. Flash of fire-rimmed eyes, toss of disdainful hair, gold-threaded-with-crimson. Derisive eyes and a tight little mouth, quick to contempt and slow to praise. Slender hands and slender frame roped the man in as easy as you please, and for what seemed like a thousand years promises of glittering gold kept her tethered to him like a