They were trapped for seven days. But not seven nights? No, not seven nights. They were able to go their homes at 5 PM, but they had to report back to the avalanche at 7 AM sharp. Tim always arrived five minutes early so he could finish his coffee.
It was an unusual set-up, but one everyone could agree on. After all, who wants to be trapped for that long, and at night to boot? You'd miss all your favorite shows! Cindy couldn't miss the one about mean people trapped on an island together, which she guessed was ironic. They...
For a short time before television, people walked past store fronts to satisfy their lust for fantasy and projection. No actors, just mannequins, so a little more imagination was required. There was also some exercise, and words that more closely resembled conversations in between the fantasies.
Accordingly, Robert and Ruth were able to have a different life than their analogs 50 years later, Sam and Shirley. Ruth knew she could not afford the dress. Shirley assumed they could earn the money later. Robert and Ruth raised their children together. Sam and Shirley were separated before the second child was a...
I jumped.
Then I found mysef flying.
Yellow street lamps weaved below me.
They said that yellow represented caalm and the ability to fly signified that I was rising above my problems.
But what do they know?
Their 'experience' came from reading books. Mine came from real life, from living with the monsters in my head. Dark, shapeless freaks clawing at the psyche, dripping poison into every cell and stem, clawing relentlessly at my skull.
I tried to cut them out, I tried to drink them t sleep but they wouldn't stay quiet for long.
Therapy! What a joke. Seeing...
The crow sat on it's perch, silently watching the moon. It wonders how far the moon is, and if it could reach it using just it's own wings. But of course it couldn't, because he was just a bird. The crow wonders what it's like to be free, and remembers it's life before it was a bird. The crow was once a happy young boy, but he was known for his many tricks. He was a mischievous boy, and he tricked one too many people in his life. Finally, he tricked a traveling wizard out of money, and the wizard...
My feet ached, but it was well worth it. I absolutely HAD to make the weight requirment for my dance competition. I only had three more days to lose another five pounds. My legs burned, but I suppose that I should have expected that much after a three hour run, but I thought that I could do it effortlessly by now. After being in dance for five years, I've had to really push myself to stay within my weight limit. Sometimes it was really hard to keep from eating. I knew that if I couldn't make weight, the uniform wouldn't...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. It had been an hour since the torrential downpour started. It was only a matter of time before she realized that she would not make it to her own wedding and so she closed her eyes and concentrated very hard. Blood began to trickle from her delicate nose, sullying her piercing white make-up. As so, crows' feet around her eyes displayed her delicate skin underneath. The rain started to lighten gradually and the street seemed to get brighter second by second, inch by inch. The rain...
Fault. It is so common a word. Used by so many to allay the suspicion that they are truly the ones responsible. And who am I? I am no different.
My leg moved as if in a dream, gliding through time and space like it was made of water, no jelly, no gravity. It moved, ever so slowly towards a destination that I couldn't help but be brought to. Call it fate, call it fault call it whatever you will but in the end that is where I ended up. One foot in the street and another on the sidewalk....
The city was empty. The skyscrapers during the day looked powerful and full of promise. At night, they just looked like pieces of art. The hustle and bustle of New York was beginning to bug me, for the first time ever. I was going to walk far, but I'd see someone. So I stayed in my quiet neighborhood, passing by restaurants and apartment buildings. "Being alone was possibly the worst thing that has ever happened to me." I thought to myself. From then on, that's all I could think about. That sentence rang in my head like a dinner bell....
Yumi had been drawn back to the beach. Inside her trembling frame her soul screamed in agony, her weakened legs barely held her up. It had been one year and eight months to the hour since hell rose up and sucked away her reason to live. On that frigid silent morning the black putrid ocean came over them and then forever kept coming. The shrieking banshee cry of the tsunami alarm vibrated through her bones as she ran with baby Akiko in her grasp. The impact of the wave smashed her legs and the baby tumbled from her tender grasp....
Spinning.
The tiny clockwork bird danced (for want of a better term) in a circle, twirling, singing out its jaunty song.
She sat, watching it sing out its tune, listening to the unique tinny sound of the music box - there was something about that music, that paticular brand, which brought her back to childhood. As a child she had watched the bird, watched it in her mother's palm.
Her mother had, briefly, convinced her that this was a real bird, that this was what happened to them when they were caught, tamed. That you could teach them these songs,...