I held it at arm's length, thinking that it could never get to me that way.
But as I sit here alone in this room night after rain soaked day. I have come to realize,with the full clarity of a reformed sinner; it was not that I was protecting me from it. It was that I was protecting it from me.
And it never wanted protection in the first place.
£18000. That's all it would take. But it was more than Charles had, that was certain. He gazed in wonder at that glossy, dog-eared magazine page. Awe, even. He had been looking at that same page every morning for the past fourteen years and with a sigh he would fold the mag shut and let it sit on his lap and lean his head back and rock. The rocking chair had belonged to his father. That was the only thing of his father's that he ever got. The cancer got him, a few years earlier. The rest of the family...
It's ringing. Ringing. Ringing. Ringing. STOP it from ringing!
Karla never wanted to hear his voice again. Never wanted to hear that damn ring of the public phone at on the corner of East and Cherry. Never wanted to wait again; to see if he'd call, usually he wanted money. Always for drugs. Drug money. Meth money. That idiot, he was killing himself, and now he wanted their son. Brian wouldn't even look at Gray when he came to the lobby of their high rise, his dad was always high, red-eyed, and stumbling. They used the pay phone in case...
The President, nefarious super-villain, sneered at Immobilus, Triumph City's most paralyzed superhero, and swung the axe over his head, ready to bury the hatchet, so to speak, deep into the chest cavity of Dred-X, Jamaican superhero and reggae star. Immobilus focused, building up a ball of psychic energy he hoped would be big enough to knock The President.
Just as the head of the axe began to fall, Immobilus fired, the ball of energy glancing off of The President's arm, forcing the axe-head to arc downward and plant itself deep in The President's leg. He let out a blood-curdling scream,...
A small flower
Just a seed
planted in the dark
you were fed, to grow, to blossom.
In the dark you grew,
Spreading your leaves out so far,
Reaching for the light,
Almost touching it,
You found it,
But it was too soon
You wilted
Curling back into the dark.
Your thorns, so sharp,
Gripping with all their strength,
Holding tightly,
Waiting for life.
Back into the dark you went,
into the ground,
Forever in the earth,
Never to grow.
When I was twelve I went to sea, aboard a small ship. They hired me to clean and sweep and feed the men, in exchange they said they would take me across the ocean to the new world.
A week or two after shipping out, a storm rose on the horizon. The wind she blew and rain she fell and waves crashed into the sides.
The captain went first, and then his crew, leaving just me and another, a drunk.
The sails were torn, and the bow was pierced, the hull became full of water. Neither of us knew how...
Turning twice to see the darkness and the light, Keeley lost track of the zombie that had been running along behind her at surprising speed. Somehow he slipped in to the shadows as her light-blinded eyes took too long to adjust. No matter. Keep moving. She had to keep moving. She'd learned that early on. They were too slow to give chase. Except this one. Something about they way he moved led her to think that he was different. Faster, yes. But also more precise.
The bridge ahead of her looked empty. Still, she approached it warily, knowing that appearances...
Emotions are tricky things. They are the things that fill us with that warm, semtimental feeling that we get in our chest while our hearts are busy taking picture so as never to forget the beauty of a moment. That emotion we might call love. They are the pounding of blood running pushing its way through our ears, sweat streaming down cheeks, and our breathing heavy and laboured. That emotion could be named fear. They are also heaviness that seeps through our body after a long day of disappointment and getting nothing done. This is discouragement. But emotions, good or...
The day it burned down my mother locked herself in her room and wouldn't take any visitors.
"Mom, come out of there!" my little sister whined and cried for her.
"No!" "It's not fair, it's not right!" "This didn't happen, it couldn't have!"
Her memories of him, that Winter in 1973 where they sat on the front steps of the chapel and watched bikes and cars drive by... The day they got married; January 19, 1973. When they blew off the after-wedding limo to watch the snow fall, later to hitchhike to their own reception.
It was just like her,...
Just put it away, I don't want to play.
Come on.
Not now.
Come on, we're just sitting here waiting. You know it'll take forever for them to get back to us.
Okay, fine.
All right, who invented the hot air balloon?
I did.
No, the Montgolfier Brothers.
Well...
Listen, if you're gonna answer "me" for every question, it's not gonna be fun.
It's not fun.
You're a real drag.
I'm just having an off day. Let's sit in silence.
Let's try another question.
Fine.
What is next week's winning lottery number?
That's it. I've got to go.
Oh, come...