Half naked and desperate, the child climbed the thin bars of the door, her cage, staring at the world outside. Her right leg crooked over the horizontal bar as she tilted her body, dark eyes staring longingly at the world.
"Get down from there!" her father snapped angrily. "You're gonna hurt yourself."
"When can I go out, Daddy?" she asked, turning to look at him imploringly. "I want to go out! You never let me do anything."
"You don't want to go out there, babygirl," the man said gruffly. "It's a dangerous world. There are mean people out there that...
When I see these flowers, and this man standing here (that's me, by the way), and I see all the men with guns walking behind me, I'm supposed to say that the flowers remind me of a lady. I'm supposed to taste the dust in my mouth, remember my comrades who gave their lives, understand the difference between pride and loyalty, duty and identity.
Mostly, I remember not knowing where I stood with any of these things; thinking that this was the process to figuring it out.
We're all figuring it out, aren't we? To know where you stand is...
She flipped the switch as she came through the door, but nothing happened.
"Damn" she sighed and set down the grocery bags. Walking carefully through the room she tried the lamp by the couch, still nothing. "ugh" She was really getting a little scared now. She continued into the kitchen, trying all the switches there was, but no light came on. She was headed for the back door and the flash light that was kept there when suddenly all the lights in the house went on.
"Surprise!" She screamed and laughed and cried at the same time.
"oh, God, you...
I was there the day that the idea of nation ended. When the black flags went up next to the reds and blues, the stripes, the stars, the figures, and all the rest. It wasn't just the black flags of course, it was the greys, the oranges, strange symbols that might not have even been human, but expressed a very human idea, "This is mine."
It seemed to happen all at once really, old boundaries didn't matter anymore, people were now brought together by an idea, or ideas more accurately, no longer separated by false lines drawn on old maps,...
2070, by 2070 i want all the bad things to be gone. i want there to be a cure to all the bad things that affect our world. cancer, gone. war, gone. i think that by 2070 the world should just have figured all of its issues out and be a eutopia. by 2070 i want peace on earth, no more starving children, no more impoverished nations. but it starts with now, this generation. i feel like before now everyone has put issues off to the next generation. But it cant keep happening. by 2070 i want the children of...
There had been many changes since last year, I observed from the front steps of the building. But it was the fall that surprised me most.
The genie that came from the lamp that I found promised me that the summer would last forever. I was so absolutely certain that he had granted my wish; but when I noticed the orange and brown leaves floating to the earth I realized that he had lied.
In fact, I even think he wasn't a real genie at all. At least the lamp worked, though.
I sighed as I reluctantly trudged back into...
The daring were punished but Alexia hated living at boarding school. She slipped her feet out from under the blanket on her bed, already fully clothed. Quietly, so as not to wake the other girls, she walked to the window, grabbed a warm shawl to wrap around her shoulders, and flung her legs out over the edge of the window sill. She carefully propelled herself forward, flew gracefully through the air, and landed on the ground beneath her window.
A smile spread across her face as she began to walk away from the large brick building that had been her...
all alone. all alone forever. all by myself. I am the last left of my family. the last splotch of colour in the green. the last of my kind the others say. I should just drown myself in the lake. I swim to the bottom and wait for the darkness to overtake me. but then i remember i am a fish, i can't drown. I have an idea. I swim to the surface and leap out of the water. The seagull takes me in its mouth and swallows. Now the darkness comes. Now I am dead.
She heard their labored breathing coming closer now. She huddled closer into the doorway, willing herself to be blend into the red painted facade of the building. She shut her eyes, a childish hold-over, believing that if she couldn't seem them, they couldn't see her. Of course she knew that wasn't true, but maybe if she closed her eyes, tight enough, she could mute the pounding of her heart; a sound so loud she was convinced her pursuers could hear it echoing in the damp and empty alley way.
"BANG!" She nearly screamed out, at the sudden and intrusive sound....
Maggie came to Heathrow airport on a white pony she had purchased along the Thames. She was hoping to board the next blind flight to Asia. Perhaps it might take her to Tibet, but you never know with those sort of flights. She had packed a variety of items in her wicker basket, which she always looped to the brass hooks above the seats on the plane. The basket had a vertical fold-out tray, where she had assembled her afternoon tea: a cup of Earl Grey and four cucumber cream cheese sandwiches.
She got in the security line at sector...