Your blood is the light in the sky and the night is the new blood replacing the old.
That darker blood you receive each day is the sweat of the earth swallowing itself with huge, heavy gulps.
Sure, time is running out, but it always comes running back in.
Time, blood, day, night.
Everything new is old again.
Isn't that the song?
Isn't that a song!
Thick dusk is coming,
whetting the waves
with you,
whetting the waves
with you.
She didn't look at him. She couldn't. He used to be her father. He used to buy her sunflower seeds at the little convenience store near their home. She used to sit on his shoulders as he walked the dirt road, both of them searching the skies for the crows they could here.
He told her stories of a time when her mother dressed her in frilly dresses with lacy bloomers. He told her of how she would look all over the yard for Easter Eggs hidden within easy reach of her tiny little hands. He told her stories about...
I stand here alone on the grey, stone foundation of a tiny island. Save a few patches of dark green moss clinging to the rock face, I am the only living thing here.
The waves crash against the rocks, rocks that have withstood their attacks for thousands of years. And then there is me, struggling to keep my footing. As I am battered by wind and ocean spray, I slowly make my way towards the only landmark within sight. A light house. Not an old abandoned one, but a pristine strong one.
It's all there is. A small shelter from...
Heather didn't like being out in the rain. She was going to get even with that bastard Gene - how dare he dump her in such a manner, in the middle of nowhere. She eased the strap of her high heel shoe where it was rubbing, and turned to look back up the street. The road glistened black in the wet night, and the streetlights merged into the puddles. She began to walk, planning what she would do. For a start, she had his key, she realised suddenly with a gleeful grin. He wouldn't be able to get into his...
She'd always come running when I called. At first I only called her when I really needed her, but after a while whether I needed her or not didn't matter; I started to call her just because I could. I didn't realise I was doing it until she called me on it one morning. I'd woken up at 5am and the first thought in my mind had been her, the smell of her, the taste of her, the feel of her. It hadn't occurred to me that she might still be asleep and that she might not appreciate me calling...
There's somebody standing in the corner of my room. He tells me things. He tells me to do things. Sometimes, he tells me other people are lying. He tells me not to tell anyone he's there. And I listen, because he's scary. But I think they're starting to figure out.
They see my eyes dart his way when he speaks. They see my confusion when I try to separate the voices. They see my hesitation when he tells me they're wrong. I think they're starting to figure it out, and I can't let that happen. He told me I can't....
The thing about mermaids is, well, that they aren't.
You're thinking seashell bikinis and fish tails, but that isn't it. Not at all.
My cousin Marjorie, this is back in '30, mind you, and the turn for the worse had been taken by all of us. She kept her things, her jewels and her dresses. They became her scales, her fins.
She decided to become a mermaid in the same way that some of us choose to marry. It was deliberate, it took forethought. She knew that she would dive beneath the waves to never return. Perhaps she would give...
When I was 12, I went to sea. Don't ask me which. I don't know.
It was sometimes blue, and it was sometimes green. And when it got dark, it was black.
The air always felt clear and cold, pushing itself down into your chest. It filled your belly up. Then it would come out hot. Hot and wet.
You could look out, and out, and out. There was just the sky, and then there was the sea. Don't ask me which. I don't know.
Just the sky sitting on the sea.
Except once, there was something else.
Once there...
The gate closed behind them. Like a thunderous blast of insecurity they were shunned, abolished, removed from the society that their father so desperately tried to control. Sarah turned, taking hold of her younger sisters hand and began walking, but she wouldn't move.
"Damnit, c'mon Michelle! They've thrown us out, our dumbass father screwed up, and now we're the ones paying for it!"
"But daddy was trying so hard, he only wanted to help-"
Sarah slapped Michelle across the face, tears breaking fourth along side the ear shattering sound of flesh smashing into flesh.
"Dad messed up, he died, and...
The pistol was cocked, ready to go. The young man stared down at the gun which was now locked and loaded, closing his eyes and taking several long breaths before looking over to where his older and more seasoned counterpart had been standing.
"We're going to die, aren't we," the young man commented, the hand holding the pistol starting to shake as his older counterpart exhaled heavily.
"We're all going to die someday," he mused in return. "So what if today is our day."
The young man sighed and looked back down at the gun in his hands. "I don't...