I'm dead. Really dead. Not in the "there'll be a twist at the end and I'll be saved" kind of way. Just dead.
I suppose you want to know what happened. It was Geoff. In the bedroom with a vase. Not a very imaginitive death, really. But there you go. I went from a person to a statistic in the blink of an eye.
Dying is an odd sensation. Like when you're really drunk or hungover and the room spins when you sit up. It's just like that. I watched as he ran around wiping up the blood, hiding the...
When represented on a flat surface, a right angle can appear acute or oblique.
Yeah yeah. We're here. Uh huh.
Well, we had this idea. Not totally sure it was smart. Yeah. Timothy is looking at it right now. No, no, it's a black flag. Pirates. I know. I know. I told you we weren't sure. How did they react? Not well. They kind of ... panicked, I think you'd say. Jumped over board. Uh huh. I think if we were starting from scratch we'd probably think it through a little more closely. No I know. The problem is they thought were were the pirates. Well... Okay, let's agree to disagree. Yes it was...
I cannot be old as were, but I'll be as old...
No springs, no machination, no burn, can retreat the circle
but the circle will come round
--not old as were
Along the shore they did not remember
Walking until their flesh and their ligaments
Wasted
No mercy for the parched
And she stood staring from behind pa(in)
And he paced
And he destroyed
And he ripped--because
This is not the girl I wanted
This is not the girl I knew
This is not the girl I ordered
Custom made behind a pa(in) of glass
Darling or darling oh darling...
They stood in front of one another with only the silence in between.
It had been like that for a while. She hadn't known what to say. He had been waiting for her to say it. So both stayed silent, begging each other to break it with any kind of sound.
The silence had actually begun from the moment the date had begun, strange because it wasn't their first. No, it was one of many. The pair had been together for almost three months now. He had asked her if a date that night sounded good. She said yes, because...
"Dammit it's cold today." Bard pulled his hat further down over his forehead and huddled into his fur. "This shit just ain't worth it, Jake." The mule nudged his shoulder and tugged on the lead. He knew where warmth was, as well as his grain.
Man and beast drudged along the logging trail beneath the cold, thin light of the winter sun. Behind them clouds piled up over the horizon, snow dark and ominous. Bard could hear the wind starting, a distant rush of sound bending tree branches and pushing the storm closer.
"Two more miles and we're home," he...
"Jesus Christ! Where am I now?"
As Martin gazed into the vast ocean in front of him, the broken teleporter still beeping in his left hand, he realized, that getting home might have just become impossible.
He tramped down an empty highway for hours, without meeting a single car, until he reached a gas station. Inside, there was no one. He went around the cash register, took out some change and dialed his brothers number from a pay phone next to the candy isle. It rang. "Come on, pick up." Nothing. He let it ring for a couple of minutes...
Vanquished.
I was confused. This isn't how I expected the novel to end. Who committed the crime? Where was the last chapter with the explanation, the satisfying ending the reader could ponder on when the final lines had been read?
This book looked identical to the others in the bookshop the next day but twenty pages were missing at the back. I was waiting in line to exchange the book when I had a strong mysterious feeling not to.
Returning home I sat on the battered red leather sofa and opened the last page again.
More words than I expected....
PUNCH
Graham Pererson was a murderer. He killed people. Often.
Under the guise of a little old man he scoured the late evening streets for his victims. He carried a small bag and a walking stick.
He had a nicely worked out system which had, to date, never failed him.
And so tonight, April 1, he locked his door behind him and headed towards the suberbs.
They were starting to head home in groups of two and three from their nights of debauchery. He hated them. All of them.
A young woman seperated from her group and turned a corner....
In hindsight, the solution was obvious.
It was staring me right in the face the entire time but for some reason I had a hard time coming to terms with it.
It wasn't really his fault, in a way I guess you could say it was my fault. I was the one who always wanted to try new things and that night, he had been nowhere to be found. I jumped in with both feet, never once thinking about the consequences.
It was easy for me, I had no ties to anyone or anything. Well except for him.
He, on...