The results were in. It was his back, that flimsy thing. And I mean that in more than one sense. His back had been giving him problems since we were married. Our wedding night? At the height of passion he suddenly started screaming in pain, as if marriage had injured him. Before that night, he'd never had issues before. And now it wasn't just his spine, it was his unwillingness to be strong and I would bear the brunt of his weakness. Just like I had when we were newly weds. That night I had gotten out of bed, made...
"I'm dead, really dead. Not the dead in all those stupid books people read- the kind of dead that means you'll be done in all of five minutes.
I was still waiting for him to return from the store, but I knew he wouldn't.
I heard the crash from the garage, the start up of the chainsaw. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Crying. I had sent the kids to my mother's thankfully.
I heard the basement door open. I waited, alone in the kitchen. I heard the footsteps through the hall. And there he was. Not the man who left, but a...
How endlessly the ocean seems to stretch out over the horizon. It never ends as it drifts beyond view, but you and I both know that even though it continues further than our sight, it will go on to find its end at some far off beach on some other continent. There, someone will stand at it's shore and look out the way that we are now and make the same observation. We will then be the ones that cross their minds as some strangers with our toes in the sand, creating some cycle of perception of one another. I...
Peasants. Every last one of them, with their cheap hairspray and horrid distaste in bowties.
I stood at the edge of the sixty second annual GreatVac vacuum door-to-door salesmen conference in a state of disbelief. These people were my peers? My coworkers? My confidantes? Not a civilized, educated human being appeared to be in the room.
Barbarians. You would think that GreatVac, a company founded in 1904 on good American values would have a bit more poised and elegant populace.
And clearly the organizers of this event had very poor catering skills, as the punch was repugnant and the finger...
Standing on the ledge, it seemed so surreal to him. It was like an out of body experience. He couldn't remember deciding to go to the roof. He certainly didn't remember deciding to do what he was about to do. It was almost humorous how much it felt like an out of body experience, almost. He looked down at his clothes and thought of all the different things he could have worn for this. It's odd the details that come into your mind in times of crisis and stress. I guess the devil really is in the details. He was...
And so another group assembled. The moon shone like the eye of a great forgotten deity, peering down on the hooded figures who worked tediously on the pyre between them.
Old branches, gnarled and bony, reached into the pyre as more hoods broke into the meadow. No one knew why they had been gathered here, in the deep wood that bordered the black lake. But, like their ancestors, the call to arms was one they could not deny.
And as sudden as they all appeared, a creature formed from within the darkness, dark green flesh glimmering with the faint caress...
"Who among you, if her son asks her for bread, will instead give him a stone?"
I was paraphrasing, and quoting out of context, but she didn't know that. She was just a foolish, naive, ignorant, innocent young girl. She'd begged and pleaded for the opportunity to raise a pet. The goldfish just hadn't been enough, either. Oh no; she wanted a mammal.
So the baby gorilla came home with me one day, fresh out of acting school. This little guy was GOOD. He could play dead with the best of them. He could even slow his heart rate to...
White bedsheets flapping in the heavy breeze. Orange shrapnel from withered branches impotently scrape the stiffening linens.
I never saw an owl in my backyard, nor a black cat elbowed and shrieking on my fence.
But I can smell the wet detritus of autumn by the cellar windows and drip, drip, dripping from the gutter.
The doorbell. A banging on the screen door. Shaving cream in the middle of the street. These things, too.
You had me at 'ox bow lake'. But the time machine accidentally switched itself on and didn't stop until I was back in 2012 where I started. I spent months in regret afterwards, looking online at the black and white photos of you with the rest of your Native American tribe, uncomfortably posed for the camera. I could not mend the glitch in the machine, could never return to a life with you. Sometimes I spend time with your ancestors, I have made friends with little Jimmy, your great great great grandson. I can imagine that he could have been...
We had to move quick. Aside from the smell of decay, and the swarms of flesh-eating bugs that harangued us at every turn, the swamp was cold, and Dr. Fjord's injury was not getting any better. I didn't like dragging her through the murky waters like this, but I didn't have a choice. I held her as far from the water's surface as possible, but I couldn't keep her out entirely. She wasn't doing much to help, though I could tell it wasn't by choice. She was barely conscious.
"How far?" I asked, my voice no more than a rasp....