Pointing skyward, his finger aflame.
"Can you come here a minute?"
Trying to catch the attention of surf but drawing only seagulls, which landed on his fingertip and looked around stupidly in the low sky of November.
My whole life is a finger on fire, and wrong things coming to help. A man wearing a hat. Some flotsam. A ship in the dead of night, a drunken captain
There was blood on my pillow. Along with a few small feathers. And upon closer inspection, there was also a long white whisker, and what I could only guess was a foot. I could be absolutely certain by just picking it up, but getting home from work ready to crash from a nap that was now being delayed did not lend itself to doing anything other than being infuriated.
Where the hell had Sebastian managed to catch a bird when I had all the windows and doors closed and locked?
"AAAAUGH! SEBASTIAN!" I whirled out of the room, shouting at...
Glistening in the magnificent turquoise waters, a school of fish emerged for their morning feed. Thousands of millions of fish migrated through the gorgeous sea just tempting the young fisherman, who had been waiting for the perfect catch since the night before. Every first Tuesday of the month he ventured out hoping for that ideal catch that would leave his family proud.
He started his trips out to the great waters with his grandfather at six years old.
Though he died that year, the boy, at age 26, still continued to dedicate his livelihood to his grandfather’s love of fishing....
Im packing my bag, ready to go. Im walking to the station. Waiting for the bus.
Dear driver, surprise me where we gonna go. Take me away from here. I'm ready for new place, where I can find new life. I left my bag at station with my old memories.
I'm ready to go.
Some people have never touched the snow, or swam in an ocean, or taken an elevator to a rooftop.
I once watched it snow on the ocean from a rooftop. I took the elevator to the lobby and walked out to the beach.
First I stood in a sandstorm. Then I ran in a snowstorm. Then I fell in the snow and the sand.
The snowflakes looked like stars falling from the night.
There's somebody standing in the corner of my room.
Did you not hear me?
Let me say it again.
There is somebody standing in the corner of my room.
A blonde little girl sucking her thumb and staring back at me with these big brown eyes. She wears a ragged green dress that she held fisted in the hand that wasn't in her mouth.
"Hi," she muttered around her thumb. "Someone told me you could help me."
I stared back at her dumbstruck with my jaw on the floor. After I picked it up I asked, "Who exactly are you?"...
The girl looked up at her mother and said, "We're small."
It was sudden--so sudden that the mother looked down at her child in surprise. But then she nodded solemnly. "Yes. Yes, we are."
"Why are we small?" the girl wondered, glancing at the many people in the room. Some, with a friend or a mate or someone, and some with an empty chair beside them. Her mother sat down in one of the tables, looking longingly at the other chair, which was empty.
"Because there's a lot of people. We're a small part of everyone. And you're the smallest."...
A crappy painting of a girl in headphones standing on the crest of a mountain, surrounded by butterflies. This is what passes for art these days? Seriously, thought Darren, I've seen better finger paintings.
As he made his way from picture to picture, Darren realized that art wasn't really his thing. Eventually, he made his way back to the entrance of the labyrinthine museum and stepped back out into the practical, utilitarian world of the city in which he lived.
Still thinking about the butterfly painting, Darren wandered through the streets of the bustling, monochrome city, occasionally bumping elbows with...
It was midnight in the Temple of the Light, the sun was shining, and the Guru Akiva was smiling up at the man with the gun.
"Go ahead, child. Do it."
The man glanced around. Nobody to see him, tall, trench coat, barrel of the revolver pointed at the serene little monk as he sat, lotus-style, in the pavilion.
"Nothin' personal, old-timer." he managed to grunt. He didn't usually speak to the mark, but this guy, well, he figured the old man deserved an explanation. "The Council wants war, you see. The Temple, yer planet, it's... uh..."
"Sacred. Yes. You...
Some days you feel every second of your age. Becca looked at the balloons in her hand and back towards the building. Seven years hard labor, or so it felt, and she was still working in the same department in the same job for the same company.
A breeze lifted her hair and tugged at the balloons. They struggled against her grip, the ribbons seesawing in her hand as if each wished for freedom.
"What are you doing, Becca?" The voice reached out to her but the woman stared up at the floating orbs. The sun glowed through them and...