The lead ninja laughs. "You are a fool, Senzi," he says through his mask. "Never make a boast that you cannot back up with action!"
They have me surrounded, five on each side, and one nimbly crouching on the tracks behind me, ready to leap away once the train came too close. I had no such route to safety; the points of their katanas promised a quick death should I stray from the rails.
All I have is my own katana, and my pride.
The ninjas continue to mock and jeer. I will be dead in seconds, they think. I...
Lost, without a hand to hold. That sounds about right. I never thought about it that way, though. To me it's more.. lost, without a sight to see? I don't usually think of people as guiding me. Especially in terms of being lost. Usually, it's my surroundings. This can be taken at face value - if I were lost somewhere in a city, I would be looking for landmarks to guide me. It has a double meaning though. If I feel lost, as in lost without a hand to hold, that means lost in life. To me. I suppose lost...
"No, absolutely not, that's completely ridiculous."
"But why, John?" asked Amy, staring at the tigers in the enclosure. "They're just big cats. It can't hurt."
John snorted, his unique way of showing contempt, disgust and amusement all in one foul sound. "They're tigers, Ames. Tigers. You know, man eating wild animals? They'd sooner eat us than live with us. You're mental."
"But I want one. And you said you'd get me whatever I wanted. You promised. It's my birthday." Amy pouted and stamped her foot.
John rolled his eyes. "Within reason, sweetheart! I mean within reason. And don't stamp around...
Mike had been walking for hours. Flamin' car. He knew he shouldn't have bought that old banger from Rob. The heat was belting down; it must have been at least 25 celsius. 'Hey, that's hot in Newcastle', he could hear himself saying defensively to Rob who always took holidays in Tunisia and Morocco.
The tarmac was beginning to soften and the collar on his shirt was chafing. No way he'd make that interview now. His first chance to get up the ladder in years, he'd been picturing telling Rob for ages, and now he'd blown it. Or, rather, the car...
The moon hung low in the sky, big and fat it was, looking down at us with an air of disapproval. As well it might given what we were up to. Burglary. Nasty business really, but needs must an all that. It had been Jack's idea, as were they all. He was the brains of the organisation, and what with him being the biggest and all, it would have taken a braver man than any of us to stand up to him and say no. That's how we come to be crouching in the bushes outside Millie's house.
'Ready, lads?'...
Until now, she'd never thought of herself as pretty.
But all this non-stop male attention must mean something. Guys all ages were asking her out, even last week John (aged 22) walked her home and came in for a coffee, holding her hand as they talked about music and poetry, hanging onto every word.
Bill was a seventy year old millionnaire and called about ten times a day desperate to meet up. Jack was even older and wanted to buy them both a mansion, he was so bored with his life that he spent all his time gambling.
Steve was...
then the cold
A wet cold that moves through you that clings to your insides
A cold that whispers soft and true
_You will never be warm
Smile and huddle and see that here too in this fog, this unrelenting mist that covers everything
Here too is warmth, here too is a God
Cuthbert was a fairly average Crocodile, with the expected number of teeth and glinting eyes like two marbles set in his swarthy head. He was not a particularly happy Crocodile though, as he was kept in a pen in a tourist attraction, where he was made to jump fifteen feet in the air to obtain his dinner, which was invariably a raw, plucked chicken on the end of a long pole. He found this predictable, boring and undignified.
So, one day, like any other. When the crowd gathered to watch his feat, cameras and phones poised to record him springing...
100 feet away. That's where I was when the car crashed through our fence. I was watering the yard, and I thought I was watching the kids, but I had my back to them. We live on the highway. Four acres stretch out behind us. Plenty of space, I figured. But the last owner built right up against the road, the better to show off the building. I wasn't looking. I wasn't thinking. There was Bill, eight years old, all skin and bone and muscle, and he's teaching six year-old Jenny how to toss a football, only she can't quite...
The city was empty and so was she. There was an echo in the quiet streets and an echo in her ear. She had heard this sound before--this sound of nothingness--and it reminded her of something. That vacancy. It made her think of her marriage. That was the sound of her marriage, that emptiness. She felt comfortable in that sound. Above her a streetlight snapped on with an almost audible sound. She could hear the click or maybe just imagine it. The electricity lines opening, sending current to that one lamppost so that it could shine with its weak light....