All I could do was stare down at the text book and pretend that I was listening to the class going on around me. I just wanted to be free again. I flicked between the pages and the past documented in the battered book. I wonder if when those sailors set out that they even thought for a glimmer of a second that their whole adventure would be covered by a short paragraph in a 10th grade history book and a photo that barely even grasped what their lives were like and how tragic that journey was. I knew that...
Fourteen fish
bunched
like a silver
artichoke
They are traveling
farther
than their fathers
who never
left the river
Their futures
are
in lemons
and
bread crumbs
Leave me behind as you do is because of my fault. The fault you saw in me is the one you said you'd fix, it's the fault you spoke to me about while we sat on the bus, and I still had a smile, and a home, I still had ambition and curiosity as to where I belonged. I sat and stared out the spotted window and saw a man on a bicycle, and the bicycle made a sound both wooden and metallic against the side of the bus, and the lump under the wheels did not come with the...
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'm not truly Welsh of course, being that my Great Grandfather's Mother's second husband was from Scotland. A secret shame that the Family has bourn quite well, considering. When questioned over my flame coloured Ginger hair, relatives successfully hinted at the local milk delivery representative as explanation. An obvious solution, except for the fact that her hair was clearly and obviously dyed, but there you go.
So, our family are what Cwm-yn-Canu locals would call "incomers", not...
The audience stared open mouthed at me. They've probably never heard that much senseless profanity before. But blaming me, they can't. I told them my material wouldn't fit here, but they wanted me to do it anyway, so now they have to sit through it. It's as simple as that. Admittedly, I could ease it up a little, or better yet, I tell them my "Aristocrats" version. That'll teach granny not to ask me what I do for a living. I really hate these family gatherings...
"I shot my butler." I threw the manuscript across the room. Grabbed a scotch. No. Wait. Wanted a scotch, grabbed a bourbon. Drank it anyway. What kind of a piss-poor story ends with "I shot my butler?"
It was Fight Club, that's what did it. I think. All this unreliable narrator business. The publishing world hasn't been the same since, filled with hacks trying to seem clever with these terrible twist endings. It's almost unbearable.
I polished off my bourbon. Still wanted scotch. Rang for Jeffrey. The house is too big, I can't be expected to go all the way...
She wasn't sure she could do this. the bishop had been her friend for a while. he was trying to kill daddy, though, so the princess pulled out her kit and pulled out the vial she hadn't touched since she'd found it. the deadly poison was slipped into her sleeve as she went down to dinner. She sat down next to the bishop, smiling. she moved her arm ever so slightly during the entrees, knocking his hat to the floor. "Oh! You seem to have dropped your hat! Here, let me move your glass so you can get it." she...
Leaving was the easiest decision to make, and the hardest action to take. The thought kept running through Eddie's mind as he waited through another Dealer change. He removed his knock-off designer shades and attempted to rub away the hours of lost sleep. As the pair of pocket cards slid in his direction he affixed the shades back in place and took a deep breath. Contrary to popular belief perception is hardly ever brought on by a sweeping vignette of thoughts while staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night. Many times it arrives in moments of...
We had been the best of friends all though high school. It was summer after senior year and we would soon be off to our respective colleges. This was going to be one last slumber party; one last tribute to the way we had spent most weekends throughout the last four years.
Mindy had brought the tequilla, which was a recent development. I mean, slumber parties as freshmen didn't include booze. I furnished the barn, or rather my parents did. The night was soft and warm and the air was sweet with mown grass, and if you didn't mind the...
It was Andy from the grave.
"Can you speak up?" Caroline, distracted anyway by something on TV, couldn't understand him.
"I said it's Andy. From the grave. That's the muffling, the grave."
"Well, it doesn't help you're such a mumbler anyway. Wait, do you mean you're actually calling from the coffin?"
"Not really," said Andy, "but I am dead somewhere. I don't feel like I'm in a box. I feel like I'm in a cloud."
"That could be the coffin. I saw it," Caroline remembered, "it was plush."
"That's nice."
"Listen, did you want something? I've gotta head out in...