She blew out the candles on her birthday cake, and the world we knew was extinguished. The next day, streamers and half-deflated balloons still taped to the walls and ceiling, Dad came home and pulled Mom into the kitchen and they spoke in whispers.
Jenny looked at me and snuck up to the television and turned down the volume, so we could hear was they were saying, but Mom knew and stuck her head in and told us to go down to Grandma's for the afternoon.
We walked down the block, turned right at the corner store, left after two...
"Your team is to find the contact code-named Scurvy."
"Scurvy? Boy, he sounds pleasant."
"Actually, she's quite humorous and accommodating. You'll understand when you meet her."
"What time should I set out."
"Now."
"Great, thanks. I'll take my own rig."
At 0800, I landed on the beach where Scurvy was waiting for me. She didn't seem particularly pirate-like in any way. I handed her the documents, she scanned them, then threw them in the air and set them aflame with a snap.
"So why do they call you Scurvy?"
She stopped mid-stride and leered at me. Hilarious, indeed.
"We've got...
She opened the envelope and screamed. Years of waiting for a transplant, and they'd finally found a donor. It was as if, in that one moment, all of her worries had been put to rest.
She didn't think about the possibility of complications. She didn't worry about whether or not her insurance would cover it. Those were all things she'd have on her mind later -- but for now, all she had was the joy of knowing things do get better.
"I hate him. He could get hit by a car randomly in the street, and it wouldn't matter to me. It would probably make my days better."
Anyway, it happened. It would. And so then the whole school was plunged into mourning of varying depths. Mourning of the grievous type, and mourning of the more celebratory kind.
Let's be honest. He made everyone's life miserable. He never bothered to even sit. His room was the hallway, not a desk.
The administrator who suspended him that day couldn't stop questioning himself: could I have done more? Should I have done it?...
Dolly told me about the swimming pool in Mr. Sakimoto's bonsai garden. The water was warm, she said, no matter what time of year. Also we could pee in it. Mr. Sakimoto didn't mind. In fact, it was expected.
We went after school that one day in February. I'd bought a special bathing suit just for the occasion. It was a Speedo. Yellow. With Scooby Doo on the crotch. Dolly didn't like it, but she wasn't my girlfriend, so it didn't matter.
We arrived at 3 a.m. (The bus broke down so we had to walk.) By that time, we...
afraid I can't follow the prompt
it's entirely outside my area of expertise
guess I could make it all up
but that's not my thing today
thought I would be writing truth
and deep strongly held beliefs
but the prompt about news reporters
and grabbing for glory
doesn't sound like my kind of story
glad for the time limit
as it ticks away I think
at least I will not be verbose
and yet there is something
I really wanted to say about
praying for peace and going to war
and fighting terror with terror
that niggles at my gut...
Rain poured down, next to her, the doorway shielding her. She clutched her red gown as she huddled down close to the ground. The tears wouldn't stop flowing. She was terrified. Elsewhere in Beijing, a man was looking through his house. Calling a name, begging for his daughter to come back.
The girl in the red gown knew what he was doing. She was trying not to care. She was not going back. Not after what he did. Was it right, what he did? What she did? She didn't know. Nobody would know. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She...
"Okay now, keep steady on the horse." John heard these words and almost groaned with pain. Oh, wait, that was because his horse was trying to run away and bucked up into his crotch. He'd learned to ride one damn day ago and was still hungover from last night's king cup of peach-mango margarita.
"Calm down," she said, "you look stressed." No crap, John thought. He looked at the crowd of people across the water, just standing on dry land, in their bare feet and loose white clothing, chatting and smiling. A few of them were even holding their own...
I rarely watch the news.
Except for that one time when I did turn on the news to catch breathless commentary of the desk crew as the news chopper puttered over the train tracks and there was a man standing on the tracks. The man wore black, his face draped in black and he held a sword in his hand--oh not just a sword, he had one of those Samurai Katanas aloft.
At least I think it was a Samurai Katana, my only experience with those was what I saw on "Kill Bill" and the katana letter opener I had...
She kept her eyes down, on her shoes. People brushed past her, maybe impatiently. She didn't move, she didn't walk.
She waited for someone to take her hand, to try to talk to her, to lead her away. It didn't happen. No one looked at her. Nothing happened, and she heard nothing. Better that way, because how could she explain anything?
Making the decision, she walked over to the bench, sat down at the very edge, across from a display of vacuum cleaners. Still, she stared at her feet.
Without warning, he was standing in front of her, cheeks still...