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...
Running had always been an expression of freedom. That's how she had always seen it. The wind whipping through her hair, tugging at her clothes as her feet moved so fast that she felt like she was flying. AS though for just that moment, she was soaring above the ground, close enough to the clouds to touch them.
But then she began to notice the strings. The tiny threads, invisible against the light, that were attached to her clothes, hooked into her skin, threaded through to her soul.
When had that happen? When had she become the marionette? The freedom...
The pidgeon man rolled off the sky-scraper. Thousands of birds flew with the updraft, gaining momentum as they hurled their bodies into his back. The crawling taxis below wailed insistently. Pedestrians opened their umbrellas, one by one. Sunset embalmed the towers in reflective flame.
The pidgeon man did not see what was beneath him. He only and always looked up.
His shadow grew on the pavement. He was seconds away from landing, yet the birds continued their sacrifice.
I don't like this piece at all. It is a depressing photo. :(
Read something else.
Kent was stabbing someone. I think it was Mary. Maybe it was Bill. I don't know. The important thing is that it was a person and he or she was in the process of being killed by Kent, who everyone called "The Guy Who Likes to Stab People." Once he tried to stab Tony buy Tony was wearing chainmail so it didn't work. Later they went for figs.
Kent finished stabbing the person, who then died. The person was red, slick with blood. I didn't know if it was a man or woman. When he was done, Kent wiped his...
The coldness of the water caught her by surprise, ripping what little breath she had managed to grab hold of from her lungs, leaving her vulnerable and blinded.
Her feet were bound, but her arms were free; she had managed to untangle the untidy and hastily tied knots as she walked from the boat to the end of the plank. Thankfully. Although it was still a struggle, at least she could at least try to save herself.
Pirates and their superstitions. No women on board the ship when it sets sale. Ridiculous. And yet, they said, there were enough incidents...
Freewrite had been studying the whole damned week.
It was a chaotic week, filled with dark-roast coffee and cotton sweaters, self induced wakefulness like a ritual. Now, it was Thursday, and Freewrite still hadn't completed his research. He sat groggily, frustrated, hunched over a dark cup of coffee with a pen in his hand and a book to his left.
On the other side of the desks were threescore discarded books that had offered little relevance to him. Friday was tomorrow. Freewrite looked at his wristwatch. It was already 9:58 pm.
Freewrite realized that his thesis was due the morning...
Everyone was on board for the show. They had their fly gear and their hats. I, of course, forgot my sunglasses.
"No problem," mama said, "just squint!"
As we lined up, I squinted at the audience. It never ceased to amaze me that the entire population of a town would stop what it was doing to watch our show every week. But they did. All fifty-four of them, including the dogs.
I was getting antsy. This week, I was the leader! Never before had a child led the show! I wasn't nervous; there's no room for nerves in show-biz. However,...
Bocci. Bocci ball. Bowling on a lawn. That's what I was doing in that old photo. But strange. Usually you bowl with other people. Usually there's markings on the ground, a target ball to shoot from. In the photo, I'm just standing there in the middle of the lawn, facing the house. My house? God, I don't know whose house that is. It could be a field house, or a club house, and I'm playing bocci, a game I don't know how to play, have never, as far as I'm aware, ever played before in my life, and I'm hunched...
Time to empty his pockets. Small knife worn ebony handle, three cheap plastic lighters, one engraved silver lighter, crumpled receipts, loose change, reading glasses, two cell phones (one pink). Notebook of newspaper clippings, photos, poems, doodles. He didn't know what to do about it. Recalled the shivery feeling when he looked through it, read the threats within the pages.
Kleptomania could be an interesting condition to have. Usually he was thrilled by his daily haul. Not today. Wondering if his conscience would make him warn the subject of the notebook.
She looks beautiful. Innocent. Unaware..
Leonard stumbled back. He almost fell. His heart raced and sweat stuck his shirt to his belly and back and armpits. He'd had patients worse off than Bea, patients with bloody ends, with pointless existances, tortured creatures that lived and died hooked to electricity and strapped to beds. None with the relative safety and comforts that he'd been treating Bea in, the comfort of home.
This was a scheduled meeting in the garden, she'd come from the trees, barefoot, bare arms, makeup garishly applied and with the gauzy veil over her face. His boy would laugh, he imagined, would point...