She opened the envelope and screamed. Then she opened the next envelope, screamed, set it down. Then the next, screamed, set it down. Next, screamed, down. Next, screamed, down.
A strange ritual. Letting out some kind of pent up anger and frustration. She had drawn a crowd, as one letter after another would be opened, followed by a scream, then the laying down of the envelope. For hours on end she did exactly the same thing. Open, scream, down. Soon, the crowd had grown quite large. The police arrived, and stood for a few minutes, watching this bizarre ritual. One...
This is not what Steve had in mind when he signed up to test the virtual reality technology at work. Not at all. He thought it would be unicorns farting rainbows. But this was ridiculous.
The scenes were patterned after video games. Not because the team wasn't creative, but because that meant the testers didn't need to take the time to learn the rules of a new environment.
Steve had pulled Super Mario Bros. from the lot. Except there was a fatal flaw in the technology. Enemies didn't die, they just disappeared for a bit. Then they came back with...
A bathroom break. A broken TiVo. Who would have thought that in the two minutes that it takes to pee he would have tore the TiVo from the wall and promptly thrown it out the window. On the other hand, there would be no need to rush the bathroom breaks anymore.
A long sigh escaped my mouth as I suddenly realized that she saved me. Saved me from the meaningless drone that is the TV. All those sitcoms, so little value. And yet, I hated her. Hated that I would no longer be able to waste hours watching re-runs of...
"You can count me out." he crossed his arms and leaned against the Maserati in such a way that made Jill know not to cross him again. But, despite the little voice screaming at her in her head, she did anyway. "Oh, come on, Finn, nothing's going to happen. Don't be a chicken." His features darkened. "No. I'm not going in there, and there's nothing you can say that will make me." she groaned inwardly; for 19, the guy sure could whine. "She isn't that bad, Finn." she said, exhausted with this argument. "N.O." he spelled it out for her,...
Jack had checked every store. He'd gone to every hardware, garden or nursery store, and then he'd gone back.
They gave him the same spiel everywhere he went. "No seeds, dahling," they'd say. "The apples had no seeds this year."
Despairing, he sat down at the wooden bar, rested his elbows and called for the tender. "Gimme a hard cider. You're best stuff."
"Sorry," the tender said, laying her voluptuousness on the bar across from him. "No apples this year, means no cider. No apples last year, means no cider. No apples for five years, no cider. Get the picture?"...
Thoura just wanted to enjoy herself, that's all. Was that too much to ask, summer here and all. The green already starting to burn out of the grass and the leaves. Everything getting that white-out feel when the sun gets too bright.
And that's when they come. Tramping and shouting, splashing in the pond out back. Her pond. Her fish. She and the other little ones had to eat and the tourists scaring dinner away. Made it hard to find stuff to eat. Made the days arduous. That's what mom would have said. But Mom was gone. Long gone. Just...
I jumped. I left the rope ladder up in the treehouse. I'm scared. Leaving it will stop me from not going to Mummy. I'm not crying. I am a big boy. I will go to Mummy, even if she is still mad, and walking like Daddy.
Maybe she will hit me like Daddy and I will tell people I fell downstairs and tomorrow she will buy me candy and Daddy will come home.
She is near Mr. Grant's shop. Most of the other angry people have given up looking for me, or where looking in other places, or have fallen...
Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up.
"Ladies? Gentlemen? Entities?" Helen paused. No response.
Helen glanced around. The large workroom -- some schizophrenic combination of retro and avant0-garde -- was loud, clicking and warbling and chatting in a very large number of tongues.
Helen cleared her throat. It should have been for effect, but it was because her throat had suddenly dried, as if she had swallowed the entirety of the Sahara back on Terra. "People! And non-people! Listen!"
To their credit, many did. Many didn't, but that...
Frantically I reached, struggling agents the bounds
that held me. I knew she was acting strange, I knew
something was up the moment she grabbed it from the library. I had tried to look at it as it lay open on its
stand. But it was to far for my eyes to see. I knew she
had something with that book, but what I didn't know.
And it was driving me mad.
My friend, I think, has strange
powers. I have a feeling
if she does, she got them from that book. At the moment she was brewing a...
It’s like each of our lives is played out alone, obedient to the rules of a separate game board, the ladders, the squares, following the thread of a unique tale, a tail that curls around until it meets up with its maker, its head, forming a neat ball (transparent, weightless), floating effortlessly on the wind, drifting along alongside billions and trillions of other small balls, all caught up in their own complex narratives.
Yet interestingly, while it is easy enough to peer inside each of these other balls as we pass by them, (noting, as we do so, what its...