It was there in the cold, I didn't beleive what I was seeing at first. I felt the chill that he must have felt, tasted the salt that he must have tasted and beneath my feet felt the soft caress of the sand as the rushing tide pulled the sand from under me.
It was a hat, that was all that was left soaked in brine and covered in seaweed.
I could picture him, pulling off his clothes with a cold determination on a warm summers day. In sight of noone he walked to the bin and buried them underneath...
Hush the forest. Hush where the bear was, the deer have been downed. Hush my screaming heart.
In the kitchen where I am carried after my father's death, I ask for one shortbread cookie filled with jam as my mother Connie smiles around like the carousel she is of feelings. I want to sit in the dark corner and think about the bear mauling him. My father Claus, lying on the needles and still.
I ran into the woods and Meryl knocked me out. Unintentionally, I was fighting him as I would a bear. He cried onto my suede, he...
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...
"Of all the times my back has to go out, it decides to do it with a freaking hurricane coming," Susan fumed. "I haven't even had time to board up the windows or glue down the silverware."
The dark storm clouds crept closer and closer and closer to her home.
"Why is that godforsaken mailbox so far from the house?" she cried, needing to focus her frustration at being completely helpless on something, on anything.
Susan tried to stretch out her back, tried to stand up, but the pain snapped at her lower back lips whips. She cried out, hoping...
The streets were empty. Suzy was surprised for this had never happened before. What had happened.
Not only the streets,not only the parks, but the houses, shops, and schools were empty. The city was empty. The world was empty.
Suzy was confused, this was a bustling city of many. Where could the many go?
She checked all the possible nooks and crannies but no one was to be found.
Then Suzy realized something. She could still hear sounds. But what was going on? Why coluldnt she see and only hear? Was this the course of the blast?
Also, why did...
Tom watched the sun set slowly over the skeletal remains of Brighton Pier. He had spent the day wandering through the narrow lanes of the town, stopping in the curio shops, selecting strange items from dusty shelves. A pocket watch, its mechanism rusted by age and inattention, was warm in his hand. Its smooth surface, touched by a hundred hands, was plain and unadorned. He wondered who had bought it, seen it in the window of a watchmakers, taken it home. Who had carried it in their pocket. Had they perhaps stood at this very spot, looking out to sea,...
She looked at the words on the page. 'It was a pleasure to burn.' She read them upside down, glancing sneakily across the dark wooden table at the book open in front of her fellow library user. Kelly needed to get to work, she'd had a number of extensions already granted on her final essay, she had to get finished this week. But she couldn't take her eyes off the person in front of her. She was acting oddly, not turning the page, staring at that one sentence. Then, a giggle escaped the girl's lips and she flung her head...
Rupert sat gazing at the majestic mountains, but the only thought in his mind was, "Why did I have to have so many girls?" He was surrounded by femininity, enveloped, cocooned, suffocated. The son he'd longed for had never materialized, and the only other male companionship to be had in his own house was the manservant. Conversations with the help of more than a perfunctory nature were obviously out of the question.
So the women swarmed around him, but at least here he wasn't shrouded in lace and rose colored silk - though he'd need to speak to his...
We sat silently in the bunker. We received the call a few hours ago. HQ could not send back up, and the horde was descending on our location.
We held a massive attack on the base last week, but after that was thrown at us, we lost too many men to stay. But we did, as our orders were to do so.
Those bugs just would not stop coming, and apparently they hatched new creations. This time, they will win.
Julio smokes and Johnson just stares at the ground. The bunker could hold for an hour, maybe. We secured the...
It was a picture to burn.
His arm was wrapped around her waist and they were cheek to cheek, grinning like fools at the blank eye of the camera. Her arms were flung around his neck, a laugh frozen on her lips as they stood, all dressed down for a summer evening together, in her driveway.
She carefully held it to the candle flame and watched the smooth paper blacken and burn. Watched the image slowly eaten away to ash that fell like dark snow over the candle.
The dusting of ash of what had been her life: lies, broken...