The rain pounded on his jacket and head like furious warriors attempting to break the city's gates.
His paced quickened and he tried to pay attention to the drops, now falling in droves. Relentless was the water falling from the sky, and relentless was his restless mind.
A restless mind trying to forget the words spoken to him 15 minutes ago.
They say no parent should bury their child, but no parent should have to hear, "I hate you" or "I just don't want you in my life anymore."
He was a good father, when she was younger. He saw...
"The key to the door is lying on the floor, a meter and a half to your right," it instructed. The more it spoke, the more unnatural it seemed to Jolene, the more artificial. Synthesized.
Slowly she followed its directives, feeling along the stone-cold floor in the dark. "Be quick," it admonished her tonelessly.
Finally her fingers brushed it; her pounding, she seized the key and stumbled her way back to the door. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to be calm, and carefully inserted the key into the lock. To her relief, it turned, and the door moved...
The lamp wouldn't turn on. Off, yes. around, yes. But on, absolutely not. No matter how many times he flipped the switch, no matter how many times he prodded it, shook it, swung it over his head, he could not get it to turn on. He decided to coax it. First he offered it things that humans like: chocolate, love and affection, sex. The lamp did not budge. Then he offered it things that his cat liked: mackerel, catnip, a laser. Nothing. He tried reasoning with it, but the lamp was dead to his entreaties. Look, he explained, you staying...
My feet ached, but it was well worth it. Not only that, I was starving. Twenty-six point two miles. It was a stupid decision, but I'm glad I made it. A marathon isn't the sort of thing most people do on the spur of the moment. I mean, I'd thought about it before. But I'd never trained for it. I just wanted to do something that I would remember. Something that would make me feel alive. I wasn't even sure I would do it until this morning. I wasn't sure I'd go along with it even at the start line....
"I want that and that and that" said the blond girl in the dark woman's pennycandy store. She wore an old dress and brought in a quarter, all in pennies. The woman, an Armenian, was her best friend Marie's mother. It didn't matter that she was. She was still frightening to many children, with her dark thick brows and the scowl. The long silver yellow hair and the odor of meat that is just beginning to sour.
"You have enough, get some more" said Sonya. "Marie is upstairs doing her homework. You shouldn't bother her", she said to the girl...
The conversation lasted only two words, for the rest there was no need to speak, her reprochful glance told the rest of the story. My apologetic eyes. Her anger and humiliation.
Two words:
"I can't"
It had started six months ago at work, She was beautiful in an understated way. Graceful and classy, and increadably sexy.
It started with the eyes, the longing glances, long before any words were spoken. It ended here, in this hotel room.
After months of planning, trying to get a weekend away, the same time off work without arousing suspision, from either of our spouses....
As I gazed across the lake at the empty gazebo, I realized I wanted to be there. To stand in the center, surrounded by it's beauty, it's superiority. I felt a strange pull, like I belonged there. "Come to me..." I paused, Morgan was calling me, it was time to join the rest of the class, but the gazebo... I wondered what was over there, and why it wanted me, just an American schoolgirl come to visit. Suddenly, I realized that the snake on roof was moving. "Come to me". I couldn't tell if the voice was in my head...
The city was empty. The day had swept by on the brush of a filthy broom, skittering over the edge of the world. We were happy.
But we'd always secretly reveled in disaster situations. When the status-quo was torn asunder, that's when we came alive. It was the status quo that we couldn't deal with.
The last bits of ash were falling out of the sky. The TV said that this might be the end of it. But they also said it might not. Storm clouds at night make the world all that much darker. So we lit our candles,...
One day, in the morning, not the afternoon, I was eating cheese. When I finished my block of cheese I noticed that there was an interesting amount of wind outside and I thought to myself, "Self, let us harness this power." So as I wrote down my many ideas of how to harness the power, one sprang out off of the paper and said "Use me!". It was my idea to harness wind with wind. I decided to blow up 6 balloons, 3 pink, 3 purple. I would travel the world, literally wherever the wind took me, because, if you...
The sheep were at pasture.
It was 0300 and the troops were restless. They wanted action, not this placid chewing of grass. Every day was filled with nothing but chewing and the occasionally terrifying sheering.
The ones that came back from the shed came back wrong. Nude and shivering, wild looks in their eyes. Year after year. Jimmy couldn't take it anymore. When they came for him the last time, he ran for it. He chewed and bit and growled his sheep growl.
He didn't come back. That night they looked in when they saw the soft lights come on...