We were sitting in the basement, Danny and me. Tv's on. Hockey game. Upstairs ma and pa is fighting again. Bills. Or pa's philanderin'. Didn't know. Didn't care.
"Hey," Danny says. "Let's make a mix tape."
I roll my eyes a little but I don't say no. The two-deck tape player is in the basement as is my whole cassette collection. I know Danny doesn't like most of my music but he does like some songs (The Beatles' Birthday, The Who's Won't Get Fooled Again, The Pointer Sisters' Neutron Dance.)
So we start making a mix tape. Danny, who is...
In the morning, he'd wake up, stretch a bit and roll up his things into a small bundle and be on his merry way. There was a gym nearby with public access to the showers, where he'd wash his clothes and hang them to dry on a curtain bar somewhere as he brushed, shaved, showered and took care of his other personal grooming.
After that, he hopped on the back of a trolley and got his exercise for the day walking from the trolley stop on the edge of town to the orchard just a mile down the road. He'd...
He stood outside the castle, looking in. That little fence was all that separated him from the world of imagination. For the castle was filled with magic, with kings and queens. If only he could get inside, and experience that magic for himself.
When he got older, he'd realize that there was no such thing in the castle. The outside was a beautiful facade to entertain the children, but the inside was used as a storage room.
Not that he could fell it, but judging from the way he staggered with every few steps, his legs hadn't healed completely. It was likely he was setting himself up to trip and collapse again, unable to move, but he knew he couldn't stay any longer. He tried to make his steps as steady as possible, but with no percerption of how much weight he was applying, he was at a loss to gauge if he was accomplishing much, and in the back of his mind simply waited for the tell-tale crack of bones re-fracturing, and plummet into the grass....
My name is Joseph Buxton and I am a terrible person.
The audience stared open-mouthed at me as the blood welled around the wound and covered my hands which were clasped over. I wouldn't normally do this, try to save a man's life, but I felt I owed him something. As he bled out and stained the cuffs of my shirt, the useless audience just stared on unmoved.
I felt his heart slow to a stop and watched the life drain from his eyes. He was still now, it was over.
I rolled up my sleeves and flagged down a...
No swimmers.
No DNA-laden tadpoles.
No way that the child was mine.
If you asked me 10-years ago if I could ever imagine myself sitting in a doctor's office waiting for my sperm count to arrive, I would have told you to fuck off. Or maybe piss off, since I hadn't lived enough life 10-years ago to cuss appropriately.
Yet, here I was. My soon to be ex-wife was pregnant. She didn't know if was my child or the child of the irish man she ran off with 2-months prior. Apparently, that surgery I survived only guarantees 99.995% success. But...
Finally, we came to rest.
The day's work had been long but fruitful. We had made double the monies we would have on a normal day at market but that was probably because we spent double the time there. We set off across the desert on our long journey home expecting to make it in time for Mama's fish stew for supper and for story time around the fire but it was later than I had anticipated. The Moonbore her silver glow to us before we had even got a quarter of the way. I settled down to rest for...
The last thing before the end
Once again I found myself wondering what we were doing. If anyone had told me that I would have found meaning at the bottom of a dark place trying to keep the world safe froma secret that wasn't mind-numbing, but mass panic and hysteria wouldn't be too far from the expected.
It was still a terrible thing to be haunted by things that really just wanted to be a part of the sunshine and sky again.
I was what you could call a keeper of dragons. But the truth about dragons I have found...
The Moon would never be the same again. Not after the Settlers came. See, we had claimed the Moon. Put our USA flag on it with our pretentious little stars. We thought that we'd always be revered as 'the people who claimed the Moon'. But that was before the Settlers came. They came like a swarm, hundreds upon hundreds of spacecraft. They had their big laser guns, and they trooped all over the Moon. And found nothing. No one lived on the Moon. But we were watching. Researchers looked on in wonder as the Settlers claimed the Moon. They set...
Blue open windows,
training wheels on the driveway,
Papa let me fly.
Afternoon bubbles,
wedding bells for fireflies,
the laughter echoes.
Saturday mornings,
the rain never goes away,
I'll always love you.