He let Sai take him anywhere. Because that's what near-siblings with the official title of co-workers did. Take each other places. Lunch, most frequently, when they were the only two at the headquarters. The two speed demons made quick work of any trip, surmounted the worst of downtown Tokyo's traffic--legality of driving up the sides of buildings could be called into question, but that was only natural to them--parked and dismounted behemoth motorcycles in Gothic Lolita and gloomy Visual Kei as if they'd just strolled through a park. Naturally, when visiting the monuments, like the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building, they...
"His eyes closed with a sinnister grin?" Rabbit said. "What does that even mean? His eyes were grinning? Or the grinning caused his eyes to close? I don't get it. The imagery just doesn't pop and imagery needs to pop, or at least not be this strange Cheshire cat thing."
"A what kind of cat?" Weasel said.
"Cheshire. A Cheshire cat, like in Alice in Wonderland."
"Oh, I've never seen that."
Rabbit looked at him, mouth open. "Regardless of having seen it or not, or even better, having read the book, since you are trying to be a writer, you...
When I was 12, I went to sea. My parents hated me. I don't know why, they just did. I was a good kid. I just think I was a little too energetic. It all started when I threw my mom's car keys down the well out back of my house. Why did I do that? Well, it just seemed like the thing to do at the time. I saw it on TV, that was what I told her anyway. Yes, blame TV. Evryone always does, when we all know it all starts with parenting and your upbringing...but I digress....
Gregor couldn't focus. The sample problems in his textbook grew more and more indiscernible as the noises from next door grew louder and louder.
His neighbor was the problem. When Gregor had first moved into the apartment he didn't have a neighbor. Until one day he was awoken by a construction crew. Gregor's distracted mind drifted back to that morning. He remembered asking the construction worker.
-Hey, what's the story, man?
-Some bass with a trust fund is moving in. He's paying to waterproof the apartment so he can move in.
-A Bass? As in the freshwater fish? That's crazy...
The sun had been on her body for 6 days now. Beating down on her pale skin in the Pennsylvania field. Arnold was driving by and saw something strange, and of course it smelled awful; it was 85 degrees that July 4th and he was headed to Grandma Beth's for the pig roast. He pulled his white pickup to a halt, the dust flying behind him into the hot summer air.
He hopped out, put his handkerchief to his nose and mouth, and pulled his straw hat slightly over his eyes. Arnold walked but two steps when he started gagging...
One of my co-workers told me that one time, when he was living in New York City, he was at lunch with his wife at a deli. They were sitting near a window. As they chatted and ate, they looked out the window, and across the street, they saw a homeless man pull out a pizza box and take a dump in it, right in the middle of the sidewalk, while passers-by passed by and made a point of not looking at him while he did it.
It's one of those stories that made me laugh at first, but later...
They were back again. The Crasoons. And this time she was ready. Ever since they'd laid waste to her town, reducing it to wilderness in a matter of weeks, carrying off the wreckage with their dreadful claws, she had been planning. The white noise in her headphones would drown out their hypnotizing cries. She wouldn't go on a killing spree, no matter what the benign-looking destroyers told her. She was here for one purpose, the purpose she'd been training for for a year and a half: The destruction of the Crasoons. Her red shirt would lure them. And once they...
Long after the fireworks, Katie was returning form the lake side. It wasn't a long walk back to her home. She walk along the road. She was passing a house the paint a yellowed white, this was her boyfriend's house she stood there, and began to remember the the happy time she had with him, and as she remember all the good a phone rang, then the sound of a crying woman, she realized it was her voice.
Travel light, but take everything with you. They were father's last words to me before he took my mother and sister down the wooded trail opposite mine and my brother's.
The cossacks had burned our village to the ground an hour ago, and he told us we had to flee into the woods, where they would have more trouble finding us.
When I was young, we used to play in the forest, so I knew it well. I would take my young brother Sasha to a lake a few hours' hike from here, that the cossacks don't know about.
I...
The pistol was cocked, ready to go. There were angels on my lawn. Dirty, foul things. They pecked at my roses, tearing at them with their claws. They left shit and mud stained feathers all over the lawn. They peed on everything.
I'd tried that new Angel B Gone spray but it only made them frisky. A few started having sex on my lawn. My Jem had to get out the garden hose to chase them away.
I'd tried to trap them. I bought great big cages from the hardware store and pieces of cheese to lure them in. They...