Punch Judy. What an interesting thought. Punching is an interesting action. If only I wasn't that familiar with it.
She could tell I was faking it. Every time I cracked a smile or choked out a laugh. All of it a fabrication to please the people around me. An attempt to lie to everyone, especially myself, about how screwed up my life really was, about how everything around me truly was going to hell.
When you've lost everything, why shouldn't you laugh? The bitterness of it is cathartic.
Yet... She stays around. Keeps an eye on me, noting my dulled eyes and chronicling every irrational action. Hearing the broken glass edges of my voice, seeing the glint of tears...
It was a lovely sunny morning. The sun was shining, the clouds looked fine and proud, and I was in an amazing mood. It was valentines day. I couldn't wait to see my boyfriend. Life couldn't be better.
As I got ready, I had a slight doubt in my mind. He's really forgetful. What if he forgets? I guess we're 'boutta. find out. I wait 'till he picks me up. I wait, and wait, and wait. When is he coming? Has he forgotten?
Suddenly, a large truck full of roses gets dropped off at my house. Are these for me?...
"I shot my butler, but I did not shoot the chauffeur" Mrs. Kensington said. "I don't know who could have done such a thing. That poor old man."
"The butler or the chauffeur," the detective asked.
Mrs. Kensington coughed with polite outrage.
"The chauffeur, of course," she said. "The butler can rot in a thousand hells as far as I'm concerned."
The detective flipped back a few pages in his notebook.
"You say the butler had been stealing from you," he asked, scratching his nose. "Did you have any proof?"
"Proof is in the pudding, as the maid would say."...
Amelia sat happily cooing in her pushchair. It was the most perfect summer's day; barely a cloud in the sky, a slight breeze in the air. Jane looked down at her daughter. After four months, she still couldn't believe she had created her. This tiny, little bundle of perfection was made by her. Of course, Tony had played a role, but everyone knew that mothers did most of the work.
Amelia blew a raspberry; Jane smiled down at her. Who knew it could be possible to love someone so very much. It actually ached.
A wasp flew down, making itself...
The train in which Natalie happened to sit
Was the train that another train managed to hit
The noise was quite loud,
And in the tracks were a crowd
To which the conductor exclaimed, "holy shit!"
The year was 1986. It was a Tuesday, at night. 7:58 PM. I couldn't wait until 8 o'clock to enter the world. I'm sure I came out screaming like most babies. I'm sure my eyes were closed, and that the October chill had me wanting a blanket.
The year was 1990, and I remember asking my dad for days when I was going to be 4 years old. My eyes were wide and hazel, my hair blonde and short.
The year was 1994 and I got to wear a sundress in October. Never ever in New York can you wear...
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...
She carefully set her can of Pepsi down on the grime smeared bench under the phone, not wanting to spill a drop of the liquid within. She'd used almost her last bit of money to buy it, making a choice between that and a bar of chocolate. She had tried to remember whether death came faster from thirst or hunger, and although at the time she was sure she had made the right choice, now she wasn't convinced. Her stomach shouted angrily at her, the ravenous wolf inside clawing and snarling, making her clutch her belly in pain.
It didn't...
"It worked!" He stood, startled by the sound of his own voice. What had worked?
Looking around, he wasn't quite sure if he should be more worried that he didn't know why he had said something he didn't understand, or about the fact that he was in a place he didn't recognise with no memory of having arrived there. A word caught his eye. Phone. He rolled it around his head. Yes. He could make a call. He should make a call. A number emerged from his growing consciousness. Should he be worried about that feeling of expansion, as though...