It was the fall that surprised me the most. The fact that it took so long that I could actually be afraid of the action of falling. The wind was stinging my face and making my eyes water, I was screaming but the noise of the explosion had taken out my hearing. The people strapped in around me were mere shadows, forms with fuzzy outlines and indiscernible features, mouths open in silent noise.
I forced my head back round, my throat filling with bile as the ground suddenly rushed up to meet us, my fingers twisting in the belt around...
The radio program came back from commercial and the husky voiced woman continued talking about robots. Steve imagined her full lips moving closely to the microphone as she discussed how robots should and should not be used.
"Some people say it's unnatural to give the elderly a robot companion," she said. "But it gives them something to talk to, even if they never respond. Studies show that seniors who have pets are happier, and live longer. But a dog cannot answer either, so what's the opposition to robots?"
Steve thought that was a stretch of belief, but her thick whiskey...
Millions. Millions of stars in the sky, millions of dollars in some People's bank accounts. Millions of souls walking the earth. But I saw him from across the room,and I knew, from the millions, that he was for me and I was for him, and all of the millions of things in life would come to us in time.
He hadn't changed. His hair was still curly and brown. His eyes were still laughing and grey. His dimples were still deep enough to lose change in. I wondered, would he see me? Would he remember? If he did remember, would...
Chairman Mao came into town at the insistence of his family. He was not happy. His mother, whom he had loved far more for every difference from his father, did not look well. Chairman Mao, accustomed to finding his mother pleasant to look at, did not want to see her.
"YOU have abandoned your father!" cried his relatives.
"And my father abandoned me well before" said the man who remembered his father's cruelties all too well. Who were these people to remind him of the past. He loved his mother and he doted on her.
He despised his father. He...
She screamed at me. I only rose my voice to make sure she heard me over her rant. She seemed to think that i was a wall that she could just yell at and i would'nt do anything. but she was wrong. i was wondering how our friendship got to this point. then, one day, it was my mother who gave me a revelation that clicked all the pieces together. the day we started getting choppy was also the day that 1) my newer, other friend stepped into our lives, and 2) she got chased up a tree by a...
They gathered in the woods, but that was not enough to save them, as they were mistaken for trees, cut down and shipped to a lumber mill.
One of them was fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to be made into thick planks; most of the rest were sadly torn apart into sawdust and mulch. But that one continued to live, in great pain, as he was violently sawed and assembled into a large, polished grandfather clock.
They attached to him some cold, foreign bits of metal that moved jarringly. The ticking of the gears against his aching frame was unceasing; day...
We're not familiar with the same weather or same temperatures. I don't know the blazing heat of the desert. You've never felt the deep wet cold of the Atlantic states. And then there's the sun and the moon, and the underside of the asteroid grazing our comfort zone.
We could sing country songs in the backyard tonight. It'll be cold, but dry, and Venus is near the moon.
We'll begin at dusk. My dusk, your dusk, and the dusk of deserts, dusk of satellites. Hot dusk, chilling dusk.
Dusk, dusk.
I broke away from him and held my unbrella over my head as I walked, my head held high. "Erika! Erika!" I stopped in my tracks, spun on my heel and stared at him. "What?" He didn't move closer to me even as people jabbed and pushed past him on the street. The fresh raindrops fell onto my outstretched hand and created a gentle humming sound as they hit the ground around me. "I'm sorry. I never should have said that." He was right, he sure shouldn't have said that to me. But then... He just stood there, rain dripping...
It was the third day of my cruise and I was bored as hell. If I had to sit through another party on the deck with the awful music and the dull people in fancy clothes I was going over the side with no life preserver. I decided to walk slowly around the perimeter of the ship by myself instead.
Suddenly, I saw a Jack Russel terrier sitting on the railing all alone. I was seized with a crazy impulse. I looked around and saw no one; no one to witness the heinous act I was contemplating. With a twisted...