The tracks screeched as the train hurtled through the curve. "Is this normal?!" she screamed, "Are we going to die?"
"It's looking likely!" he shouted back as he tumbled into the roomette. Crawling on his knees, panic leapt into his eyes. He scanned the floor, sweeping his hands over the carpet, under the seats.
"What are you looking for?" she shouted as she braced herself in the hallway.
"Nothing. It's nothing. You know, at times like these, when disaster looms, we must ask ourselves what motivates us, what grand ideas guide us in our illusory walks towards our certain doom....
He ran into the room, his heart pounding, and his clothes soaking wet.
"The Internet. It's gone!"
"You mean the link's dead? Bloody broadband…"
"No, it's gone. 404s everywhere," the bearer of bad tidings paused to pant some relief into his lungs, "there's nothing left. All the World's knowledge is…"
"… gone."
They looked at each other.
"Hell, what are we going to do this afternoon?"
"I don't know. Work? Maybe?"
They sniggered.
13 days later, when Society had collapsed, one was eating the other, barely able to remember what a 404 was. He was surprised they'd lasted that long....
I'm dead. Really dead. Not in the "there'll be a twist at the end and I'll be saved" kind of way. Just dead.
I lived a short life. Just 42 years young; at the peak of my career as a well-renowned chef in New York City. Most people say it was an accident; the gunman ran into my restaurant, and randomly shot rounds into the kitchen and at the restaurant patrons.
As a dead person, unreliably, I can tell you this is not true. I say unreliably because no one will ever know that I am telling the truth here....
Dear friends:
I am standing in the field. The field where he died. The field where, for a time, I wished I had died. Sometimes still do.
This photo he took of the field was humbling. Ground-level. Weeds blowing. A branch sticking up. Forked. On that day he was forked. And I was blown. Blown flat.
Shit, guys, that sounds so dumb, doesn't it. I meant to write it on a postcard. I meant to get this photo printed -- Snapfish or something -- and have them sent to me glossy. And get one of those fine Sharpies and scribble...
Mike Radley is from Catterick Village and has an ugly nose and a fat gut. Sheila Webb, from Catterick Garrison, isn't very attractive either. They have a date tonight because their internet dating service matched them.
Mike Radley has a pint of lager in his hand and foam on his top lip that he hasn't bothered to wipe off. Sheila Webb notices but doesn't say anything: Sheila Webb is too busy poking the black plastic drinking straw in and out of her alcopop bottle.
Mike Radley's dating profile says that his ideal first date would be a romantic walk, perhaps...
Black and white. I couldn't believe Dad had done it again.
I know I'm lucky, I do. You can say I'm spoiled if you like, but it doesn't matter - I'd asked for ONE THING this Christmas, and it was colour.
I looked up at my father, tried to fake a smile, and said 'Thanks'. As soon as he turned away, I rolled my eyes, and unwrapped my next present.
A sweater. Great. I wondered what colour it was - if I went out wearing this and one of my friends actually GOT what she asked for and could see...
She'd have preferred the electric chair. She'd have preferred anything really, hanging, lethal injection, even one of those weird medieval punishments like hang, draw and quartering. Anything to get her out of this tedium.
The irony was that she'd chosen this. Chosen to run, the alternative being prison or worse. But wasn't she already in prison? Stuck in this dark, damp room, determined to live out the rest of her days without ever seeing the sun. Actually, it was probably worse than prison. At least in prison there were other prisoners to talk to. Here the only human contact she...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway.
It was raining, her hair was plastered to her face in a black sheen as she raised her arm to cover her head, even though she was already soaked through. The once beautiful crimson dress made of expensive silk now hung in tatters. Black kohl and the remains of red blush slide down her cheek, collecting in the dimples of each side of her face. The jade hairpin holding up an elaborate hairstyle had long since fallen out, leaving her long wave of black hair spilling...
Bobby had lived in his imagination as a child. Within the universe of his mind, he was an action hero, an iron-willed daredevil. He could meet any challenge, snatch victory from the jaws of any defeat, bravely pull off any stunt.
Now that he was older, he was learning more and more that he would probably never trade tracer bullets with South American guerillas, or infiltrate the secret Appalachian hideout of a band of communist child kidnappers, or balance on the hood of a car, guns blazing, while pursuing Somalian bank thief pirates across a perilous frozen lake.
But maybe,...
Sophie stood at the window, the curtains snug around her shoulders,trailing behind like a dress, or veil. The sun was dipping down behind the trees across the way.
He should be home by now, she thought, chewing the already ravaged thumbnail on her right hand.
She thought about the fight they had the night before. How she had held onto the seeds of those feelings for so long they had germinated and grew and soon the roots were twisted around with her insides, and the branches and leaves moved with her arms.
The anger had grown and become parasitic. And...