She was the most delicate girl in town. I liked to think of her as something made out of matchsticks, and knobby joints. Her voice, it never seemed to mature, even as she stretched into a teenager, and curves set in, she would still skitter on her toes, and wring her hands, and never make eye contact.
The crush I developed on her was no not so unusual, I think the whole town was in love with her in their own way, male, female, child, animal. Girls like that aren't meant to last if you think about it. Those quiet...
Starvation.
He'd heard the word before, used it - but he hadn't known what it meant. He knew that now. He had no idea of what it really meant, not until now, not until this moment (but he knew it would continue to get worse until he could eat, of course it would, that gnawing inside would only get worse)
His vision was failing, he was dizzy - he needed something, needed to find something to eat, or he would -
He knew it with a painful clarity. He would die.
Again.
It had been bad enough the first time...
This was the painting that sold for millions. I watched as the porters wrapped it up and carried it from the gallery to the awaiting truck.
The new owner transferred cash from his account, smiling, probably thanking God for his luck. I watched him shaking hands with everyone, swigging the curtesty glass of expensive champagne, posing for photos.
John Masters, the gallery owner, smug and insincere triumphant for once in his sorry life.
Not for long.
He paid me peanuts as a commission for this painting, unknown I had used special paint which would melt in due course and reveal...
The results were in, she said. And he ran and ran and ran and ran, disregarding the shouts of teachers behind him, just running and running and running till he reached the office. It was up on the bulletin board, sandwiched between changes in the lunch menu and posters for bake sales. He stopped for a moment, breathless, eager. Slowly he let himself look at it. The names were up. He scanned through them: Joe Malone. Hendrick Smith. Jerry Pandrip. Jonathan Sinker. Hetty Carbuncle.... so many names. He knew most of them: they had been his companions during the test,...
Perched upon a thin branch flailing in the wind, the owl cried out into the night, "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you?" Only the still, dead night and the rustling of branches and drying leaves responded.
I tampered with my oil lamp and let the flame grow tall, casting shadows that played hide and seek on trees. Shadows bounced off of trunks, flickered to the branches, and waned off on the broad, saw toothed leaves.
The owl's cry grew into the night, screeching to the stars, to the trees, to anyone that was willing to listen. "Who cooks...
It was the fall that surprised me the most. I mean, I knew from the first time I looked into his bright blue eyes that I loved him but after a few more meetings, I realized that I was falling in love. I guess I had always thought that it would just be "love at first sight" and that would be that. But it wasn't. I did love him from first sight - make no mistake of that - but with every meeting I had with him, every word we spoke, I fell more in love with him. I was...
She was lost in a land, not exactly a physical one. She was surrounded by things that made her happy. She was floating endlessly in a world that was completely hers, and she loved it here.
Was she alone? How could she not be. Yet the silence was filled with voiced and faces. You see she could be whoever she wanted, do whatever she wanted and love whoever she wanted. As she lay there asleep but awake in this marvelous world she spotted her, in the distance. Her long brown hair not easily missed, she lay there too just waiting....
The conversation lasted two words: Alright? ...Yeah
It wasn't groundbreaking, it wasn't revolutionary, it wasn't even poetry, but it was all they needed to say.
They had been the best of friends once, closer than brothers. George had had his own room at Jack's house, Jack had had his own shelf in George's fridge. But somewhere along the way, they had lost that.
Was it because Lissy, George's ex-girlfriend had hated Jack, was it because of the fact that Jack went off to uni while George stayed in their hometown, or had it merely been because of the fact that...
It was a pleasure to burn, in the end. Sarah had known it was coming without being told. Knowing things without being told was all part of being a witch, she supposed.
She hadn't ever chosen, as such - but rather she preferred to let the currents and grooves of the world guide her path through it. And the world had chosen for her to be a witch.
To anybody else, this might have seemed like a state of affairs that could be analysed and considered - weighing up the pros (foresight; cackling) and the cons (burning) - but for...
The President, nefarious super-villain, sneered at Immobilus, Triumph City's most paralyzed superhero, and swung the axe over his head, ready to bury the hatchet, so to speak, deep into the chest cavity of Dred-X, Jamaican superhero and reggae star. Immobilus focused, building up a ball of psychic energy he hoped would be big enough to knock The President.
Just as the head of the axe began to fall, Immobilus fired, the ball of energy glancing off of The President's arm, forcing the axe-head to arc downward and plant itself deep in The President's leg. He let out a blood-curdling scream,...