She opened the envelope and screamed. Sweepstakes? Her? She never dreamed it could happen, but there it was, after countless magazine subscriptions to periodicals she never intended to read: Guns and Ammo, Creative Quilting, Fantasy Football Insider. Piles of these damned things lined the hallways and rooms of her small, two-bedroom house.
She didn't intend to read the magazines, but at the same time, she couldn't part with them, just in case, just in case one day she could sell them or donate them or look something up in one of them that might, just might be of some importance...
I was going to the store to buy figs when the kid with the long brown hair ran past me. She was running so fast that her body was on an angle... like 45 degrees and her hair was raking back. There was a big piece of wood stuck to her back.
I bought my figs and then I started the arduous walk home. The girl ran past me again and I was able to stop her.
"Why are you running so fast?" I asked.
"Because of the wood stuck to my back," she said. "It is infested with termites."...
They crouched to peer beneath the stairs, the grime and dirt on the old hardwood floor unsettling beneath their feet.
"Come on, Benji. Come out." Jorgia slipped her hand into her pocket, grasping a dog treat. She dropped it at her feet in a futile attempt to lure their "lost" puppy out from under the staircase.
Ashley began to pace the hall, scrutinising the mysterious markings etched into the dirty, peeling walls.
"Hurry, Jorgia," she breathed, "We should get out of here soon."
Jorgia inhaled deeply and swiftly slid her small frame underneath the stairs. Engulfed in an atmosphere of...
"Stop. Look around you. What can you see? The nearest human is over ten miles away. You are alone. Quite possibly more alone than you have been your whole life. There's a physical aspect to this feeling you're having, this aloneness. It's relaxing. Take a moment. Feel yourself relax. Feel your heartbeat slow. Feel you mind de-clutter and expand into a space no longer populated by others. Feel those invisible boundaries dissolve."
The voice paused and Karen became conscious of the slow drum beat that she must have been hearing for some time. She could hear the rhythm of her...
Billy was steadfastly unimpressed.
"Can we go home now?" he asked.
"But, Billy, don't you want to see the top of the beanstalk?" Sarah asked her son. She was confused. Why didn't he like the things other boys liked?
"No."
"Why not? Isn't it cool and -"
"It's a phallic object from the a fairy tale written by the unwitting supporters of the patriarchy," he interrupted.
Sarah hated this. Being lectured by your own sever-year-old was the worst. "Billy, quit saying silly things," she scolded. "It's just a beanstalk. It's supposed to be fun. Why can't you enjoy anything in...
As I clench the sweet smelling flowers in my hand, I stare into his perfect emerald eyes.
In this moment I remember why I love him so much. Every moment that I am with him, I feel warm, comfortable, free.
The sun smiles at me and the breeze sings a song that calms my racing heart, though I do not know why it is racing. I look down to see his emerald eyes, now staring up at me. I am captured by them, though then I am drawn to something else- his hands. Within them lay a velvet navy box....
Bombs were the last thing on his mind. Literally. Jim was struck dead-on in the head by a warhead, and, naturally, it killed him instantly.
But when Jim regained awareness, it was in a huge warehouse, cordoned off into a long line; others were standing in single-file, inching slowly toward what appeared to be some sort of bank teller's window. From the looks of the line, however, he didn't think he'd be getting service any time soon--the line doubled back on itself at least fifteen times.
Hours passed, people crept, and he eventually got within ten people back of the...
It was the fall that surprised me most. I was jerked strongly by the safety cord. I looked below my feet and all I saw was emptiness. I couldn't control myself I started screaming at the top of my lungs for help. But I already knew I was in way over my head. Above me somewhere were my pickaxes and my backpack and my expedition crew. I tried desperately to get a grip on the slick walls. It was no use. I was stuck in this abyss of ice and emptiness. I rubbed the tears out of my eyes and...
The wall is the place most people choose on their own. You come for a day or a week and it's never to see the sights. The sights are immaterial, and not unexpected. Temples, tea houses with dripping peremera trees hanging soot and sleek flowers over damp pollenated tables. Once thriving book shops and market warrens closed down by the proper authorities. Cab drivers who direct you round about ways and never give useful directions. None of these things are unusual, or particularly memorable. It is instead, the wall itself, that calls to you. The wall is the reason you...
We were to meet in the gallery. The glass one, stone fronted with tiles. It is an old place, no longer fashionable. It looks out onto a street where buses no longer run and rubble fills the roads. He said he had a message to give me. The way it was said, it did not imply that the message was from him, but only that he was a messenger, of the most unwilling kind. What inconvenience it must cause you, I might have argued, to have to meet up with me in such way. What a task your people as...