His apology was not the thing she'd expected when she checked her phone in the morning. With one eye she stared at the screen and then rolled to her belly and pulled the phone to the tip of her nose as she tried to focus.
"I shouldn't have done any of that, I can't stop thinking about it."
She patted her hands over the bedcovers, fumbling through folds until she found her glasses and pressed them to her face.
"I can't stop thinking about it either," she replied, "But I liked it. It was exactly what I wanted."
His reply...
Hello city, hello Amy's boyfriend way down there. Hello penny. Let's see if it's so, what I remember from 4th grade about what happens when you drop a penny off the Empire State. On this street we walked and I wanted to yell at people who cat called her and to ask them if they had mother's and shame them. Down by the sudsy Hudson River we laid out and looked at the buildings and talked about Kenya, about the merits of going away and trying to talk ourselves into a compulsion to stay. On that bench she cried at...
"Lifetime Warranty - Satisfaction Guaranteed" the adverts had promised. "No one has ever returned a loveBot 7000 in the history of the company."
He flicked through the manual. Ah there it was: "If you are genuinely unhappy call THIS toll-free number…"
After keying in a few tones - he hated automated call centres - he had been put on hold by what he assumed to be a clever computer, but was in fact a rather stupid one.
The loveBot sat up, watching him lovingly, with her 'come to bed' eyes. It had entranced him at first. That, compliance, and...
He opened the letter from his cousin, reluctantly breaking open the blue air-mail envelope. Who uses old-fashioned snail mail these days? It was from Cat, of course. His good-for-nothing lay-a-bout drop=out relative who had adopted a ridiculous animal name and gone off to live on an remote island in the West Indies. Practically a desert island. No email there, of course.
Meanwhile, people like himself, sensible people with ambitions and mortgages, had to eke out a living in London, or Sydney, or Rome. Wherever he could. And that is hard when you are a classical musician - a violinist -...
The dream had been wonderful, yet it would never be real.The first thing I did was tweet about it; hundreds of retweets showed I'd hit a nerve. Me, Christine, a twitter phenomenon. And all because I shared my dream (nightmare? No. Dream) of an ex-girlfriend becoming infected during the zombie apocalypse. Undead everywhere, and amongst them the bitch, at last, letting me have the final word.
Wish fulfillment with a chain saw, definitely severing our relationship. It had gone to her head. You had to hand it to her. Even with the plague, I still (for a moment) thought about...
She clicked her camera once more, capturing the images and saving them for all time in the data banks of the portable media device. She absolutely loved this new era. Her collection had grown so expansively since wakening on this plane.
She clicked the device off and placed it, lovingly, in its designated bag and turned her attention to her coffee and bagel. The three men she had just captured milled about, confused. She suppressed a giggle at their momentary befuddlement. Humans always seemed to notice, no matter how many calming spells she wove over them. It was as if...
I slept inside the dream I didn't spin from yarn
this time inside my dream
i didn't spin another lie within the tale
you never sold to me
I look inside this bed I didn't make
the spell i didn't spin
from yarn inside my dream
I couldn't sell this dream to awakened eyes and ears
and dreams never do
sell themselves well outside the walls inside our hearts
I bake for you but do not eat
I draw for you but do not sell
I sing for you but do not sing
The things and songs from stolen dreams...
He was obviously part of the mob.
If you didn't know the mob like Claudia did, you would have said that was a foolish statement. You would have looked down and not seen a mid-level member of the criminal organisation that secretly ran more than four-fifths of the city.
You would have seen a dog.
But Claudia had been a beat cop for more than a century now, and if you survive that long, it's because you know things. You know how to look past class, how to look past species.
You saw the stance, the attitude, the carefully positioned...
Driving along a road at night, rain pelting down, tall trees waving low branches across the sky, no moon, no road lights - thank god for cats eyes to keep me in the middle of this narrow lane. I wonder how far I have to drive before I can forget what happened? I wonder how far I have to travel before I can lose myself? I wonder how far I have to search before I find myself?
A failed marriage. A broken heart. The stuff of melodrama. I never thought these things would happen to me. Trapped in the nightmare...
"Don't you realize you can make a cake WITHOUT any the products of my femininity?" asked the chicken. She fluffed her feathers defiantly, shouting over the cars that zoomed mere inches from where she had taken her stance. "That is that last time anyone takes my eggs! I will NOT provide my children for your tasty treats!" She glared at the little girl.
Darla stared at the hefty bird. She adjusted her apron, dusting off some flour with one gloved hand. "I needed eggs for my mother's birthday cake!" she protested. Darting a glance at the heavy traffic, she...