Vanquished.
Seriously, that's how it felt as I walked down the hall back to homeroom. My hands were in the front pockets of my jeans, my head was down. I felt as if all the wind had been taken from my sails. A strong breeze could have knocked me over and I would have just curled up in a fetal ball in front of the beige steel lockers. When the bell rang, people would just step around me as I tried to become more and more invisible.
Mr. Garsh said he was sympathetic. I think they tell him to say...
The magic of it was so simple, so obvious that she found it hard to beleive that no one else could see it, that no one else had attempted it before.
Just step off the ledge and let everything fall away. Remove the shackles that are holding your feet to the ground. Let go of the mortgage payments, the deadlines, the constant bombardment from advertising companies telling you that you absolutely needed their product in your life.
Forget about the birthday cards you must send or the work emails you need to write.
Realise that they're not important, that none...
The attic was stuffy, of course it should be. It is May, and they are preparing to move into a new house.
She is hunched over a box sifting through the items time seems to have forgotten.
She sees kids medals, awards and photos from the ceremonies. She finds trinkets and grade school crafts. Making sure they are in tact, and making sure she wishes to keep the memories, she places the items into the box with care.
The boys have been out of the house for years now. These items are all that pretty stays here. They have their...
The waves rolled in, and I could hear them crashing along the shoreline. It was a fresh water lake, with rocks that made up the shore.
My eyes were still closed as I lay on the day bed. I was relegated to the front porch, as it "was not appropriate to sleep in the same bedroom."
Such old fashioned thinking makes me giggle. Yet, I follow to impress.
I can feel the sun on my cheek and I don't open my eyes. My legs stretch themselves out, s I was slightly cramped on a space too small to fit my...
There's nothing like being in a parade to let people abandon their sense of self and do things that make them appear foolish to outsiders.
You may have seen this as a child and thought nothing of it. You may not have even noticed the people, marching lockstep, standing on top of highly embellished vehicles, or pulling desperately to prevent enormous cartoon characters from flying away. You may have just been taken in by the symmetry, music, and good cheer of it all.
Now, as an adult, there you are, dancing like a fool in full view of the entire...
It was a pleasure to burn.
All things, it was.
Paper. Incense. Even skin.
Yes, especially skin.
They all had particular smells- those things which he burned. Paper smelled of ash and dried, hot trees, as in the desert, the heat so thick and juicy you could drink it, pour it inside of you, fill yourself with warmth in a way which standing in front of a fire, rubbing your hands together did not even thouch.
Incense- he supposed it ought to be different, depending on the smell. He only ever bought sandalwood, nothing else and so he didn't...
It was twenty to eight.
"Actually, it's almost quarter-to."
He was such a pedant.
"I can see what you're writing, and I'm not, I just like to be precise about these things."
Once again, his obsessive compulsive need for exact timekeeping
"I don't have OCD."
He had completely missed the fact that he hadn't been diagnosed with any kind of disorder, just displayed some obsessive compulsive behaviour. It was more of his paranoid ideation, presuming that an innocent
'You haven't interrupted me.'
"You're being boring. It's just bitching now. Although now it looks like you're the paranoid one."
'I'm not...
"I could never be a poet because I just can't seem to master the semicolon," I said.
"Not that hard to figure out, really," she replied. "Google it."
It wasn't that big of a deal to me. To be honest, I didn't even like poetry. Still, I Googled it anyway, and found out more than I ever wanted to know about the semicolon.
Later that night, I was hit by a semi; I had to have a section of my colon removed.
Uncanny, that was...
"Because the game is all that matters, Father."
"I like to think it is my company that matters, my child."
A fire could be seen blazing in her eyes. He knew not to call her that. He knew better.
"I am not your child."
"All of you are, Lucifer, but your pride always stopped you from seeing that."
"My pride? It was my pride?"
The old man shook his head in affirmation.
"Father, your pride is what caste us from this place. You wanted to make room for these beings. So they could do what? Slaughter each other? Care only...
"This is incredibly boring," she thought. Staring at her toes, watching them blend into the linoleum was making her dizzy. Not dizzy dizzy, but eyes-start-crossing dizzy. Elisabeth had to raise her head before she was caught in the vortex of double perception and lightheadedness.
As her eyes refocused on the normal plane, she recognized her father, alive, recov