The sun set. My boat had stopped drifting. The Delaware River between New Jersey and Pennsylvania was calm. The rain stopped, the crickets chirped, happy with the still summer air. My bathingsuit was finally dry. The only problem with that river is not having shelter on either side from a rainstorm. I watched the residents of the river banks put umbrellas over their heads while grilling. Some took their dogs and children inside. The teenagers laughed, and had mud fights. The rain stopped, the grillers closed their umbrellas, the dogs came out to play, and the teenagers stuck their feet...
Mr. Marlin calls it the "war effort" though it's not a war. I see effort, but not of a thoughtful variety. Everyone involved is dressed in the same color. Any tool is a weapon. They'll be murdered, the whole lot of them.
"I told you this day would come," shouts Mr. Marlin. Imagine waiting on such a horrible day. It was only morning but the skies were growing dark. Cloudless and dark. He threw a croquet mallet at me.
I stared at it like it was a frozen dog.
What would happen if I just left in the middle of the night?
He wouldn't remember you when he got older.
A price would need to be paid, but I don't know about him completely forgetting.
Personally, I think you should go.
He loped into the night, thinking and rubbing his too soft hands face, never quite sure if he had been slapped in the face.
This dream was better than waking.
In this dream, she lay next to him, fingers entwined talking about school, family, tv shows, the universe - they were creating inside jokes, they were getting to know each other and they were having fun.
In reality, she was hours away from him.
In this dream, he smiled at her and reached for her hand.
In reality, he had avoided making physical contact, eye contact, even making contact via phone.
In this dream, they fell into each other and fit perfectly.
In reality, the jigsaw pieces felt scattered and she had no idea...
Zara lay back and stared at the clouds. It had been a long time since she had done this. A long time since she had done anything that didn't involve work, actually. Her bare feet moved across the smooth material of the picnic blanket, as she tried to make faces from the clouds. All around her people rushed past, making sure to move around the crazy lady who was laid in the middle of the town centre.
Her bunch of baloons bobbed in the gentle wind and she was transported back to being five years old. She and her mother...
I shall wait.
I shall wait for the timer to go through it's course.
Wait for the little seconds to pass me by.
Produce nothing of content.
Produce nothing of consequence.
Just words strung together in a jumbled sort of way.
Words become random assortments of letters.
Meaning is lost in the rush to get them out.
It's killing me.
Realizing that six minutes is such a vast distance of time.
And yet my brain cannot seem to function adequately.
I like to sip my stories like brandy.
I like to savor my poems, swish their contents around my mouth...
On the top of a roof, in Australia, there was a chair carved from an Italian carpenter in the 18th century. It was a day that was certain to rain and a day that was certain to never get better. `A man sat on the old chair while thinking about his day and how he could improve it. It was a day that was clearly never going to get better and a day that made everyone feel down and upset.
all alone. all alone forever. all by myself. I am the last left of my family. the last splotch of colour in the green. the last of my kind the others say. I should just drown myself in the lake. I swim to the bottom and wait for the darkness to overtake me. but then i remember i am a fish, i can't drown. I have an idea. I swim to the surface and leap out of the water. The seagull takes me in its mouth and swallows. Now the darkness comes. Now I am dead.
The results were in. Now all I had to do was decide whether to go and get them. They wouldn't tell me over the phone, despite my rather pathetic begging. It wasn't done, it wasn't their procedure. It had to be done face to face.
I doubted that good news would have to be done face to face. If it was good news surely they would have said, "It's good news, you don't have to worry any more, you don't have it."
Because that was easy. I would be delighted, of course, and the person on the other end of...
Leaving was the easiest decision to make, and the hardest action to take. He'd told his parents he wanted to move out now. He'd found a job, found an adult advocate, and had surprised himself by finding an actual handicap accessible apartment in Savannah.
But, then came the guilt. "Haven't I taken good care of you?" his mother asked. "What did I do?" Her dark eyes shone with pain, but he couldn't decide if it was real or feigned.
"Yes, mama," he said wearily. "You've taken great care of me. Just like any nurse would.' He eyed her as he...