It mocks me. Here I stand, paralyzed, unable to push. The button brings me to the lobby, and out the lobby doors... So I cannot push the button. However, clearly I must push it. I can hardly stand in the elevator forever, at most a few days, after all, I would dehydrate and die. So, I must push the button. Yet, I don't. Indecision has clamped my body in irons. "DOWN" it says, and indeed, where I would go after pushing the button is down. I have always been unable to decide, in fact, 'indecision' is a word that one...
Deep into the meadows of the South
I see a bus pulled up in front of the common store.
Above my head are alluring clouds
I have never seen before.
Things like this are rare.
No one visits my small Southern town.
Where things are bound to happen.
Spellbound.
Do you think that bus is skeptical?
I do.
There are no visitors in this town.
Whoever comes in
Never gets out.
I learned the hard way.
Gradually. That's what the doctor tells me. Gradually I will get worse. My liver will gradually fail; my arthritis will gradually turn my hands crooked.
So gradually, you mean, I'm dying? Isn't that bullshit? Could there be something worse for me to hear? So gradually since the age of 13, I've been killing myself. That first drink, to the last, I "gradually" ruined my insides? All because my parents failed to tell me what drinking really does to you? So it's my fault that during summers, parties, college, and beyond, that I "enjoyed" my life while ruining it at the...
To the President of the United States,
Please do not pass this law. There are many people who depend on life support for long periods of time and then come back to resume normal lives. If you allow family members to 'pull the plug' if they cannot afford the medical treatment, many people of little means will die. I know this because I am a paraplegic. When I lost my legs, I spent some time on the very machines in question. My family couldn't afford the treatment, and paid bills for years to make it right. I am now a...
"It's meant to get better."
He looked at the empty glass in front of him, studied the bottom, as if it was going to promise him that it would get better.
It didn't. It also didn't refill itself.
"It will."
He glanced up - of course, he could, at least, rely on his best friend.
Well. One of them. Since the other one had -
That glass was still empty. That could cause a problem.
"She's still gone."
"That isn't going to change."
This paticular best friend may prove to be useless - oh, no, wait, he was hailing the...
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...
I desire no pity, and I deserve no pity. This is my own personal Mark of Cain, and it is one I have brought to myself. There is always a price to such things, to knowledge and desire. His dark hand covers my face, and one day this mark will come to be paid. In the meantime, I am not without benefit. And I am not without resource.
I can seek out answer in library and archive. I may find none, and I would still have no regret when the great darkness at the very edge of human vision comes...
You know how people always use that metaphor of how an iceberg shows a small portion of the story, but the ice travels much deeper underneath? I was quite literally experiencing that right then. Both externally and internally. My chest was burning for air and my body was thrashing up against the coarse underneath of the ice pool. I didn't care that my eyes were stinging or the water in my mouth was gushing down my throat. What may have been a beautiful glistening lake was now a dark trench of terror. I had never known what snow was like...
"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...
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...