It was the nipple that made Clara blush. The rest of the artwork was intricate and exquisite, the calligraphy simply sublime. But her eye kept creeping back to the nipple. The nipple belonged to a drawing of a girl, peeking around what appeared to be a silk curtain. On the opposite page was drawn a geisha in a beautiful red kimono. Unfortunately for the geisha, the girl opposite her stole all attention.
What was this strange little book? Ancient pornography? It didn't seem titillating enough for that. Despite the nudity, the images had an innocent undercurrent, taunting, but not provocative....
It was my day.
Walking down that aisle, feeling the silence of everyone around me - surprised, shocked, the girl scrubs up well. She's beautiful, and we barely realised. We barely noticed.
Well, he did. And that is what matters.
The whispers began when I got to the front, taking up my rightful place, smiling out at everyone from beneath the veil. I wasn't wearing white - well, it wasn't white anymore - but does that really matter these days? Who marries innocent? Who's really pure these days? Impossible.
Of course she was there. Her. That one.
She was wearing...
"I am slowly forgetting her here" Dante whispered to himself "I did this for her and I let myself be punished in her place." Dante rubs his cracked and dry hands on the cold stone floors trying to get his mind of the past. "I can't let myself be distracted with things in the past" Dante hissed "I need to remember I'm doing this for her." He starts to hear the guard's footsteps coming towards his cell again. I must not be
What does it mean to go the distance? Does it mean to beat everyone else or to beat yourself? When you grow up, parents, teachers, and coaches tell you to "do your best". But we all know thats bullshit in the capitalist society we live in America. Its dog eat dog. Kill or be killed and everyone is in it for themselves. Maybe you can trust your family and a couple friends but thats it. "Go the distance" cliched. Easier said than done. What does it really mean? Beat everyone else. Be better. No one cares what you're doing unless...
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...
100 feet away, all hell was breaking loose. Everything was going to change, forever - but for now, I was willfully ignorant. I chose not to look through the windows, not to know, to keep the door closed, locked.
Real life was not going to invade my sanctury.
It had been my prison, up until the moment when I had heard that damned siren, the one that we had all prayed would never go off. The one that promised that it was all too late, that everything had gone wrong, that it was too much.
That sacrifices must be made,...
I don't want to hurt you.
I want to hurt. At least then I'll feel something. I can't go back to being numb like that again. I felt so, so dead.
Does that mean you feel alive now?
Like you wouldn't believe. Just being with you wakes me up.
Oh, really?
Please don't leave me. I can't go back.
I can't stay.
If you leave, I'll die again!
"You stink," said Martin.
"I do?" said Candice.
"Yes. You smell like eggs and old V8 and goose turds and a garbage dump and Count Chocula."
"Oh," said Candice. "Maybe I've been eating too much garlic."
"Here," said Martin, pulling out the garden hose. "I will shower you."
On went the hose. Candice was soaked. She shrieked. The water soaked her wedding dress, the white leather couch, the white carpet, and her two Corgis - Bill and Lem.
"Now I'm all wet," said Candice, peeling off her dress. She was now naked on the couch.
Martin stuck his nose in...
Silence.
The vicar cleared his throat. 'Do you Isabella Riley take....'
'I heard you.' she said, suddenly reappearing from the dream world which had captivated. 'I er... I don't.'
Suddenly aware of a hundred pairs of eyes, she took a deep breath. Ben's mouth fell open. Shock visibly clear on his face.
'Iz?'
'don't Ben.' she murmured. She had to get out of this church. She couldn't possibly marry him. Be commited to one man for the rest of her life. She just couldn't do it.
'But Iz. What? I mean, why?'
'I'm sorry Ben. I really am so, so...
I took a ball, and threw it against the brick wall, to have it bounce back. I threw it again and again, to have it come back, back into my hands. I thought about my decisions, about how I threw away my future, and my life. He told me to do it. I know he did. I blame myself, not him. I threw the ball again, and heard the loud crack of it bouncing of the wall. When I hurled it the next time, I threw it as hard as I could, and rocketed back to me, through my legs,...