There was blood on my pillow. I could smell it, I ripped the cover of the bed and ran to the bathroom, check to see If I had a bloody nose. No. check for any other sources of blood, there where none on me. I returned to my bed room confused and in thought. Where was I last night? whose blood is this?
Just Breath stay calm. I put on a shirt, ran down stairs to look for more clues. Sitting at my table was a man who wore a fedora and covered his mouth when he spoke "some party...
It was the most hideous thing he'd ever seen. A tiny horror. And scaly monster. But it was his. It was theirs.
He's wondered why his wife never really showed during her pregnancy. The doctor said it wasn't unheard of, and that there were instances of women who gave birth suddenly and unexpectedly, never knowing they'd been pregnant.
Still, the thought of a pregnant, skinny woman unnerved him. He worried about his wife. She was nearly 40 and had always been as skinny as you please. In fact, the same doctor had once told her she was a "bad candidate"...
A bubble of blood oozed around the tip as he held the blade on his thumb. The knife was unbalanced and sharp. There's a metaphor in there somewhere, he thought.
Hi. My name's Steel. Chinese Steel. I'm unbalanced and sharp. And dangerous. And cheap. And I'll probably break the first time you try to use me.
Bad metaphor, he thought. Or too good.
With a flick of his wrist, the blade bounced in the air, spinning awkwardly in a half-arc. It fell, jabbing into the ground in the middle of the circle of empty beer cans. Close enough to the...
The spotlight found her and then stayed still. Beneath it she trembled. Curled inwards. And then, becoming aware of her audience, the room of eyes watching her, she stretched out her arms, opened her mouth, and started to perform.
At first it was a slow dance, with the words of the song low and soft, gentle as a whisper. And then, as her confidence grew, as she started to enjoy it and believe in her ability, believe that these people actually wanted to watch and hear her, she started to speed up and the song became almost wild, a celebration...
With fifteen minutes until the start of the hearing, a bagel stop was inadvisable. The queue for the espresso machine was exactly as long as usual, and the trainee behind the counter should have stuck with the chai order. His bladder screamed in that unmistakably shrill screech added urgency to an already pressing situation. "Ignored again! Be better if I was free trade, huh" When an onion bagel and a cafe con leche appear on the counter there is only one choice to be made. As he pays a skinny fallow skinned sidles up to him and opines, "You was...
Shape.
His kneaded the dough, enjoying it's firm elasticity beneath his fingers. Shape.
Celeste was like that. Firm. Yet pliable. She let him bend her to his will with little resistance. And god damn... she had a shape.
As he coaxed the dough into long snakes, visions of Celeste's creamy smooth skin flooded his memory. His hands worked on autopilot, braiding the challah loaf. What they really wanted to be doing was kneading her delicious rear end.
He loved the ripples each time he spanked her full bottom.
Shape. He admired his challah loaf.
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 -...
There isn't a thing you could do to make my situation better.
You people like to think that you could change my lucky stars if you wanted to, as though you are angelic beings who can pluck we lepers from our squalor and dirt on a whim. If I cared to share with you, it's likely you wouldn't believe my story anyway.
The world is a bigger place than you would ever imagine, with an expanse of experience broader than your mind can fathom — neither bad nor good, but certainly considerable experience.
I have studied astrophysics, Shakespeare, and written...
The warm breeze touched her face, sparking memories of his fingertips and how they would brush her hair from her eyes in their moments of tenderness. She remained standing still, her eyes closed, for some time.
Eventually she opened them and looked down the grassy hill to the town below, the tall ships in the harbour, the people bustling on the docks. He was there. Somewhere.
She could see his ship off in the distance, it's distinctive sails billowing in the wind. Glancing back down at the dock she wondered when others would spot it.
After what seemed like an...
Whenever she had balked at doing her homework in high school, her mother had always turned to her and asked, "Nadine, would you rather be a big fish in a little pond, or a big fish in a big pond?"
Nadine was pretty sure her mother was misquoting that aphorism.
Not entirely sure, of course. She hadn't been entirely sure of anything in years; she didn't feel entitled to feelings of certainty without a diploma or GED under her belt.
These days, Nadine was definitely just a small fish, little more than a fry. She was the fish that all...