Dust obscured the dim lighting above. Clutching a paper bag, the girl lurched to the elevator. Old, worn doors opened, and she descended.
Outside the building her suitor waited wearing a tattered tweed jacket and chipped bifocals. In his hand, a pair of freshly cut daffodils.
Ring, ring. Ring, ring.
Stella looked up. The pay phone beside her was ringing. Turning her attention back to the book she was reading, she tried her best to ignore it.
Ring, ring. Ring, ring.
Glancing around, she plucker up the courage and picked up the phone.
'....Hello?'
'Stella. I thought you weren't going to answer.' the voice said.
'Who is this?' How did he know her name?
'That's not important here.'
'Is that you Danny?' she almost laughed. This was typical of her eldest son. Always the joker.
'Call me Danny, if that makes this easier.'
'Danny, come on....
Wine. The worst nights always began with wine. We never stopped to put two and two together. Mornings after, needing to shave our tongues and send our stomachs through the car wash.
No matter how clean the apartment had been the night before, once the cork was pulled, and the wine dribbled down our chins, the dishes would pile up on the counter. The hamper and washing machine would explode, spewing filthy clothes all over the floor. Ashtrays would overflow, sending half-smoked butts and burnt filters flowing away like lava from a volcano.
We'd hold our heads betwen both hands...
He was one alone among many. He'd served with his brothers since 2001, since the day after that fateful horror descended on his country. The man, Mohammed Ahmed, was a devout Muslim, had been reared in the faith his entire life. He was also a second generation American, born and raised in the Great State of Georgia. Others had always looked at him differently, but he considered himself a Georgian. A Southerner. An American.
So, on September 12 Mohammed Ahmed became Pvt. Mohammed Ahmed, United States Army. He served willingly in Afghanistan, and hesitantly in Iraq. But, he served and...
Deluxe. Five bedrooms, four baths. Swimming pool.
So are they all. Four solid blocks. Beach all the way to the highway. Green roofs and white polyurethane fences to separate properties.
The mall, when I was young, Had three shops and a bar. When we stopped going, they had a movie theater built.
And there were horses too. Wild horses. The shit you see in movies. Harming one carried a $50,000 fine.
They moved them out to an island off the cape, I've heard. The developers weren't happy when they started getting hit by Excursions.
The mall is gigantic. It has...
My mother was not svelte. She spent her life washing clothes, lifting children, and hauling sacks of potato and flour from the market to our small apartment in Flushing. My father frequently looked at the Sears catalog, commenting on the models within. "Why don't you look more like this one?" he would ask, as though the answer weren't obvious. My father did not look like Marlon Brando (young), and my mother did not look like Marlene Dietrich. Yet somehow, I never heard my mother ask my father why he didn't look like this one. Long suffering, some might say.
She...
The water was clear. "I cannot be stopped, I shall continue."
The stone was implacable. "I am stone, I have been here for millions of years, not some come by night dribble. And I shall not be moved.
But the water was clear, the water would be moved, eventually. Through ten seasons and ten seasons more, the water made it's argument, and every drip, every gush, every freeze, its argument was stronger, and one season, the water continued, and the stone was nothing more than ten thousand grains of sand, each with its own mind, no longer implacable. The stone...
Here are words that don't quite form a story. I'm typing them because I'm compelled to write for six minutes a day as a creative warm-up. If I don't, I get antsy; my palms sweat, my skin itches, I hallucinate. Ok, that's not entirely true, but I do enjoy this activity, and I find that it really helps me "prime the engine" for a more focused day. I work at a radio station, and my job is to write scripts for those goofy things you hear between songs that identify the station. It helps to have a good cup of...
When the department store exploded, fine home furnishings, clocks, toys and various fruits and shoes came raining down like a merchandise monsoon. Most of them landed harmlessly in the parking lot.
The people, however, did not fare so well. Most of them were dead from the initial blast, but those who weren't landed with a meaty thud, skulls fracturing like the pineapples that were also cast through the air.
It was one of the worst department store explosions of the decade, though strangely, not the very worst--that one came about three months prior, when the detonation occurred near the hardware...
It slamed shut, the gate. by itself. Or at least, it looked like nothing was there. But there was, a ghost maybe? The cold and chilling presence crept past them very slowly, they could feel it circling them. For the two men never believed in paranormal activity until now. The call, 2am, a water main had broken in the neighborhood right by the field when something mysteriously detached it. They went to the sight, only to find nothing was wrong. All of the pipes were attaced properly. it had look as if nothing had been pampered with. Taking a look...