Ricky did not realize that Luca Brazzi was a man's name, and so, all confused, he had dumped someone completely different, the wife of an architect named Lucia Brazziana (the wife not the architect), in the Hudson river, and had then sent a coded message to the Corlione family. As for Luca Brazzi, he did not sleep with the fishes; he simply overslept. So one can imagine Titaglia's confusion when he showed up, unannounced, with an icepick in hand, and stabbed it through Titaglia's eyeball.
This was in the era before horse heads and cardinals. When a vague optimism was...
As he exited the train, he realized he had forgotten his bag. The Bag. As he rushed back onto the train to grab it, the train began to pull out of the station, and the bag was gone. Someone had gotten off of the train with it. As this realization hit him, he snatched his phone out of his pocket. It was his only hope. As soon as the Woman In Charge answered, he told her his problem. He could hear her quick tapping from her computer keyboard, as she told him, " Get off at the nearest stop. Turn...
She was the most delicate girl in town, but this minor label did not stop her from testing for her black belt.
"I can do this" she murmed to herself as she faced three groups of boards to smash. Ignoring the painin her bellying from receiving a front kick, she readied her five foot two, ninety eight pound frame. She exploded forward with a vicious elbow snapping the first board like a twig ready for a fire. Leaping into a flying side kick ,she ripped two boards. Grabbing a fourth board she tossed it and punched it in half.
"I...
"And they thought that was porn?"
"I don't think they would have called it that. Erotica, maybe. But...yes. There's something so innocent about it, isn't there? I love the kimono on this lady here."
"I can't believe you're looking at the kimino."
"This isn't your late-night shocker, this isn't your gorey pop-up nonsense. This is - I suppose it isn't classy as such, but it's... There's something about it. It's old fashioned. Charming in its way."
"They had very different ideas then."
"The world wasn't sexualised, I suppose. Seeing half a naked woman was shocking enough. We're just looking for...
I'd had so many plans, just before I went back. I was prepared to an insane degree. I'd spent days camping in the wilderness, gathering enough iron to create a goddamned magnet. I'd memorized the fundamentals of aviation, chemistry, nuclear physics. I knew all there was to know about rebuilding civilization.
And it had all slipped away, one memory after another, fading into a blur, after I'd fallen through the time vortex.
So here I am, trying to explain to some neolithic ignoramus how to make gunpowder. The most I can remember is that it requires a mixture of sulfur,...
There once was a man they called Water
Who read far too much Harry Potter
But it wasn't the same
When after Harry he named
Both his sons and his trio of daughters
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...
We are falling, steady. We are falling a little bit. We are falling into a mass dream, an illusion that is as good as reality for now. We are falling so slowly, so gently that it feels like we are floating. We are together and we are kidding ourselves. But it is noble and good and we are falling. What reality is greater than this? What is it we are here for? We are this: we are weight: we are what makes it possible to fall.
We are falling and it is enough.
Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up. Jerome, her uncle's brother, took no notice of her. Her hands were cold and shaking. He continued eulogizing. "He was a great man, and there's no denying. We all..."
"No."
That got his attention. All of them, really. She clasped her hands together tightly, willing her voice to be steady. Jerome raised an eyebrow at her. "Did you have something you wanted to say, Candace? Why don't you come on up here and say it?"
She swallowed, hard. The idea of...
In the beginning, there were no gods.
A human boy named Micah, not yet a man, was the first to make the discovery that if the Earth existed, then there must be a heaven; a divine source, a metaphysical origin of the crude, material plane that we inhabit. And so, partly by accident, and partly by perseverance, he discovered the doorway to heaven.
He went through it without a second thought. His other human peers had always mocked him for being too short, too weak, too strange. His family ignored him. He had the time to uncover the doorway because...