The first time I ever saw Eve, she was laying down on a blue picnic blanket that convered a smooth cement floor. She was holding a bundle of pink and purple balloons resting her head on a bright polka-dotted pillow and staring up at the clear blue sky. Her image printed itself onto my heart. I walked up to talk to her and looked down and her dark brown eyes looking up at me. I asked her what she was doing. She took such a long time to answer my question that I was afraid I'd offended her.
When she...
She told me never to open my mouth, never to talk. She said I am nothing, no one, and not even a mere object. But I did, I gave my self an excuse to talk, as I bulleted down Quincy Lane, and ran into the cemetery on North Boulevard. I walked over to the tombstone that represented what ever life I had. What ever excuse I had to be a happy person. For the next hour, my teardrops fell on the stone. And quietly, under my breath, I read the words engraved in the stone.
IN REMEMBRANCE OF TOM E....
Who is that person in the corner of my room? is it a person? is it an animal of somekind? Perhaps I should have looked more closely. I mean, come on? How did that person, that thing, get into my room? If it is a person, I'll bet it's the kind of person who thinks its funny to disturn a teacher's class when they are tyriong to do an activity that will benefit eveyrone, because on the STAAR test, well...you know what that test is all about. if it is a person, and that person did make me upsetin that...
Deluxe. Platinum. Gold. That is the key to success, she said to the audience, wine glass in hand. Everyone broke our clapping. She smiled, made a short, stunted half-bow and left the stage. She passed through the crowd with elegance and with purpose, deftly sidestepping those stumbling drunkenly about and avoiding any pitfalls into small talk and conversation. They smiled as she passed, vaguely recognizing her, but not exactly sure what her name was. Passing by a waiter, uniform and immaculate amidst it all, she left her wine glass on his tray. It was only a pleasantry, after all. It...
He set the plate before her. It steamed, smells of carmelized meat and cinnamon wafted up to her nose. "This is my lust."
He still spoke with inflection, they had not dined upon his theatricality, his sense of timing, his desire to surprise. There was an order to these things, and while he still had that order, he would continue. The assembled guests mumbled their appreciation, though Dowager Harriet was still chewing through the last bites of his shame.
When the Boddhisatva-to-be had announced this meal, the good and great had tittered that he had finally lost his mind. Spent...
She could listen all day. The raspy, melancholy vocals of the demo tape was not without flaws, but in this moment, perfectly delectable. Her own voice was breathtaking to her; after all, how often did she experience a conversational sing-a-long with herself? The sound was a breath of fresh air, nothing she inhale here, in the muggy city, at her perfunctory job, or with her otherwise dull life.
This was the sound of butterflies.
She could tell I was faking it. The smile across my face only a slight glimmer of what it once was. Telling my wife I loved her used to be so easy; kissing her face, brushing my fingers in her hair. They were all lies now.
I had only just found out a bit ago about her affair. Long done and over with, it had been with a colleague of mine back in 2002. It only lasted a few months and all the while, I had no idea.
It has been eight years since that time, but only now am...
A breeze is a current of air
A portent that hasn't a care
For the cold that it causes
...
..
Please forgive me these pauses
The author was killed by a bear
"Avery," she said, eyes flashing, "Avery, Avery."
I held the snake in my hands. "I need to take care of it. It's lonely."
"Animals belong in the outdoors, not in kindergarten."
"Then I belong in the outdoors, too!"
"Avery, if you continue this for one moment longer –"
"Don't worry," I whispered, almost to myself. "Flora will get you. Flora will get you."
She came a few minutes later, rage flickering on and off in her pale face. "What's all this?"
Miss Duncan glared. "Your sister brought a snake into a kindergarten classroom."
"What the bloody –"
"Flora!" I yelped....
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,...