Holly scrutinized the first sentence of her novel. It was odd how not reading it for months had given her a wildly new perspective. When she was writing it, she'd been too close to the material, she hadn't been objective, hadn't made herself consider the fact that she was wrong in anything that she did. There were mental grooves worn deep in her mind that only now were swept away like footprints in the snow.
It ... sucked.
The ecstasy of seeing her work in print was instantly deflated by how awful she judged it to be. A single sentence...
Christmas morning. It was always something excting and special when I was growing up. There would be a grand Christmas tree set up in the corner, sparkling with the many cheerful lights, music playing softly in the background, and the smell of fresh holiday baking floating in the air. As kids, we would always sleep underneath the dinning room table on that night before Christmas. Well, sleep may not be the right term, we were usually much too excited to close our eyes. In the morning at 7:30 sharp, we would rouse my parents out of bed and gather around...
Light.
It had been a while since I've seen it. Not the kind of light that you switch on or off when you walk into a room, but the light that switches on when you hit the bottom. The light that you were missing while you were walking blindly around that led you to fall.
I know many times before I could have just switch it on, but I'm stubborn. I couldn't let go of my pride and admit I could not see and that I was wrong.
Arrogant.
But the Lord is patient. He knows me very well, heck,...
It was the leaded glass crystal, fluted sides, a stem as delicate as a lily. She filled it halfway, she didn't want to be greedy.
"Is that all you're having?" Her mother had just poured her glass up to the rim and was now walking awkwardly across the room, trying not to spill it.
"I like the way it looks in the glass."
Her mother sat down on the couch and slurped. "That's why I like these glasses. They look good no matter what you put in them."
She paused behind the couch, behind her mother, and took a sip....
It was picture day. Mom took us all to the park. The whole family, I mean. It was her, dad, both sets of grandparents, all 8 great-grandparents, my sister, my brother, his kid, and all our aunts and uncles and cousins and second cousins and third cousins and their dogs and cats and kindergarten teachers. There were 63,293 of us in all. And mom had us all wear the same thing: blue jeans and red shirts.
We all gathered under the shade of the mighty elm and then the photographer took the picture. She had to take 37 shots to...
"I hate her." He spit his words, I knew the taste of her still rested on his tongue, and he gave everything he had to saying those three words with such a vile tone. "Listen, I think maybe this time you guys should-" "No." The way he looked at me, at first with anger, and now with the confused sadness I had once felt a few months back, I felt heartbroken for him. "Maybe it didn't work out because.. maybe it didn't work out because I was still in love with someone else." I know it sounds stupid, and corny,...
Taste. The middle, forgotten brother in the family of senses.
They don't have helper dogs or monkeys for people who can't taste anything. No one is working on smaller and smaller devices to amplify or stimulate tastebuds.
You can either taste or not and no one really cares.
The one good thing about not tasting anything is you can win all kinds of money on the playground by eating things. Things that might seem disgusting.
I was the richest kid in elementary school. I'd takle bets and then down worms or bugs or the digusting ham and peanut butter sandwich...
Like a breeze in the wind
Rising and falling.
Telling and calling
Whispers that fly
and then die without falling.
Like a small spec of dust
that seems just like the others
but is really unique
as it floats and then shudders
its way to the ground
and then splits and disperses
its atoms around.
It's horses for courses.
She would never use a sippy cup for wine. She just wouldn't. And not because the other mothers would smell the fermentation on her breath. Not because her eyes would gloss over as the nannies began to talk about the hockey-playing "manny" who worked with the two boys at the Sullivans. Not because she would have to hold tightly to the padded grip of the jogging stroller. It wasn't because her Rosacea gave her cheek bones a cherry hue. It had nothing to do with her morning run to the playground, the mile and half she squeezed in everyday.
She...
"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....