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...
Nothing made sense.
Her eyes ached - the more she studied them, the less the words made sense. The words weren't working, they weren't doing their duty, they were just shapes on the wall. They blurred out of focus - was she just tired, was it her eyes?
Or were the words willfully confusing her? Was it deliberate? A merry dance they were leading her on?
She traced them with her fingertips - that couldn't be right, they were letters carved into the stone, they couldn't shift (ink, she could accept, could flow, could shift, but these were stone words,...
The drive had been long and hot, and Mac's head barely cleared the top of the steering wheel. Betsy was being an incorrigible fuss, and Mac was silently fantasizing about slamming on the brakes and shoving her out of the passenger side door.
Maybe it was the hat.
He asked her, begged her not to wear the hat, but she knew it would get under his skin like nothing else (except maybe singing show tunes as loudly as possible, so she popped it on her head with a smile and hopped into the truck without saying a word.
That was...
She always eats oranges in the morning. Awake at 6.30 and out at once to the fruit stall below her window. The sound of the traders' early morning banter is hazy in the grey veil of October dawn and the lines of fruit like a crown of brightly coloured gems awaiting her selection. Two precious oranges in a brown paper bag and back to her third storey apartment. When she slices into the dimpled skin of the orange its juices swell onto the kitchen counter and onto her pale fingers. Her hands are laced with the citrus scent for all...
"Big wheels keep on turnin'..." Paul's hands beat on the steering wheel in time with Lynyrd Skynrd as he drove down the highway toward town. "....A Southern Man don't need him around anyhow!" he sang loudly, dancing in the driver's seat. His dark eyes shone with glee as the music pumped him up. Soon, Paul reached his destination and turned into the parking lot, waiting for the song to end.
Finally, the music stopped and Paul pulled the key from the ignition. Gradually, his heart beat returned to normal and he straightened his red tie and white Polo shirt and...
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...
It was the fall that surprised me the most.
The winter, she was fine. Spring, slowly getting sick, Summer, even sicker.
In fall, she fully recovered from stage 3 liver cancer. There was someone to thank. God or someone.
It could have been the praying, or just hoping we didn't lose her. She was only 7. 7-year-olds aren't supposed to just die from liver cancer. Ella's better now, though. It's easy to believe in something when a dying child makes a full recovery from something so evil as that.
So God, or someone, thank you. It was God or someone...
I remember when it started. We were playing cards, as we had done for years. It's a a simple way to pass the time when visiting your grandparents in the country. The comfort in the shuffling by sturdy hands. Methodical. Solid. Dependable.
"I don't seem to remember how the game starts. Refresh my memory."
Confusion was set deep in those smiling brown eyes.
We made it through that game, but it was the last game. Forgotten card game rules progressed into forgetting how to car and confusion over items.
I visit her in the nursing home, wishing I could pull...
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...
She could tell I was faking it. After twenty years of marriage, she could read my thoughts like a book. She spoke to me with her eyes and, although she was silent, I heard everything.
"What's wrong? Why won't you talk to me?" Her green eyes shone as she "spoke." I looked down and my eyes fell on my wedding band. How much longer would this last? I knew what I had done. I had lied to her. A marriage can't stand on lies - I know that.
She looked at me again and reached for my hand. I squeezed...