*Note: the story you are about to read was based on a true story
The earthquake hadn't worried us too much. I mean, come on, we were on vacation. Worries are far away when I am on vacation. My wife and I were sitting on the beach enjoying the beautiful evening together after the earthquake when I had a startling thought falsh through my mind. "Honey, don't tsunami's usually happen after earthquakes like that?" "Yeah." "Well, I suppose we'll leave if the water starts to disappear." Well, after a few minutes, that was what happened. The water disappeared. I could...
I can taste the tingle on my tongue the second it touches. I can smell the sweet/sour, crisp, smell. The food is amazing here. They have things I have never seen before. All of the yellows, oranges, blues and reds. The rainbow of food. The tastes of everything is new and refreshing. None of it makes sense. How can a place like this, make such beautiful flavors? The new discoveries of flavors and smells fills my mind. What new things can they even make? Find? The question lingers in my mind.
I am trying to make up words as I tremble in Fear. I can feel the first drop of sweat starting to run down my face. He, even more feared looks at me and says "don't worry". But, but I'm just not sure what that means? I'm not sure if we are going to make it, well at least we are together, and we will be forever no matter what form we are in. He says to go, but I can't leave him. He knows that deep down inside, I really care about him. "I'm staying".....
As I sat on the edge of the meadow, I wondered if I'd been wasting my life. Yeah, I know, everybody thinks that. But not a day goes by when I don't leave projects undone, conversations unhad, stories untold.
And even now, there's so much I could do, but instead I stare at the horizon. I imagine butterflies, and wonder what simple lives they must have. No-- not simple, meaningless. Though I suppose the two are one and the same. After all, it's easy to get through a day when there's nothing you want to accomplish.
I lament the wasted...
She remained there, trying not to be washed away by the torrent that unfolded minutes beforehand. It was a terrible scene, yet pleasant; watching the rain soothed the fire stoked within herself.
Did she wish to begrudge another man? Did she want to carry another grudge? Did she care to add another misery to her life?
Her name is Octavia Fabrizi and she is 76-years-old. Born in Florence, Italy, she has lived her entire live on the outskirts of the villa where she and her husband have a small business selling baked goods. Every morning before work, Octavia takes up her bicycle and rides for five miles back and forth It is this exercise, and her love of life, that has kept her alive. Or so Octavia believes. Possibly she is right. It is a question that does not bother her overmuch. She's seen too many, older and younger, pass on to the Otherworld and, thus,...
She began a cigarette.
She thought about the beginning, when both of them wrestled with being simultaneously addicted to and afraid of each other. The fear was its own pleasure: they both noticed that the adrenaline of their hours apart was worth infinite foreplay.
She watched the first part of the logo turn orange and then grey. The image lasted in the ash for a second before mixing in with the image of the paper.
Later, she began to notice a strange emotional trajectory in their evenings together: the impulse, the sex, and then sadness, or disappointment. The sweat turned...
With tears running down my cheeks, my hand on top of hers she looked up at me and said, "Do you know what we are? We're the friends who became sisters." I smiled at her and laughed a little. I felt like my heart was expanding in that moment and ready to burst with all the joy I felt and I didn't try to stop it. "Sisters." I geuss the old saying is true, then: Friends are family you chose for yourself.
The children were not at school. They were in the phone booth. Both of them - Kit and Lemuel. They just couldn't keep out of that phone booth, located on the corner of Samuel and Lane Street. Lord knew why. Maybe it was because of the peanuts.
Kit was 8 and Lem was 7 and they were both s'posed to be at Lincoln Elementary. But that phone booth called to them.
"Who should we call today?" asked Kit.
"Let's choose a name out of the phone booth at random," says Lem.
So they open up the white pages and Lem...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. A nice day, bright, the sun moving between tall building willfully. The young girl stared at the sidewalk, waiting for another band of light to finish marching across. Her hands played with the material of her gown, absent-mindedly. She was hungry, but ignored it. Now was not the time.
At last, shade, and the girl stood up, and gently emerged from the doorway. This shadow was fat, and growing fatter, as the sun made its inexorable way. She took a step, and then another. At night,...