Did you believe, like me, that there were monsters under the bed? I would leap from the middle of the room, my feet thudding on the mattress, determined that no hands would grab at me from that dark , malevolent recess between bedframe and floor.
The woodgrain on the antique wardrobe would melt into the face of a hooded figure. The deep, soulless gaze visible only to my terrified young eyes. Yet the most frightening part of the night was the key in the door and the gruffness of the slurring voice.
No, my monsters didn't live under the bed....
My heart was pumping. I ran down the old wooden stairs as the clock striked 3:00pm. I rushed on the computer not caring that I pushed down my grandma and she was hurt. These results were the most important thing in my life. I logged in to my computer as fast as a cheetah, But than I forgot what my password was to the skyward. The heart pumping, my brain was hurting from me trying to remember what the password was."Ahhhhhhh" I screamed grandma who was still on the flor stopped moaning and put her attention to me. " what...
In the beginning she thought he was an alright gentlemen. Until he began showing little bits and pieces of himself. Now it seemed ridiculous that she could have fallen in love with this boy-man, this immature piece of bones, flesh and nothing else. She laughed to herself, almost becoming hysterical at the thought that she could have been shackled to this man, that as a Catholic, she would have wrestled with leaving him and when she eventually did, she would have to wrestle with a feeling of guilt for the rest of her life.
Which brought her to God. Funny...
A life of dots was all she'd known. At first it was the small dots that appeared in the corners of her vision on sunny days. Then those dots went away as the days grew dimmer.
The next dots were the tablets the doctors gave her to "slow the loss of function."
And ever since then, dots touching fingertips, bringing meaning, sometimes memory.
Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up.
"Oh, looks like we have ourselves a volunteer?" the D.J at the booth smiled at her.
She blushed when the spotlight hit her. Figures the first time she wanted to be daring, the whole world would see her.
Looking back at her friends as though she wasn't sure of herself anymore, they all encouraged her, their hands moving towards the stage. "Go on!" her friend, Darnell grinned wildly to her. The rest of their group nodded their approval.
Well, if Darnell...
He ran into the room, his heart pounding and his clothes soaking wet. The boy closed the door behind him and pressed his back against it as strands of damp blond hair stuck to his forehead. He strained to listen for sounds on the other side of the door while the blood pounded through his ears and drops of rain mixed with sweat trickled down his face.
His hand went swiftly into his shirt and smoothly pulled out the leather packet. A sly smile spread slowly accross his face as he felt the cool, smooth surface of the leather...
Now, supposedly, if I start out a hundred meters ahead of Achilles, and Achilles is travelling five times faster than me, when he has covered that hundred meters, I will nevertheless have travelled twenty. And when he travels twenty, I will have travelled four. And when he travels that four, I will have traveled .8 meters, and so on and so forth, such that Achilles will never reach me. I win.
But Zeno, the cur, says that, eventually, Achilles overlaps me. "We know it from experience," he tells us. God damn experience! I know that if Achilles is continually arriving...
She had no idea why she'd put on her red party dress this morning. It was cold, it was overcast, and she had nowhere special to go. Still, when she'd awakened this morning, the thought that made her want to get up was not any of these:
- You have the entire day to yourself
- You deserve to do something fun
it was:
- You love the way you look in that dress.
So, on an autumn morning indistinguishable from the days that proceeded and would follow it, Sal was wearing her red silk dress, a natty trench coat,...
Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up. She realized her mistake. Cheeks going red, the burning feeling of all eyes on her, she wanted to sit back down but froze in that position, the terror rendering her unable to go further and unable to sit back down. Why did she want to be noticed? What had prompted such a stupid exercise in self will. The teacher stopped her lesson and looked at her. "Is everything okay?" she asked.
She didn't know what to respond. Was everything okay? No,...
What was that? I swear to god, something just went under the boat. I don't know what it was, but it was shiny, and it was fast.
Is it lunch time yet? I like lunch time. Everyone gathers near the front of the boat, eating their sandwiches and chips. Most usually share, at least a little bit. It's not like everyone can eat all of that. Most usually share, but you gotta watch closely. Gotta be vigilant. And be careful of the gulls. They'll sneak up on you in an instant. They scare easy, but man, are they sneaky.
I've...