The daring were punished. They were punished with exactly what they wanted, and found out the paucity of their imagination and desires.
It was near midsummer when the djinn arrived in Baghdad. He promised to each person, exactly what they wanted, the one thing. There were no rules, no catches. This was no monkey paw to wish upon, but a djinn in all his smoking glory, blue fire leaping from his eyes and his ears, red lightning visible from his mouth when he spoke, and a long rumbling thunder when he laughed at those that came to make their wishes....
"Hey! You! Jackass!"
Geoff was trying to make eye contact -- or, failing that, ear contact -- with the ferris wheel operator below. Geoff and Jo had been stuck at the top of the ride for more than five minutes now. And the effort might not have been so much in vain were they not surrounded by a cage.
No response. Of course.
"Will you knock it off?" asked Jo. "He'll get to it when he gets to it."
"It's just. Gah!" Geoff started rocking the ride. Back and forth, back and forth, the range of motion increasing each time....
Away.
He'd escaped.
And not in the usual way.
Home from school at 7:30pm, another long day of detention for crimes uncommitted (who ever did anything really deserving detention – and when has detention been worse than the alternative. Questions he wrestled with with his head on his desk) – home long after sunset, he pressed his head against his pillow and cried.
The tears awoke the empathy of the waters in the room. His fishbowl grew stormy. A glass of water shuddered with tsunami. The poster of the ship on the wall erupted in gale and he could feel the lash...
The audience stared open mouthed at me. I didn't know if I should cover up or keep dancing. Who would have thought I would have fallen out of my costume? A wardrobe malfunction, that's what they called it.
So I did what I thought was the right thing to do. I pushed myself back into the low-cut tube top and kept on dancing.
It wasn't like I was a double D floating through the air as the tassels twisted blindly around. I could fudge a C on a cold day.
I just hope someday I will live down the day...
1943
Population. 1943
Even painted over, the 2 was still visible if you looked at the sign at an angle. And the previous 1 if you were real close, but from a passing car, residents or the occasional visitor to Sleepy Falls would see, if they were paying attention, that a new resident now inhabited the town. Ted wiped his brow with his customary cotton handkerchief and reseated the dusty Sheriff's Hat.
"It's not straight." said this week's Deputy, who decided to punctuate this pearl of wisdom with an increasingly annoying, yet habitual spitting out the passenger window.
The fact...
You had me at ox bow lake. I mean, I heard about that shit on the internet, but I never thought I'd meet someone who was into that kind of thing too. So, will it be your place or mine. The bathroom is pretty cramped here, and I don't really have a tub so much as a shower stall. But I guess we can get around that. I don't think we really need a bathtub anyway, maybe just a couple of buckets filled with water.
How flexible are you? I used to be able to touch my toes, before adulthood...
Twist. Try to turn left. Try to move my foot upwards. Impossible. I've been here for around 4 hours, give or take. It's too dark to see my watch but I have a rough idea. My breathing is paniced, I try to encourage myself to calm down. Breath. There is just no space only eternal darkness. I am alone. I am buried underneath a couple of tonnes of dirt. At least that was what she imagned. When they took me, I screamed,kicked and clawed like a wild cat.All to no avail.They knocked me out and I woke up here. Oh...
It was raining. It seems like it was always raining these days. What with the movements of this air flow pattern and that air flow pattern, Chicago had been caught in the middle of a vortex. And all the moisture and condensation of the Earth seemed to dump here.
So, I waded through the puddles and small rivers forming in the streets. Cars were uncomfortably close to being a little too deep in trenches of the alleyways.
I crossed this street and that road. On my way to meet a friend, someone that I use to know. Back when the...
She could feel it clawing at her as she sat in the room, nudging her, trying to pull her back.
The fantasy was becoming ever more difficult to escape from. The fantasy of her life years from now, successful job, a partner who was her equal and who she could love for the rest of her life, the promise of children, the happy ending that she had always desired.
It was consuming all her waking moments.
The hope that she held in her heart that she would survive this and everything would turn out well.
She hadn't needed to escape...
That damn tree was going to fall on him, he just knew it.
What use was the open sky, the billowing waves of blue, or the sunlight streaking through the clouds to illuminate his path along the sandy shore, when as soon as he walked beneath that leaning palm, it would crash upon him like the hammer of fate.
Perhaps he would stay where he was. The water was cool, the breeze refreshing. If he traced his steps back, he might rediscover that berry bush and fill his belly with its sweet fruit.
But what was life without a little...