Isolated figure on the shore. That's what I first saw when we landed on this planet.
The grey world spoke to me of desolation but I knew this was just the difference between Earth and it's brilliant wonder of nature with different hues and Velna our new home.
It took a long time to adjust to the constant blandness and we were given medication and daily visual meditation in the form of implants.
Now, six years later I still long to see the verdant green of the Welsh valley and the sparkling turquoise of the Mediterranean waters.
I regret taking...
She cradled the faun's head and he went to sleep.
I had read the final line of the bedtime story about a thousand times, well that is what it felt like and each time Suzie reacted as though it was the first. It made me wonder about the magic words from the authors of these kinds of stories. Did they have any idea just how powerful they were? To instill such feelings in the children listening they could hear the same story over and over yet always hear something else?
Often when my eyes were too tired to read, I...
"So, did your dog eat your homework?"
"No... You won't believe me so it doesn't matter anyway."
"You always have had a vivid imagination. Which I take pains to appreciate. Go ahead. Why weren't you able to prepare for the test?"
"I had been studying for thirty minutes - which is why I aced the radicands portion - when all the sudden there was a rumbling groaning sound from next door. I couldn't focus. I looked outside my window and across the alleyway was a huge green bass flopping about screaming."
"Uh?"
When I got the envelope in the mail, I DID NOT expect that there would be THAT inside of it. I expected a frilly Christmas card with puppies wearing jingle bells on their collars; because that's just what Uncle Menken sent. I suppose he thought they were cute. However, I was wrong. I slit the top of the envelope and a huge square of paper, folded many times over, slid onto the table. Definitely not puppies with jingle bells. I unfolded the crumbly, yellowed paper and looked at the image sketched upon it. I knew that shape. I knew that...
The building I lived in was old, rusty around the doorknobs, the 14th floor was still half under construction. The week of Thanksgiving would be my last there. I was moving Upstate; the leaves were gone, but I knew I needed a change. I had a flashback to 7 years ago, when I was 19. As I was packing my boxes from my soon-to-be-old apartment, I remembered standing in the middle of the road, staring at that white house. I looked left, then right. To the right of me were the woods, an eerie glow radiated toward me. To the...
Sal was in love.
A part of her felt that she'd always been in love, and almost each time with a different man. But this time she knew it was real. For this man, she'd been in love with twice.
Sal had first met Harold two years ago, when he was about to be hit by a falling piano. That was when she'd known it was love most true, love most divine.
If Sal possessed anything close to an introspective nature, she may have realised that each and every time she fell in love, it was with someone on the...
It felt like I was just waking up. I shook my head. I looked at my surroundings. A boxing ring. People cheering. Is there an ape in the crowd?
Who am I?
I'm German. I'm a boxer. People are expecting something from me. Act German.
I did a militaristic dance, taking no joy in it like I might once have. I knew my opponent. We had been in the ring before.
He beat me then, I knew he'd beat me now.
I shouted something in German. I knew no one would understand me. It didn't matter. I went into the...
My sister signed me up for yoga the day before yesterday. And all I could think about were the yoga girl's toenails. She was the participant in front of me, on a pink mat patterned with yellow flowers. Sitting in the most uncomfortable position of my life, it was her toenails that bothered me. Sitting 10 inches in front of my face, yellowed and cracked, with an attempted cover up of aquamarine polish. "Excuse me, " I wanted to say, "That toenail polish does nothing for you." Or perhaps, "Excuse me, could you help me get my elbow out of...
"Wait, so he hit you?" "Yep." "Right in the nuts?" "Right in the nuts." "But, why?" "Well, you see...
When I entered that store, I had only one thing in mind: beer. I went straight to the aisle, grabbed a six pack of the usual, took off to the counter, handed it over to the nice cashier, and payed. But before I got to the door, the cashier called me back. She said, that that old man behind me in line told her, that I stole that six pack from him. I went over to talk to him, but before...
A dapper man picked up a penny. He tossed it the air, but it fell. He never caught it. A spankled girl kicked up her skirts. They tangled about her legs, and she tumbled. A tired child opened is mouth. He cried out, but no sound came. No sound came. Sometimes nothing falls. Sometimes nothing lands. Sometimes nothing comes at all.
It is useless to try to explain that to the Thing. They don't understand cause and effect, you see. That is another dapper man, Commander Hollis, trying to explain. They don't understand us, and we don't understand them. The...