Twist. Twist your t-shirt to ring out the blood and water. Shake. Shake your head again and again. It's over. It's gone now.
Your palm feels cold against your forehead, but the blood is hot. Hot and wet and it feels funny because there's no pain, only heat. And you can see but its not the same somehow, like when you look away from staring at the lightbulb and shapes dance around you.
I hear pounding. Like drums. Hammering a distant rhythm but wait... no. It's in my head. It really is. Blood. Pounding, marching through each stressed canal like...
"So, old woman, how do you cure Love at First Sight?"
The crone laughed like a deadman's rattle. "Ah, there's a thing. Well, if you were some maid, I'd say a kiss. Or to be truly rid of it, a marriage." She pronounced marriage 'marry-ahj' the old way of yore.
"Neither is possible. I'm already wed, and happily too, were it not for this accursed lust that's come over me."
"Tell me her name and her story." the wise one requested. Of course, she already knew the girl. The lovesick sow who'd pleaded for a love spell. Yet she listened...
"Lifetime Warranty - Satisfaction Guaranteed" the adverts had promised. "No one has ever returned a loveBot 7000 in the history of the company."
He flicked through the manual. Ah there it was: "If you are genuinely unhappy call THIS toll-free number…"
After keying in a few tones - he hated automated call centres - he had been put on hold by what he assumed to be a clever computer, but was in fact a rather stupid one.
The loveBot sat up, watching him lovingly, with her 'come to bed' eyes. It had entranced him at first. That, compliance, and...
Giles inhaled the drink and closed his eyes, fluttering his eyelashes.
“A hint of dark oak definitely.”
“Perhaps a deeper bouquet like a rusty copper,” Lynton replied.
Giles cradled his cigar lovingly, and crunched on some spare ribs.
“Why would you call a a fine cigar a Cuban he mused? The Cubans were incredibly common
and impoverished. I mean it’s a symbol. It stands for something more.”
“Why would you call a decrepit decaying old bat a Queen?” Lynton replied, that’s the English
language Giles, cut a vowel here twist a syllable there; it’s a kind of phonetic prostitution,”...
The gate closed behind them with a soft click. They crept along the grass, still wet from the afternoon rain, to the french doors. No lights were lit on this side of the house.
They stopped at the door and reached for the knob.
"He was supposed to leave it unlocked," one voice said behind a ski mask.
"Try the other one," another ski mask said.
The other knob turned and the door swung open, into an office. One wall was an inset bookshelf. And the second ski mask whispered she'd always wanted one of those.
"Marry a doctor, like...
Laugharne - pronounced "Laaarnn" to rhyme with yarn, but rolled out a little further - at night, with the graveyard gently graced by the occasional working street light and our torches. Us searching for interesting stories told on the tombs and plaques of the interred locals, who at times had meant something to the small church community that regularly overflowed the tiny, overgrown car park. My wife spooked at times by sounds and smells of Rectory Barn farm next door. We share imaginings of ages past, whispered in chiseled words on stone. This one died young. That one, an alderman,...
Wine
cat food
Ben & Jerry's
pay the neighbor kid for mowing
TV dinner
AA batteries
new shoes for girl's night out
stop by the oil change place
Lean Cuisine
carrots
new lipstick
haircut @ 3p Wed
Salmon
baby red potatoes
condoms
clean the house
Steak
lettuce
lawn mower
clean out other half of garage
Beer
Doritos
upgrade cable package
mow the lawn
Hydrogen peroxide
ice pack
makeup w/ heavier foundation
dentist appt. Mon @ 1p
Rat poison
Shovel
Tarp
Remove car dome light
Wine
cat food
Ben & Jerry's
Pay the neighbor kid for mowing
Until now, she'd never thought of herself as pretty.
Sure, there were lots of positive adjectives she would have included in a description of herself. Clever, athletic, determined, sensitive, ambitious, caring, discerning, admirable.
Ok, maybe "admirable" was stretching things a bit.
But pretty? That was a word for the popular girl in high school, with the childish voice and the two-expression face: desirous and desirable; I want THAT and you want ME!
Pretty was the compliment of an unimaginative father, the manipulative tool of a mother living vicariously.
It wasn't something she had ever felt the need to apply to...
The elephant dragged its feet, following behind the child experiencing the wet sand of a beach for the first time. Its right leg was longer than its left, the result of being constantly tugged along with the 3-year-old wherever he went. The elephant was much loved around its trunk and ears, its belly crisscrossed with patches from old flannel shirts, worn jeans, tattered baby blankets. If not for its owner, the elephant thinks it wouldn’t even be an elephant anymore.
"Come along, Dylan," the man said as he scooped his son up into his arms. They were halfway back on...
In her rear-view mirror, she saw Gene turn. He looked at the bush, at her, at the bush again, and then felt his pockets. Phone, wallet, ke...
He bolted for the bush. Heather slammed her hand against the ignition and turned the key. Grinding metal. The car was already on. She floored it and turned for the bush. No clear plan had formed in her mind but she could see Gene sprinting. The bush arrived and the car rose up to meet it, bouncing over the rockery and screeching up the hill. Grinding metal again. The wheels were spinning. Smoke...