One left, one right. Two by two, on and on, ad infinitum.
No one has ever had any doubt about Johnny's prowess. The man has a fucking PhD in horticulture, and all without a day of instruction or a minute of in-class study. A natural, they said.
The trick was in the wrist. A little dip-and-flick, and they soar into the dirt with just enough force.
A master seeds-man, with few adversaries.
Damn 'munks don't know how to take a hint.
Bury them he did, but sometimes the little cretins would stumble upon the treasure troves and gobble the pre-germinated...
From the day the museum opened, the mammoth was the first thing every visitor saw. How could they miss it? It towered over the entrance when they came inside, rain or shine, its trunk high above their heads as though ready to trumpet. At least they assumed she would trumpet, but no one really knew or cared.
Designed to model a beast that lived ages ago, the poor thing stood and gathered dust on its bits that were too high for the cleaning staff to reach. So the witch, a neo-pagan from San Fran, took pity on the poor beast....
"You're here because someone recommended you to me. Someone who passed the test. Someone who promised you that you'd be a better financial trader."
The Banker nodded. "Peter. Pete sugg…"
"No names. No pack drill. Only one condition. If…"
"When… When, surely?"
"If… you pass the test, you have to recommend someone to go after you. Someone you think needs to be a better banker. And you DON'T tell them about the test."
"Agreed."
"Ok then. I'd hate to have to kill you." I smiled conspiratorially.
"During the day this park is full of dog walkers. And dogs. And shit."...
The contours of her form were clear under the light shining through my window. She was laying there nude on my couch as I drew her. My eyes, flicking back and forth from the paper to her. My hand, gliding wildly across the paper in motions similar to a snake whipping it's way across a desert. I had asked her to model for me. Not because I have a crush on her. Not because I'm trying to date her. But because her body is so gorgeous. It flows with every move she makes, twisting and bending and flowing. She lays...
Heating nothing as I refrigerate.
Eating nothing as my body preserves.
We eat and are ultimately eaten.
Preheated, chilled and given to grubs.
We are products for sightless feeders.
Put a tag on me and ship me in a box.
Deliver me to the earth, to be opened up.
Reclined, collapsed, softened and served.
This oven of nothing is heated anyway.
I stare at the flames to assert my intention.
I am alive for now. For now.
The zombies beat upon the door to the church. The flowering vines clung to the brink walls like dead man's fingers, while the sun gazed relentlessly upon their torn and damaged limbs. The daylight didn't detour them. Neither did the cross, holy water, or relics. All that mattered was the thick wooden door separating them from their desire.
Cries of despair, pleas for mercy and sanctuary went unnoticed. Only the nearby birds heard and their hearts were cold and unyielding. "Sanctuary!" they screamed. "Give us sanctuary!" But the pastor and his flock refused them mercy.
Left to the sun's brilliant...
Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway.
Twice, in Singapore, she sat by a fountain.
Three times, in Kuala Lumpur, at three different locations, she waited by Banyan trees.
She was waiting. Always waiting.
She was waiting for me.
She didn't know that I knew that she was waiting for me, but enough money, in the right pockets, can keep me out of trouble. *Has* kept me out of trouble for the past four years. Kept me out of her hands. Out of the hands of the people who wanted to find me....
She was a goddess.
Her sacrifices were mostly time; her father was procrastination, and through him most of her sacrifices were received. Her temple was the internet, the pub, every conversation which began "I read somewhere - ", or "I saw the other day - ", or "Am I right in thinking - "
Quizzes were her festivals. Celebrations of (arguably) useless knowledge. The glory of simply knowing something, with no comprehension of whether it was to be useful or not, the pleasure based in facts.
She was worshipped frequently, albeit unbeknownst to most.
his father painted the top of the lighthouse himself. with the last concise stroke of the red paintbrush, his father had a concise stroke of his own, and slid off the roof to his death, colliding headlong into the rocky ground, and tumbling into the choppy water. his body was never found, though toby often imagine a blue man, with nibbles taken out from fish schools, and skin as loose as kelp on his bones. with equal sincerity, toby imagined that his father had not died at all, and was merely hiding in the system of caves eroding into the...
One boy changed her life.
It was one of those things that you only realise in hindsight, but it was true. Yet, it wasn't really about the boy. He didn't change her life in a romantic 'you are my soul mate' way. They had kissed that night, but that was more like a signature at the end of a deal - the deal that that was the day that her whole life changed.
Before that moment that he came through the crowd and took her hand and led her back onto the dance floor, she had spent years feeling rejected,...