As Darvo walked into the glaring sunset on the western horizon ahead of him, he wondered to himself about the Yoga studio he passed by minutes ago. There were so many beautiful women in there doing flexible things that he knew that his own body was not capable of.
Darvo had actually passed by that same Yoga studio almost every day for the past six months when he took up a job as a salesman at the screen door factory next door.
Everytime he walked by, on his way home, he made a point to look inside the window of...
Massachusetts was beautiful; I was 5 years old, and it was summer. I collected wishbones, crab skeletons, a jellyfish in my shoe. I swam, played, and had the time of my life.
In 1991, at 4 years old, the carousel in Martha's Vineyard was my favorite place to be in the whole world. My dad let me ride it for what seemed to be 100 rides. The horses had those horns on the top that made them look like Unicorns. There was a game involved; the object, to collect a brass ring and place it atop your horse. I won....
The sweetest honey was the one they daubed on his lips.
This wasn't really torture; not in the traditional sense. Instead of pain, he was given touches of pleasure.
Simple pleasures - gentle whispers, the smell of bread, the touch of soft wool against his cheek.
After a few days, he wondered if they really wanted him to talk, or if they wanted him to stay. If they wanted him to remain there, relying on them, content to be with them until the end of his days.
To call him a pet would be too extreme, but the principle was...
You can count me out.
You can count me out.
How many times do I have to say it? Count me out of your scheme. I have no desire for riches, fame, or even immortality. Just life.
That's all I want. Just to live my life. My peaceful, ordinary life. And the only way I can do that is for you to count me out of this.
I wish you'd make the same choice, but as things stand, you had a good life.
Well, a decent life.
Oh, who am I kidding? When you meet Beelzebub, try not to give...
I don't like insects. Nor mammals. Or birds. Especially I don't like humans. Or inanimate obects. Everyone thinks I'm weird. And so I am.
As one of the few survivors from the Roswell crash, I am allowed to be different. My brain is no longer functioning and I've forgotten my mission on Earth.
I can eat, talk, eliminate although most of the time I have no idea what I am doing.
Doctor Rushton say's that he thinks I'm far more superior than any politician he's met. He's a little quirky as I suppose you know.
Tomorrow we're going on a...
The ghosts of her past continued to haunt her.
The parents she'd disappointed, the boy she'd left behind, even the teacher who had taken her under her wing in the hopes of helping her realize her full potential. She saw them all before her as clearly as the last time she'd seen them. Their frowns, knitted brows, and downcast eyes. She hated those expressions, the disillusionment of their ideals written across them like ink on paper.
How could any of them have known her true potential? And if they had, would they have been heartened or horrified? Knowing ignorance was...
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...
Plain Jane never shone so brightly as when she held a pair of knitting needles in her long slender hands.
Her aunt had taught her the craft, hoping to initiate her into the family business, but eons later Jane still only filled in when the older woman was forced to take a few days off. Jane couldn't blame her. Holding that much power in your hands was intoxicating. No wonder she never wanted to retire.
Still, progress and time marched on, the strong became weaker, and the elderly were superceded by their more youthful contemporaries. When Jane suggested destinies be...
"Wait, so he hit you?" the young adventurer asked, sliding another drink across the worn tabletop, hoping to lubricate my throat, if not my imagination.
"That's right. A real, genuine Djinn…"
He interrupted me "…that's a genie, right?"
"Yes, a… er… genie. You know, from an old oil lamp, yes. Very good young man."
I took a sip from the proffered whiskey
"So, what did you say to him? Why was he so angry?"
"Well, he told me 'Before you start, you can't wish for more wishes.' and I said 'I wish you could.' That's when he hit me!"
The men and women in reflections only meet us when we meet them. Our relationship is one only in passing and it seems like every time we are reintroduced to them, they bare a striking resemblance to ourselves. They wear the same clothes, styled their hair the same way, even brought along the same items like a bag or groceries. But I wonder if they ever feel the same way that we do. I wonder if we go to meet them they are happy and the same things that we're happy about, or struggling with the same difficulties that life...