Shit.
Her hat just blew off in the wind. Well, it wasn't so much wind as the fact that she stuck her head out the car window to get a better look at the flashing lights.
The cops probably wouldn't be too happy if they stopped to retrieve it. Another one lost.
It was her Mariner's baseball hat, the one that shielded her from the torrential rain in Singapore; the one that bleached to a dull slate gray from the sun in New Mexico; the one that she wore whenever the Mariners ended up losing. It wasn't so much a...
"What do you mean, you don't have any? C'mon, Billy, this is me! Don't hold out on me, OK?"
The party crashed and throbbed around her, the scowl on her face morphing into worry, almost into fear.
"Billy, what the hell's going on here? Nobody's got any!"
She listened for a moment.
"Oh, don't be an ass. OK, yes, I called some other guys before I called you. I'm not trying to cut you out of my business, you're my rock solid, the best source in town. You ALWAYS have some. I didn't want to bother you except as a...
There isn't a thing you could do to make my situation better.
You people like to think that you could change my lucky stars if you wanted to, as though you are angelic beings who can pluck we lepers from our squalor and dirt on a whim. If I cared to share with you, it's likely you wouldn't believe my story anyway.
The world is a bigger place than you would ever imagine, with an expanse of experience broader than your mind can fathom — neither bad nor good, but certainly considerable experience.
I have studied astrophysics, Shakespeare, and written...
"The day after tomorrow, this will all be over." Such a fucking cliche.
Sure, our road trip would be ending soon enough, and we would be returning to our miserable, monotonous, minimum-wage jobs that regularly take us to the very brink of sanity... but to pretend that everything we just experienced would be concluded as soon as we return to home port strikes me as truly false.
The thing that he seems to miss is the continuity of events which develops out of the dynamic relationship between what we do and otherwise experience, and the way we see our fundamental...
Hooked up to machines and pipes, I lay here, hearing my hard breathing, my hard heart beating.
I hear the beeping of a machine. I hear the sheets of my bed move together and I shift my weight from my left to my right. I hear my joints grind.
It is so loud in this room. So many things making so many noises. I can't stand it. Someone just come in here and make some actual noise. Something that an old man can be distracted with and not focus on the frivolous.
The frivolous things such as the time I...
"Grandpop's teeth didn't look like that."
"How do you know?"
"Because mom always said you got his teeth. Do your teeth look like that?"
"Maybe after they'd been in the ground for fifty years."
"Not even. Look at the length of them."
"No, teeth keep growing after you die."
"That's nails, dummy. And they have to be attached still. You think teeth keep growing if they're just loose like this?"
"Who can say?"
"You know who would know?"
"Yeah, but she can't exactly tell us, now can she?"
"Well, she'd know for sure."
"Grandma's probably the one who did it...
It flies through the air, flashing silver and disappearing. My fate depends on that coin landing face up. All I can hear is my own heart beating in my ears, blood rushing through me as the coin falls ever closer to the table. It clatters onto the scarred wood, spinning like a small planet. He holds his breath across from me, eyes fixed upon the little silver coin that will decide our fates. It's inscribed with the words "In God We Trust" on the side my life depends on. "OK then, God. Do your stuff." I thought silently. The coin...
Lola was a name that grated on my ears. Most people considered it sonorous and calming, but after my teenage years, fraught with rebellion, Lola was a name uttered in exasperation rather than cooed.
THat is why I insisted Spencer call me Lara. It was a close sound so that I would still answer to it, but distant enough from my childhood that I could free myself from my past mistakes. He didn't seem to care either way. Lola, Lara, both names meant love to him and loving me was all he knew to do.
He found me in the...
He set the plate before her. Two slices of charcoal blackened toast, plump stoneless cherry jam, no butter or spread. It wasn't punishment for climbing out the bedroom window to staying out late again. It was all they ever ate after mom died. They got through a loaf of bread a day.
She no longer cared what happened. All she could think about was Ross. He cooked her pumelled bloody steak, creamy mash with chives, grilled tomatoes covered in mixed grain pepper from a silver pot. Loved her with food, milky coffee and kisses.
Next week she was going to...
"what is it," he asked, "With people today?"
"Well, that's a fairly broad question, isn't it? There couldn't possibly be a sufficient answer," I started to say. I got as far as "We..." before he started back in again.
"No no no no no." The volume doubled. "NO NO NO NO NO NO!"
"No what, dude?" I tried to sip, but my glass was empty. Worst service ever. If I could just catch the eye of the damn
"NO!" He grabbed my arm. "Don't be this, like, moral relativist. Some things are better than others, and people used to read...