Absent. The roots were absent but you could still see them. When you burn a stump, you often end up with a chunk of its heart that doesn't turn to ash. The interesting thing is how the fire always seems to follow the roots, no matter how deep they go, burning away every trace of them. Sometimes, even a year later, a fire can rekindle from deep in the earth where it was banked in some hidden location. Looking down from above, you can see the faithful reproduction of the root system only it's just air. Hollows that disappear into...
She pulled her head back from the binoculars, a scowl on her face.
The were all over the streets, and it was only a matter of time until the figured out which building she had entered.
Lissa tucked her hands into her trench coat pockets, feeling around for her flash gun. She hoped she wouldn't need it - it was so conspicuous, and a dead giveaway that she was part of the Blue Foxes.
The girl took a moment to swap her sunglasses, opting for a larger pair that obscured her face. Damn. She really loved those Lennon shades, too,...
god finger-painted the sky in blue, and glued on layers of fluffed cotton for the feel of it. he carefully arranged macaroni noodles below it, forming the shapes of volcanoes, of funeral pyres. he was making a field. he imagined sun ripened workers tending his pasta land, sweating and itching, and he made it so. they did not have time to wonder who created them. god was thoughtful enough to give them mountains to look at. he was proud of that. he took his artwork home for his mother to see.
Okay, look. I had this idea that this was going to be a nice relaxing trip.
It was.
And we were going to come out here --
Yes.
And enjoy ourselves --
Yes.
And not have to deal with stress. Do you understand?
Yes, of course.
And now, what do you see?
What do you mean?
What do you see here?
I don't know... Trees, blue sky --
Stress!
Sorry?
Stress. It's stress. Every direction I look is stress.
Okay, look, you need to just take a breath. Remember what they said at the clinic. Deep breaths.
Stop it. I...
Spinning. Maybe not the most productive way to spend the day. But I couldn't think of anything better.
At least not when I was 6. So those lazy summer days were spent spinning whenever I could. Falling down in the leaves just made it happy bonus time.
Of course, that was well before the incident. I was spinning down what I thought was an empty street. Spinning because I knew that would make the daily trip to the store more fun. Because one of the perks of living that close to school and being friends with the principal was that...
She'd always come running when I called.
But not today. The kids called me at work and said they couldn't find her, and that after she lapped a bit of water in the morning they hadn't seen her all day.
When I got home we all searched the area. I knew she couldn't have gone far - her walk was slowing and she was getting weak. She still loved the kids, and played when she could, but she was 12, after all, and most Border Collies reached the end by that age.
I found her after about 5 minutes of...
She could tell I was faking it. She can always tell when I'm faking it. Something about the way my eyelids droop slightly, the way I chew at my bottom lip before I talk.
"It looks lovely."
"It doesn't. You're lying." Somehow, she always knows.
"Okay, it doesn't. It's a hideous dress. But you do. You always look lovely."
"Creep." She smiles, and swats at me with the scarf she's about to wrap around her shoulders instead of a coat.
I love the way she looks when she gets ready. How she frowns at the mirror when she puts on...
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...
When I was 12, I went to sea. When I was 12 and 1/16th, I knew it had been a terrible idea after all and swam for shore. Shore turned out to be not where I started. I ate monkey brains with a wooden spoon, I wore voluminous silk pants in a brighter blue than had ever been seen before in my hometown so far away, I stole. It was a fine adventure. When I arrived home, dusty and below the dust a crusty layer of salt, and below the crusty layer of salt my skin nut brown, I was...
Gradually. Ever so gradually, he noticed her work routine. She'd come into the shop below the CCTV camera that gave him his vantage point. She'd stop, check her skirt, then turn and wave. Wave straight at him, it seemed.
Once when he spilt his coffee he swore she looked up, about to greet the camera (or him?) and then the smile vanished. As if she had seen what had happened and was sorry for his stained pants.
In trawling through the back footage, looking for a pattern. Something to identify who had planted the device that had wrecked half the...