I don't know, I just feel like I'm not really here at the moment. My mind is always somewhere else. I don't know where though, for you see I have actually lost my mind.
I feel like I'm split into four people. The solid me? She's just not present right now, I don't know where she is. Like I said, I lost her. I didn't mean to though...
I promise.
The saddest thing about losing me, is that nothing ever feels 'right' anymore. You know what I mean! That gut feeling you get when you make decisions or when you...
The Potentate surveyed his creamsicle tower coolly.
Lord Howard stood behind him, rigid, hands neatly behind his back, and cleared his throat. Loudly.
The monarch continued to regard the sweet monstrosity before him.
Finally, Lord Howard stepped forward and addressed his sovereign ruler. "Sire," he said, polite and yet as frigid as the ice-cream on the table. "The people in your kingdom have barely enough to eat, let alone food to play with." His eyes darted to the large dairy-based castle slowly melting onto the linen tablecloth. "If you aren't going to eat your dessert, you shouldn't have taken it."...
Nicky crouched, letting sand dribble through her fist. If only the sand were falling through the hour glass instead, the time for departure drawing closer one grain at a time. The water was almost flat, small wave rolling onto the shore.
"Why can't we leave?" She asked without looking back. A sigh and a rustle of sand and clothing.
"Red sky at night, sailor's delight," Dirk answered, letting the rest of it go unsaid.
Nicky grumbled, dropped the rest of the sand and stood. "Why do they hold everything up for an old saying?" Just above the high tide mark...
The safari proved to be the biggest mistake of the Henderson family's vacation. First, a rhino attempted to mate with their station wagon, then an enormous elephant slung an entire tree at them. What really topped off the misery, though, was what happened with the lions.
I'd tell you all about it, but I just got called into my boss's office, so just know this: teenage girls equal big cat Meow Mix.
I had already been running for way too long. Over rocks and streams, around trees, it didn't seem to matter. The maze of the landscape seemed perfectly clear to me as I forced myself through the forest.
The only things I knew for sure were that I had to get away from this thing and that the only advantage I had was my familiarity of the land.
The beast was definitely faster than me. And hungry. Those two things together weren't making things look good at all.
Why did I have to go into its territory and steal food? Why...
The thing about mermaids is, well, that they aren't.
You're thinking seashell bikinis and fish tails, but that isn't it. Not at all.
My cousin Marjorie, this is back in '30, mind you, and the turn for the worse had been taken by all of us. She kept her things, her jewels and her dresses. They became her scales, her fins.
She decided to become a mermaid in the same way that some of us choose to marry. It was deliberate, it took forethought. She knew that she would dive beneath the waves to never return. Perhaps she would give...
The clocks and the teddy bears I could understand, but the fruit really threw me for a loop. If you'll pardon the... well, actually, don't worry about the pardon. The time for pardons has passed. Yes?
I would have thought there'd been more books, but I guess I should be thankful there was one at all. One book, two shoes. That's a bit mortifying, really, but it's only fair. One couldn't get very far with just one shoe. I mean, I couldn't. Then again, I never got very far with just one book.
And seeing Her again after all this...
We take the ability to breathe for granted. It's the basic function that keeps us alive, you would have thought that we would keep a closer eye on it, that we would pay attention to how many lungfuls of air we consume every day. But we don't. We don't think about that mundane process because that is not the element of breathing that adds a spark to life; it is the thieves that trade in such banal fare that creates the interest.
For a breath once stolen is never forgotten. Whether it be by the view from a hill over...
Twist. Turn. Dart Jump. I will wait for you. Wait for you to tire. Because you will drag me and my little boat all the way to Heaven before I let go this line. Soaked with salt and sweat and blood from my stinging palm.
And we dance, you and I, like sweet Rosa, mother of my starving daughter Consuelo. And you will drag me to Heaven before I let go. My harpoon is waiting like the hunger of my child for that first taste of blood. And though it cuts my hand, I will not let you go. Not...
Six minutes. You wouldn't think it a long enough span of time to affect anything. Anyone.
And yet.
It's time enough and more to change your life. My life.
We were given six minutes. The span between one time slot and the next.
Six minutes to explain.
Six minutes to speak.
And I couldn't. There was nothing I could say to erase what I did.
So.
I kissed her.
Again.
And this time she melted into my arms.
Wrapped hers around my neck.
And for six minutes it was perfect.
Bliss.
Until the buzzer rang. And someone rapped on the...