There was only a sliver of space between the floorboards and the door under the stairs. It wasn't even really a door. To the naked eye, it appeared to only be another wall, another wasted space in the sprawling mansion. They crushed their faces to the hardwood floor, straining to see beyond the door, but they couldn't. It was just to thin.
"Let's pry it open," Jason said, pointing to one of the banister arms. It hung onto the rest of its siblings by a sliver of fragmented wood, conveniently shaped similar to a crowbar. "I'll even do it myself....
then the cold
A wet cold that moves through you that clings to your insides
A cold that whispers soft and true
_You will never be warm
Smile and huddle and see that here too in this fog, this unrelenting mist that covers everything
Here too is warmth, here too is a God
Listen to the sounds that the butterflies make. Listen what they say when they communicate, as they talk to each other, their little butterfly whispers, back and forth, their conversation. Through these special headphones, you can for the first time hear the conversation of the butterflies.
Sadly, twenty seven years ago was the last time we saw real, live butterflies. The great butterfly passing of 2017 was a hard, lonely time for human beings.
But thankfully, forward thinking scientists recorded every sound, every movement, every bit of data they could about 2102 different butterfly species. And now you, through the...
Janet said it was good to write to Santa, so that he knows what to bring on Christmas Day. I did do it once before, but Daddy took the letter and later, it was in tiny pieces in the bin. I told him Santa won't know what I want, and he slapped me hard on my face and told me to get him another beer or there wouldn't be any bloody Christmas.
Janet says this Christmas will be different from all of the rest, because Santa always comes to her house and I sleep here now. Janet says I can...
They crouched to peer beneath the stairs. Michelle lay there in a drunken, unconsious heap.
"Ok, how are we going to get her up to bed?" sighed Peter.
"You're going to carry her." said Natasha, flatly.
"No, not again. I didn't move into his houseshare just to spend my Saturday mornings carrying my alchy housemates around". said Peter.
Natasha turned towards Peter and said in a hushed tone, "She's not alcoholic, she's just not over Steven yet".
"He dumped her 2 months ago!"
Suddenly, there was some movement beneath Michelle's still body.
Peter and Natasha peered beneath the stairs again...
My throat ached from a barrage of overpriced, fried abuse. My voice was hoarse, having spent most of the day screaming on children's roller coasters and shouting Marco-Polo in the crowds after my friends. I had waiting 25 years to go to Disneyland, and I was not disappointed. Not yet.
The vengeful sun, gastronomic malfeasance, and hours outside of my normal cubicle-induced sedentary lifestyle decided to wreak havoc. I rushed into familiar territory: a row of screaming toilets and sing-song children. My friends were en queue right outside, leaning against tall hedges.
"What are we waiting for?"
"Something amazing. I...
When it started growing, it really started growing. Guisseppe spotted it one morning as he rolled his fruit cart into the market, a strange, brilliantly green shoot pushing its way up through the cobblestones, defiantly pointing towards the sky. The next morning it had doubled in size. Guisseppe had tried to pull it up, but it stubbornly clung to ground, remaining entrenched in the stones at the edge of the market.
Over the next several days, it shot up several stories, its thick green trunk bursting through the ground, its flat broad leaves opening and gathering in the sun. No...
Daring to be noticed for the first timein her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up.
The room fell silent as she began to speak croakily at first and with a slight tremor in her voice. But, as she continued, her words became clearer ad sweeter by the second. He was transfixed at the way her eyes began to sparkle. They were bluer than he remembered and the delicate flush in her cheeks added much to her delicate beauty. In all the weeks thay had been attending the group he hadn't realised just how lovely she was. He...
My singing was awful. Didn't matter as the audience were drunk, I could see Lorna sticking her tongue down John's throat as the light swept over the audience. They didn't seem to care that anyone might notice and tell John's wife in a text during the interval. After my horrendous attempt at Billy Holiday I heard a voice in my ear, it was a child asking me to talk to someone called Betty who had red hair, an addiction to pickled eggs and had three cats called Tom, Dick and Harry.
She was sitting in the last row and only...
I'm dead. Really dead. Not in the "there'll be a twist at the end and I'll be saved" kind of way. Just dead.
I lived a short life. Just 42 years young; at the peak of my career as a well-renowned chef in New York City. Most people say it was an accident; the gunman ran into my restaurant, and randomly shot rounds into the kitchen and at the restaurant patrons.
As a dead person, unreliably, I can tell you this is not true. I say unreliably because no one will ever know that I am telling the truth here....