morning. you are up and out the door.
morning. you are up and out the door.
morning. you are up and out the door.
morning. you notice something different. you are up and out the door.
morning. you notice something different. you have lost some hair during the night. you are up and out the door.
morning. you notice something different. you have lost some hair during the night. you get a little concerned. you are up and out the door.
morning. you notice something different. you have lost some hair during the night. you get a little concerned. you...
The children were not at school. It was an odd feeling. This freedom was what they had longed for, begged for every school night since forever. To be freed from school for as long as they wanted, to be allowed to play video games all day, to eat chocolate for breakfast and ice-cream for lunch and to make as much mess as they liked without ever ever being shouted at.
It had been exciting for the first two days, fun for the following three. But by now the heady freedom had dissolved into an aching boredom with a great emptiness...
I held it at arm's length. The stench permeated the air around me. (I had just gotten a word of the day calendar, that's why I knew what permeated meant.) Pinching my nose, I placed it on the table.
Whatever it was, Andy had gone through a lot of trouble to get it. He saw it floating down the river, and he dove in after it. Too bad that two minutes later, after he caught up to it, a barge full of household rubbish tipped over and spilled its... cargo all over him. It reeked of consumerism.
I pulled the...
She wasn't the kind of girl who kept love letters, wrapped in pink ribbon, locked in an inlayed wooden box. Not that anyone sent love letters these days.
She would have no wild stories of her youth to tell her neices, no lost loves, no ones who got away.
She was, as she always had been, just her.
She had got so use to being on her own, the proverbial independant woman, that she ended up so afraid, afraid of being any other way.
And so , even though she was still young, she had stopped looking for love letters...
The sepia girl smiled at me as I tucked her photograph back into my wallet.
I'd found it several years ago, inside a book in a box on a table at a garage sale. I hadn't ended up buying anything from the sale, but I'd taken the photo. I suppose you could say it was stealing, but I've never thought about it that way.
She seemed lonely. I was just taking her from a life spent between pages on the Ottoman Empire, with me. I travel a lot, and a part of me wanted her to see the world.
I...
Kenya was the name of my doppelganger. I thought it a strange name, thought he might call himself Jim or John, both my names. I am James John Madison. But no, he told me he was Kenya that first time I spotted him in the bathroom at the hotel.
At first I thought I was hallucinating, but he was real. Not a ghost, but an actual man. He said it was amazing our paths had crossed this way although he always guessed there was a second version of him around.
We discussed urban legends, that seeing our other half could...
Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed back her chair and stood up. "*ahem* Ladies and gentlemen, i do believe an error has been made." she said. everyone looked in her direction, and she could feel her cheeks burning. Her english was soft, lilting, with a formal accent no one could place. "Mr. Devon was there on the night of December 13th." she said, growing louder so she could be heard by the entire courtroom. Even the judge was afraid to breathe. "The evidence presented suggests a robbery, does it not?" Celine said, nodding...
She cradled the faun's head. Tears, vivid green, stained the slight creature's pale skin. Her story wasn't meant to end this way.
Shashera stroked Ferin's cheek. "I'm so sorry, my friend," she whispered, leaning down to press her lips to his brow. The faun shuddered at the chill of her touch.
"You weren't supposed to let him in," he said, voice weak, but thick with accusation. "You were our protector." Another tear dropped from her lashes to splash onto his chest and he jerked at the impact.
"I know." The nymph settled her friend back on the bed. "But it's...
I hear the crunch underneath my foot. I look down and see beneath me the perfect array of multicoloured dead leaves. I bend down to pick one up and examine it softly with my fingertips. It's a dark shade of red, almost brown, but it still has a tint of green around the edges; as though the leaf had died too soon. I smiled, before scrunching it in my hand and feeling that satisfaction of the noise it made.
I continued walking along the path in the woods. My dog was way ahead of me now and probably not wondering...
The fields were parched. There was no water. Where was the rain, she wondered as she stared across the cracked land. There were clouds rolling in from the east but they brought no hope of rain. The stream that used to run through here had been clear and sweet, she remembered. Sighing, she turned from the depressing sight and got back to preparing the evening meal. Jim and the boys would be home soon and they would be hungry after a long day in the fields.
"I can help you." A small voice said.
She jumped and looked around in...