She opened the envelope and screamed. "I got in!" she told her parents, hopping excitedly as she held out the acceptance letter. Emily had sent letters to at least ten different schools in the Southeast, but the one she'd really wanted was Georgia Southern University. And now I'm in! she thought to herself, glowing with the news. Her family had attended the school since it's inception as First District A&M, a high school for local students. Every one of her family members credited that school with making them the people they turned out to be. And now, she was in....
His life was on the line.
Strung from tree to tree, across the back yard, his priorities blew in the wind. There were his coat and slacks, accompanied by an assortment of lively, but respectable, neckties. There was his underwear. There was his hockey jersey.
There were his one-year-old's Big Boy Diapers, and his wife's sweaters, and his dog's blanket.
And there was the note.
He slowly, thoughtfully pulled in the line, taking the items down, one by one. When he reached the paper, his heart caught in his throat.
"If you had another chance," it said to him, "would...
Can the dust be blown off of some that isn't tangible, something that constantly whirls through us?
She didn't have a single hand to hold, but she wasn't lost. The events leading up to her disappearing were normal enough: the first camping trip of the season with a man she utterly, and hopelessly loved, a trip up to Wisconsin to feel some more of those Midwest roots, and then, some relaxing days of looking for some work.
And that was it. That's all it took for her to disappear, and leave the internet all together. Before this, she had high...
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...
"And, did he ever touch you inappropriately?"
Sarah paused her story for a moment, growing red in the face. "What?"
"Did he ever touch you, it's okay, you're not alone. This office is a safe place."
"Why would you even ask?" Sarah nearly yelled in her surprise.
"Look, I get a lot of patients coming through here and I just want them to know that they can talk to me freely. It would be statistically plausible that he touched you at one point."
"It would?"
"Yes, look, I have your breast interests in mind."
"Well... maybe, I dunno."
"He probably...
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
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...
Screw destiny.
I smashed the crystal ball against the sidewalk, jumping on it to make sure it really was destroyed. It couldn't tell me anything anyway.
I was abandoned on a doorstep as a baby by my mother, and I always knew I wasn't going to be like her. I wanted a big family that I could give all my love and attention to.
But I picked the ball up at a flea market, and while polishing it, saw a doctor's report. It said that I was infertile. I didn't want to believe it, but I've always been superstitious, so...
His back leaned against a wall while his dust ridden face peered down at the ground. His eyes darted from one cigarette butt to the next, and finally, made a triangle with a crushed beer can. Counting the butts and the cans, he slowly peeled his foot off the wall and languidly marched down the street.
"Spare chang'?" he mumbled to a passerby, reluctantly looking into their eyes. No verbal answer came except for the heavy footsteps gaining speed as the man in a white collar shirt passed him.
"Spare chang'?" he grunted again to a group of young twenty-somethings...
Mira had been blind for several years, but in a way, she never quite lost her sight. The smell of jalapeños sliced on the kitchen slabs made her taste green and itch with stinging eyes. The jasmine by the porch wrapped her in the white cream of Sunday clouds. The library books were still breathing dust and oil from the days they were salvaged from the great fire.
It was the fire that made Mira blind. It was the fire that Mira started. It was the fire that Mira conjured when she read from the black tome.