Safura was stalking her victim. Through the cobbled streets, around the market barrows, past the gates of the jail and under the washing lines strung between the slum buildings of the poor. The bones of an ox; she already had these. The teeth of a hound; yes, these too. Now all she needed was a few drops of blood taken directly from the heart of an innocent child.
The little girl stopped to buy an apple at a stall. Safura waited in the shadows behind. Jane, the stall holder, gave the child a rosy fruit and smiled at her.
"It's...
"The water was clear," he kept insisting.
We all had been there. There were pictures, and a video somewhere posted on youtube. The water had been far from clear. Anything but clear. It was thick almost to the point of gummy with chocolate brown sediment, and tiny detritus the likes of which I didn't want to contemplate.
"I saw it," he said. "Perfectly clear. Purified. He was standing in the middle of it, and he made it clean by his presence. I tell you I saw him!"
We all said we believed him. Some even went further than that.
"Yes,...
"Looking at things changes us so it is impossible to look at anything the same way twice," said Foley.
I did a double take and looked at him again. He had changed: something was sprouting from the top of his head and his eyelids appeared to be melting.
"Is this me or you this time?" I asked him.
He said nothing, but gestured upwards, extending a single finger to the sky above our heads. There was the moon, a milky smudge behind the racing clouds. Suddenly it came into full view and it had changed, too. The moon would never...
We waited for the curtain to go down, some patiently and obliviously to the palpable tension between Fran and I. Once again she'd tried to force me to go into the final act without the correct props. Once again she'd sabotaged, or rather tried to sabotage my costume. But I wouldn't be held back. I was going to upstage her no matter that my backside was revealed to the entire audience. She thought I wouldn't turn and face her? Apparently she was unaware of my tenacity and forgot that I'd seen her in action before. To that end, so to...
Twist. Turn. Dip. Sweep. All at once, the winds around the ship changed, shifting from a violent storm to a soft breeze. The black plumage of his Tengu Fan remained stock straight, even with the skilled hand moving it with jarring grace to manipulate the winds around them. They crew had all seen the man at work at least once before, but always it was a sight of awe. Not many on the high seas could willingly sail through a tempest and come out of it completely unscathed.
After the tribulation had passed, and the skies parted above into clear...
I remember when I first saw you. You were walking alone in a park, it was a cool evening it was so late that even the night walkers were in a bed, There you were walking alone in the park, skin fair hair so blonde it was almost white. You wore nothing but a patient's gown. I walk up to you concerned then frightened, you my dearest lamb were covered in a crimson tint. Do you remeber what you asked me you said "help me"
~
He grimaced as the flash went off, realizing too late that the final extant image of himself would so clearly portray the unease he was feeling at that moment. All well, he thought -- better that way.
On the one-off cedar deck table he had placed his remaining possessions. The cool glass beneath had the strange optical effect of making them seem blurred, though he knew his exhaustion was catching up with him.
"Ok, what do we do now?" he said to himself. Another sign, he chuckled, that things were going terribly.
He grabbed his smart phone first, and, unsurprised...
"You're here because someone recommended you to me. Someone who passed the test. Someone who promised you that you'd be a better financial trader."
The Banker nodded. "Peter. Pete sugg…"
"No names. No pack drill. Only one condition. If…"
"When… When, surely?"
"If… you pass the test, you have to recommend someone to go after you. Someone you think needs to be a better banker. And you DON'T tell them about the test."
"Agreed."
"Ok then. I'd hate to have to kill you." I smiled conspiratorially.
"During the day this park is full of dog walkers. And dogs. And shit."...
Giving in wasn't an option. She - he'd not had time to ask her name - had wept, pleaded, then finally agreed. Shuddering, the way he'd imagined a suicide would cutting his own wrist, she'd - Hell, he should ask her name at least - placed the unpinned grenades one at a time behind his back.
The release levers successfully pinned between spine and the plastic that had separated driver from passengers, he felt their edges anew as he extended his arms to push against the bus's folding doors.
"Good girl. Get upstairs. When it's safe. When they're all gone....
Bombs were the last thing on his mind. It was scotch tape that was presently obsessing him. He had no idea why the image of scotch tape floated there, as it hovering in space, as the explosions and mayhem and chaos reigned around him.
Pierre Leclaire was a soldier in an army of two. Him and his dog Rufus. They had a gun, three boxes of crayons and a wad of chewed up Bubblicious. His mom had always told him he could make the most creative things out of nothing, so the bubblicious had become somewhat of an obsession.
Today,...