Peasants. That's what he called them. To their faces. Idiots. Perverts.
The fact they were his employers didn't seem to matter at that very moment. They sacked him and it wasn't until he was standing in the street in the pouring rain that he wondered what on earth had happened.
One moment he was being congratulated for achieving the top sales rank that month, next he was shoved out the back door clutching his P45.
As he looked through the window, he could see Riley, smirking. Something was odd about this as Riley was his best friend.
Back in the...
The first time I ever saw Eve, she was laying down on a blue picnic blanket that convered a smooth cement floor. She was holding a bundle of pink and purple balloons resting her head on a bright polka-dotted pillow and staring up at the clear blue sky. Her image printed itself onto my heart. I walked up to talk to her and looked down and her dark brown eyes looking up at me. I asked her what she was doing. She took such a long time to answer my question that I was afraid I'd offended her.
When she...
Sex wasn't always the first thing on Mandy's mind but it was today. The long zip at the front of the dress was perfect for what she had in mind. The photo of the online date didn't do him justice, he was much better looking. Even the meeting spot was quirky, the old churchyard. He knew she was into anything ancient, spooky, derelict from their messages.
He had suggested a picnic by the river which was adjoining the graveyard then said he'd take her home to meet his mother who always wanted to see his dates. She was very traditional...
"I'll be 69 this year."
I lifted my eyes from my book, struggling with my irritation. Across from me sat a woman, her eyes clouded with reflection as she stared over my shoulder. "Forty years I could have spent with someone who adored me if I hadn't have been so blind."
I blinked. I couldn't quite tell if she was actually speaking to me. I folded my book around my thumb and waited. The ache in her voice spoke to the same in mine and I refused to look at my phone that had hummed more than once, someone far...
Walking towards the light, the people wondered if they would be provided clothes or would they have to keep walking in the nude. They were unaware that they were still dressed in their own clothes. The drugs made them see the world around them incorrectly. They looked in awe at the lush green foliage, trees, grasses. All they could see ahead was the magnificent building, the place where they would be saved, rejuvenated, find themselves in heaven.
By the time the drugs wore off, they would find themselves in hell. All the rapists, murderers, backstabbing gossips, paedophiles never looked back...
I am love with a robot. As she undresses for bed I know that her body will be perfectly matched to mine, her skin soft to my touch, her responses exactly what I need to hear. She wears whatever I suggest and buys what I tell her. We are the perfect couple.
The next morning she was gone. Note on the pillow. Sorry I can't do this anymore. I need to be free to be myself. She is in the living room, unplugged, wires pulled out of her heart.
I don't want to hurt you.
I want to hurt. At least then I'll feel something. I can't go back to being numb like that again. I felt so, so dead.
Does that mean you feel alive now?
Like you wouldn't believe. Just being with you wakes me up.
Oh, really?
Please don't leave me. I can't go back.
I can't stay.
If you leave, I'll die again!
When I was young I was convinced that if you held onto a bunch of balloons you would go up in the air just like Mary Poppins. Ever since then they scared me. Phobic to tell the truth. So when I saw the girl lying down with the blue and pink balloons I had to scrabble around in my bag for medication and a paper bag. Only trouble is they were missing. Shit.
I was feeling myself get red. Hot. Sweaty. My legs turned to jelly. Trembly. Then suddenly around the corner walks a man holding a massive bunch of...
I never liked black and white photos, it's because I don't see colours well and everything looks blurry. Can't make out shapes or faces. So I don't really know what my parents looked like when they were younger let alone anyone older.
Thing is, there was something odd about this particular snap. As though it was alive. My fingers felt wet,salt in the air and I could have sworn that there was sand between my toes, they had that uncomfortable gritty feeling. Coincidence or not, gulls flew overhead, circling, making me jump with their loud shrill cry. Then I heard...
My great-grandfather was an explorer, an occupation prevalent when one had more to explore. On the the archipelago of Tierra del Fuego, he learned to speak Haush, a language near extinction since the 1920s. He taught the language to his son, who passed it on to my father. While we played catch on the front lawn, my father taught it to me, a word relayed with each pitch, returned with each throw.
Three generations dead, I exited the train at Buenos Aires.