REALLY?? THIS is where the last 30have lead me?
A mere two weeks in to my 30-th year in this life and I look around.
Over the years I've asked myself many questions. Why? Why am I here? WHAT!!? What happened? In a relationship or with my business.But one question still stands out in my ever burning mind....REALLY?
Not so mush of a question, but rather, a statement of anxiety or disbelief. I have no desire to fail, but to succeed. No desire to just "make it", but to win!
I realized that there is more in my question than...
We are there. We are in the shadows, in the gaps, in the spaces between words. We are in every moment where you pull away, where discretion replaces narrative, we are there.
We are there in the knowledge that you do not write all things that happen, we are there, waiting in the wings, filling in the gaps, in the spaces.
You did not write us - you never write us, nobody writes us (and who would read us, who would read every banal moment, every second, what soul could stand the painful inevitability of one moment following the next...
We sit in white rooms now, spartan furnishings, novel-sized windows. The tea is warm yet still melts the chocolate. Today they let us hear a bird song. The leap of its whistle reminded me of something that used to occur, when things used to occur.
Starvation.
He'd heard the word before, used it - but he hadn't known what it meant. He knew that now. He had no idea of what it really meant, not until now, not until this moment (but he knew it would continue to get worse until he could eat, of course it would, that gnawing inside would only get worse)
His vision was failing, he was dizzy - he needed something, needed to find something to eat, or he would -
He knew it with a painful clarity. He would die.
Again.
It had been bad enough the first time...
It was not a world in which it was advisable to take risks.
It could be argued - had been, by a few scholars, in the deep and distant past, a more romantic age - that risks were always inadvisable, that this was what made them risks in the first place.
But those scholars didn't live here, they didn't live now, they were from a world of chivalry and knights and heroism.
They were not in a world where you were burned if you were caught.
There were marks all over her arms - his, too, they sat beside one...
I jumped. And immediately regretted it.
The fear stripped me of all the other emotion that had been clouding my judgement. My wife, my children. Their faces all flew through my mind like the frames of a length of film.
"What have I done" I wondered as the air flicked my hair about. Pulling at my clothes as if it wanted to help me and stop my rapidly accelerating decent.
Then there was just disappointment. No sadness, no fear, no anger. Just disappointment. I had always sat on my high horse whenever I heard a story of one committing a...
It wasn't like that. It wasn't. She hadn't led him on. Or him her. It wasn't like she'd planned to have an affair. There, she'd finally said it. An affair. With her boss. Her married boss. Her dreamy, overworked, misunderstood boss, Tim. It wasn't like it was sordid, or wrong. It wasn't like they'd been indiscreet. It wasn't like any of her colleagues had known. It wasn't like she'd expected him to break it Off. It wasn't like he wasn't kind. The bastard.
"Tim, you bastard. Why do you care enough to want an end to spare your wife?"
It...
I'm with stupid. That's what his t-shirt says. the arrow points at me, because I always walk on his left. People read it and look at us and laugh. They don't know that he doesn't wear it for jokes and giggles. He means it. He always wears it when we go out together, which is only once a week. He allows me to do the weekly shopping with him. He makes the list but I have to carry it, because he always pushes the trolley.
Somewhere deep down I know he's a control freak and I should break away. Amy's...
Sean
By Jane Jones
He was late again. This had happened a lot over the past month and tonight she was determined to find out why.
She had been busy all day clearing out his wardrobe. He never did this and sometimes it annoyed her so she did it for him and it was beans on toast for his dinner. She hated doing him beans on toast as she always thought it was not a proper dinner but tonight she just wanted to make him happy so beans on toast it was going to be.
She poured herself another glass...
"When I was 12, I went to sea."
I looked up blankly. "Went to see what?"
"No. The sea. Big blue wet thing. You may know it as an ocean."
"No need for sarcasm." I muttered. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why did you go to sea? Especially at 12. Other people go to the zoo. Or to the pictures. Or they go and visit the sea, they do not - unless that's what you mean? I'm going to start telling people I went to sea at 7. I'm sure I did. Probably got sunburnt or almost drowned or got eaten by...