Absent. The perfect word to describe the situation.
Paul and Maria Strickland sat at their kitchen table eating breakfast, as they did every day. Forks scraped against plates as they lifted their scrambled eggs to their mouths, chewed, swallowed. All in silence. They'd been married for twenty years, eating in silence together for fifteen. Eating in silence was the only thing they ever did together anymore, except take care of their son, Mark.
The boy watched them from the den, where he'd taken to eating alone as he watched TV, a tray attached to the armrests of his black Quickie...
He had climbed the steep Acropolis, seeking Athena Parthenos (the virgin), every time work or pleasure or strange fates called him to Athens. Yet today he paused by the Temple of Dionysis, only about a third of the way up the olive treed slope. One of the several custodians, some in plastic and metal cells, others, like this young lady beneath whatever shade the Gods (and strategic umbrellas) could provide. Something about her effortless attention, seeing all who paused or passed, while seemingly merged into a thick hard back, caught his attention.
She sat, regally, letting the Sun and people...
Froniga, or Fron (as most of her US friends and relations called her) was a patient sort of soul. More in touch with her forebears than many Americans, perhaps because she was closer to her immigrant roots than most. She'd married into the "Land of the Free" as much as she had been born there, not really considering where she lived as something to define her. Maybe that was the Romany spirit showing through. She couldn't tell. She didn't care.
Of course, her attracted neighbour did present a problem. She was who she was, and it was hardly her fault...
It was the quiet way Fron did the simple things - anticipating a glass of water, settling to a joint task, silently prompting something urgently forgotten - that Wilhelm noticed more than anything else. She would just eye smile at him when he, yet again amazed at her casual thoughtfulness, would gratify his mutterings. As if words were not necessary.
It was as bewitching as it was uncanny. He felt she could pluck a dropped desire out of the air, well before its longing weight would shatter it on the hard stone floor of the bakery. Slowly, quickly, her careless...
That part of New York was home to several artisan outlets and small, incubated, cottage industries. Rather like a hipster vision of battery farmed chickens, Wilhelm noted. Right next door to his bakery - Purveyor of the Finest Home-Baked Goods* (* all dietary requirements catered for) - he was aware dimly of a bespoke micro brewery, although no liquor of any kind had passed his ancestor shudderingly German lips in over forty years. Wilhelm didn't approve of alcohol. Not for a long time, though he had once courted the hop and the grape until their avoidable, but probably inevitable divorce....
The dress blue uniforms were itchy. They were tired and hot and couldn't wait for the ceremony to be over. The captain looked across the water at the setting sun. At least that part would be over, and they'd get some respite from the day's heat. But yet...
He looked down, into the cool depths of the ocean waters surrounding the metal monstrosity he had called home for almost three years now.
"And do you, Mark Wallace, take this mermaid, Jasmine Petals, to be your lawfully wedding wife? In sickness and in health... forever and ever, by Neptune's Trident?"
The...
It had to be the bumblebee parachute. I wanted one with Hello Kitty on it but Al said no. Black and yellow clashed with the sky. That was important.
Good choice, given the photograph above. Man, I thought Lady Liberty's presence was so commanding that she'd always be the focal point. Not true. It's me and Al in our parachutes.
Yep. We landed on Liberty Island and there's a whole throng of well-wishers around us. Someone asks if someone watched that old David Copperfield special where he made the Statue of Liberty disappear. Nuh uh. That was a long time...
Behind me, the world caved in. There it goes, I thought. There it goes at last. I emptied my pockets and threw my hands over my shoulders. I remember the sun was descending but the moon was so bright the day wouldn't leave. Night whined and nudged but the day wouldn't surrender. You are confused, moon, I yelled over my shoulder. Fade out, lady, I shouted over my other shoulder. Another ending of another world.
They were listening. I wasn't worried though, It's not like I had anything important to say. Just knowing that they were there though, behind the thin two way mirror staring at me as if I had something to do with the disappearance of the third missing person this week. If they only knew that the worst thing that I've ever done in my life was stollen a pack of batteries from the Walmart down the street from where I grew up when I was 8. There was no convincing them otherwise now though. They saw me running from the scene...
The Delicate Chance
No one ever dared to push her too hard. She was robbed of all her real potential because everyone was so afraid she might break.
She had always had hopes and dreams like everyone else, but they stayed inside of her....
Was she really so fragile? Mickey dared to think otherwise. He spoke with Rachel often once she convinced him of how miserable her life was. He decided he coulnd't let her waste away any longer.
They never went anywhere--except in dreams....But their dreams had them soaring all over the world. Time was no obstacle, as they...