Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up.
"Oh, looks like we have ourselves a volunteer?" the D.J at the booth smiled at her.
She blushed when the spotlight hit her. Figures the first time she wanted to be daring, the whole world would see her.
Looking back at her friends as though she wasn't sure of herself anymore, they all encouraged her, their hands moving towards the stage. "Go on!" her friend, Darnell grinned wildly to her. The rest of their group nodded their approval.
Well, if Darnell...
"Stacy, come on! Hurry up!"
I huffed as I ran behind him. "John-" pant, pant, "please, for the love of all-" pant, pant, "-that is holy. Slow down!"
He laughed, and continued to run, as though we were children still. Adults don't run. They tell other kids to stop running. And for good reason, too! It's tiring!
He stopped at the top and looked down at me, watching me walk the rest of the way. As soon as I reached his side, I frowned at his gorgeous hazle green stare.
And he smiled.
"Could kill you, ya know," I huffed....
Aurora Moondust Boardman was gripped by a mixture of fear and excitement as she read he Great, Great, Great Grandmothers words. Back in the early 21st century a rather twee social network called Twitter was de rigeur. Nowadays they had the Social Implants that allowed thoughts to be transferred to any of their Optimim Subscribers.
She talked a lot about '@Pesky_Kid' whom Aurora presumed was her Gt, Gt Grandfather. He was famous for his daring exploits in th 50's when he pioneered the first Mashed Potato Wars computer game and retired a millionaire at 20. Kate (as her ,Gt,GT Grandma...
Did you believe, like me, that there were monsters under the bed? I would leap from the middle of the room, my feet thudding on the mattress, determined that no hands would grab at me from that dark , malevolent recess between bedframe and floor.
The woodgrain on the antique wardrobe would melt into the face of a hooded figure. The deep, soulless gaze visible only to my terrified young eyes. Yet the most frightening part of the night was the key in the door and the gruffness of the slurring voice.
No, my monsters didn't live under the bed....
Outside her bedroom window the bells of the church called out to the diminished congregation. It seemed sacriligeous somehow that, while the floral skirted spinsters sashayed into the chapel, she should be lying here wrapped in his arms. Jayne wasn't religious at all despite her most formative years spent eagerly attending that little Methodist chapel. At school she had always excelled at Religious Studies., but life and it's course in cynicism had cured her of all that.
She nuzzled deeper into his arms drinking in the smell of sensual sweat, knowing that in a few short hours he would be...
The coffee was cold now, but she sipped it anyway, imagining the heat. She blew away non-existent steam and let the rain soak her skin. She had been sitting in the same seat for over an hour, waiting, waiting, waiting. There was still a part of her that hoped he was going to turn up. But most of her knew that he would not. The coffee she had bought for him was opposite her, and she watched the thin raindrops falling into it, making holes in the disappearing foam.
He had never told her that he would be here. They...
The coat was ragged. No, not ragged - raggedy. Tatterdemalion in some circles. Tatty, to his mother.
Love, to Matilda.
She slept in the pockets, wrapped herself in the arms and nibbled anxiously at the buttons.
Button.
He'd worn this coat for years. Navy blue pea coat from the army surplus store downtown, his first grown-up purchase. He lived alone then. He went to school, paid his book fees and came home to his one-room flat with a lukewarm kettle and a dusty sleeping bag on the floor.
He'd never had a pet. Allergies always did him in.
Then Matilda...
He didn't think he was much of a cat person until he met Matilda. Matilda was a small, scraggy, skinny cat (or maybe kitten, he wasn't completely sure) who had turned up out of nowhere on the day he moved into the house.
Obviously a stray, with patches of pale pink skin shining through the missing squares of black fur, his heart ached when he saw her. An actual, physical pain which surprised him. He was not a caring person. He scrabbled through boxes marked 'KITCHEN' until he found an old tin of tuna that had been shoved to the...
Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up.
"Ladies? Gentlemen? Entities?" Helen paused. No response.
Helen glanced around. The large workroom -- some schizophrenic combination of retro and avant0-garde -- was loud, clicking and warbling and chatting in a very large number of tongues.
Helen cleared her throat. It should have been for effect, but it was because her throat had suddenly dried, as if she had swallowed the entirety of the Sahara back on Terra. "People! And non-people! Listen!"
To their credit, many did. Many didn't, but that...
Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up.
Mrs. Baer had not picked her for the reading group, but that didn't matter, because it didn't mean she wasn't good enough, it just meant that Mrs. Baer didn't KNOW how well she could read! Mom would say it, loud and clear Emily could hear it in her head, "If you'd just made yourself noticed, Emily, then you would not have been ignored!" This is what Mom always told both of her older sisters when they became too meek.
"You get...