He sighed as he read: "This image or video is currently unavailable."
"Thank you, Flickr," the man said to himself. He'd been trying to upload the photos he'd taken at the reenactment all afternoon and was constantly frustrated by the site's refusal to work with him. James had been adding pictures to Flickr almost since its inception and had never had problems like today. He didn't know what to do, only that he felt like pulling his hair out.
"Forget it," he said in disgust. I'll try it again tomorrow. Standing up, he turned and walked away from the computer...only...
He searched through the records, long dusky fingers flipping rapidly through file after file in the Archives. He kept going, past James, past Jenkins, past....there it was!
Private Justice Jernigan, 61st Georgia Infantry, Co. A. His hands fairly trembled as he pulled out the pension record, gazed at it, read it voraciously. There it was. Private Justice Jernigan, listed as "man servant" for William Jernigan. It was also noted that he was a confirmed soldier, having fought at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville before being crippled by a wound in his right knee. That confirmed the stories handed down by his parents...
They were listening.
He knew, and he didn't care. It didn't matter. Nothing would matter, after all, after this.
He kept moving forward. Sometimes it felt inevitable. Sometimes it felt like it wasn't his feet propelling him, but something else, a force of nature, a gravity holding his life in balance. He kept going. It didn't matter what kept him going, after all. Nothing would matter after this.
They were watching.
He could feel their eyes even as he moved, boring giant holes into his skin, mining his body for- for what, he didn't know. Their eyes had been a...
I step back and look. It seems complete.
Ms. Johnson comes over and looks at it. She barely glances before saying, "Wonderful, wonderful. Fantastic job." She's forgotten my name again. I doubt she'll ever remember.
I leave it on an easel and walk out of the classroom. No one looks back at me. No one calls my name or asks me to meet them at their lockers. I keep walking. Soon I am beyond the reach of our cloistered middle school existence into worlds beyond. High schoolers pass by. None of them look at me either. They have their own...
Deep into the meadows of the South
I see a bus pulled up in front of the common store.
Above my head are alluring clouds
I have never seen before.
Things like this are rare.
No one visits my small Southern town.
Where things are bound to happen.
Spellbound.
Do you think that bus is skeptical?
I do.
There are no visitors in this town.
Whoever comes in
Never gets out.
I learned the hard way.
The day after tomorrow, this will be all over. The waiting, the anxiety, the impatience will end. I have paced my room nearly every minute of every day, waiting...waiting. But, it will soon be all over.
I cannot imagine how I will feel. Will it be like the first time, or even the second? I highly doubt it. The first was special, sent a tingle up and down me when it arrived. The second was nearly as powerful, but still less so.
So, it wan't be like that. But, I still cannot wait.
I have He-Man and Battlecat.
I have...
He read the card quietly as he walked along the Great Wall. "Explore," it said. "Dream," it read. "Discover," it implored.
Well, he'd done all of that. He came to China on a whim with his girlfriend and explored the sites. He went to the Great Wall and to Beijing, to little towns and big cities,. He dreamed with her of starting a family when they saw a woman with her child nestled in her arms, a man walking beside her and holding her close. And he discovered, when she was shot down for the little bit in her purse,...
The first day of school and he was already in a fight. Mark sighed as the three seventh graders approached him from three different directions. His electric blue eyes took in the boy in front of him, a lanky kid with a bulbous nose and mean eyes. Beside him, another boy stood with his arms crossed over his broad chest, a sneer on his face. And behind him, Mark knew, was the last boy, a slack-lipped teenager with dull, incurious eyes.
“Lunch money,” Skinny said, holding out his hand.
“No,” Mark replied coolly as he sat back in his black...
He watched in the side mirror as the car got closer and wondered who was in it, what were they doing?
Maybe they were a family on vacation or, like him and his partner, two businessmen on a trip.
No, he thought to himself. They were spies sent to take him and his companion hostage for their new software. His company recently designed a powerful anti-virus program and were likely to take down Norton, McAfee, and the other giants int the industry. So, of course they would want to bring his company down. But, what the men in the car...
He stared at her, mesmerized by every breath she took. Dimly, the boy could hear her speaking, but he had absolutely no idea what the girl was saying. His attention was wholly foc...
WHAP!!
"Mark!" Mary said irritably. "My eyes are UP HERE!"