The Moon would never be the same again.
Sure, nothing important in its construction had changed. It was still the same old mass of rock hanging on an ever-decaying orbit around the larger mass of rock that we call home. But it was different.
Maybe the giant structure unfolding on its surface had something to do with it.
This mission had taken years to even green-light, never mind anything else. But now, we were here. Standing on the moon, with a base. It wasn't anything special, though. We were heading to Mars with a similar base the next week.
But...
Monica Mistaikov
I stood on the old wooden bed I always slept in. There was always a window up high and I would always look up to it at noon and see the clock chime. There were so much out there waiting for me to learn. I wanted to go out there, explore the world, make friends. But I couldn't, because I can’t. Where I am from is a powerful city, Nastavbriki. This city, we have to protect it with our lives so no rebels come. But my anonymous parents dropped me to an orphanage when I was very...
Hush the forest. Hush where the bear was, the deer have been downed. Hush my screaming heart.
In the kitchen where I am carried after my father's death, I ask for one shortbread cookie filled with jam as my mother Connie smiles around like the carousel she is of feelings. I want to sit in the dark corner and think about the bear mauling him. My father Claus, lying on the needles and still.
I ran into the woods and Meryl knocked me out. Unintentionally, I was fighting him as I would a bear. He cried onto my suede, he...
Did you hear what happened to Ol' Morlane? Word got around, I mean, I heard it from Skeets who heard it from Fuller but I checked around with some other people and they all heard the same so it's true I guess. You didn't hear this? I mean, I don't know where you been you didn't hear this. Once Skeets told me I musta heard it nine-ten-twenty times in the past few or four days. You been out somewhere? Somewhere secret? Rustlin' up something good for the rest of us? Don't worry about it. Anyway, before you go in there...
Giles inhaled the drink and closed his eyes, fluttering his eyelashes.
“A hint of dark oak definitely.”
“Perhaps a deeper bouquet like a rusty copper,” Lynton replied.
Giles cradled his cigar lovingly, and crunched on some spare ribs.
“Why would you call a a fine cigar a Cuban he mused? The Cubans were incredibly common
and impoverished. I mean it’s a symbol. It stands for something more.”
“Why would you call a decrepit decaying old bat a Queen?” Lynton replied, that’s the English
language Giles, cut a vowel here twist a syllable there; it’s a kind of phonetic prostitution,”...
Giving in wasn't an option. "2,4,6,8! We don't want to integrate!" shouted his T-Shirt. Well, the left hand side. The right blared out "We're ALL in this (body) together…"
Both the Prosecution and the Defence barristers sighed at the witness's garb, shuffled papers, breathed slowly, and were grateful he was wearing anything at all. Both were getting paid. From the same bank account, in fact. They both rose as the Right Honourable Judge Jewel took in the room, and then her seat.
The clerk stood and announced in a notably less bored tone than usual, "Giles #3 versus Giles #1,2...
We are falling, steady. We are falling a little bit. We are falling into a mass dream, an illusion that is as good as reality for now. We are falling so slowly, so gently that it feels like we are floating. We are together and we are kidding ourselves. But it is noble and good and we are falling. What reality is greater than this? What is it we are here for? We are this: we are weight: we are what makes it possible to fall.
We are falling and it is enough.
1943
Population. 1943
Even painted over, the 2 was still visible if you looked at the sign at an angle. And the previous 1 if you were real close, but from a passing car, residents or the occasional visitor to Sleepy Falls would see, if they were paying attention, that a new resident now inhabited the town. Ted wiped his brow with his customary cotton handkerchief and reseated the dusty Sheriff's Hat.
"It's not straight." said this week's Deputy, who decided to punctuate this pearl of wisdom with an increasingly annoying, yet habitual spitting out the passenger window.
The fact...
Words like knives, thrown back and forth across the room, like a death-defying circus act.
Husband and wife tossing sharp insults, from the couch to the kitchen doorway. Neither landing anything deep, glancing wounds, already scraping scarred tissue.
Neither really feels anything for the other anymore. But the dance, the battle, the contest keeps them together. Light reflects of the blades as they flip and fly.
Thud into walls. Plink against the floors. Bounce of their scaly armour of experience, disdain and dull hate. It aches in their bellies. They think it might offer some release, against the mounting pressure....
Its iron heart broke in two each time it welcomed a visitor. Ironic.
Its sign was officious but it's symbolism romantic. Just like any heart, it was forged by mixed signals.
"Enter me. Break my heart in two. Leave. Break my heart again. I am only whole when I have nothing or everything."
"But once you get inside, if you have ignored my words and pulled open my heavy gates, you will still be facing a brick wall. And you may feel a moment of blank indifference that reaches inside of you and takes your hope. But before you turn...