Absent. The roots were absent but you could still see them. When you burn a stump, you often end up with a chunk of its heart that doesn't turn to ash. The interesting thing is how the fire always seems to follow the roots, no matter how deep they go, burning away every trace of them. Sometimes, even a year later, a fire can rekindle from deep in the earth where it was banked in some hidden location. Looking down from above, you can see the faithful reproduction of the root system only it's just air. Hollows that disappear into...
"Wait, let me send a pic...." Darren closed one eye as he aimed his phone and snapped a picture, capturing the female figure in three quarter view, just before the turning stage she stood on spun her slowly away.
He gazed at the picture, ran his thumb over the screen, before attaching it to the a text and sending it. The female figure had turned back around and he gnawed on his lips as he briefly met eyes with her. They were glossier than one would be used to, the whites would glitter, something in the plastic, or enamel or...
She was the most delicate girl in town. But looks could be deceptive. Ruth knew he was somewhere in the house. Unfamiliar surroundings would make it difficult for easy location of prey, but that wouldn't delay the inevitable. She was as confident as she could be that no help would come. The old place was too isolated; one of its charms. Ironically, it was what had attracted her to the place. The appeal of sole occupation. Nothing to disturb her work.
Fortunately, she'd made it to the Kitchen and its drawers of sharp, clean, very clean knives. Ms. (note the...
There's nothing like being in a parade to let people abandon their sense of self and do things that make them appear foolish to outsiders.
You may have seen this as a child and thought nothing of it. You may not have even noticed the people, marching lockstep, standing on top of highly embellished vehicles, or pulling desperately to prevent enormous cartoon characters from flying away. You may have just been taken in by the symmetry, music, and good cheer of it all.
Now, as an adult, there you are, dancing like a fool in full view of the entire...
I clutched onto the flowers. Today was the day. I am only 19 but I am getting married right now. My father was a rich businessman and my mother died when I was very young. My father than re-married and she married a beautiful Parisian woman. You may think she is a beauty but she is a pain in the arse. She treats me like rubbish. "Go fetch me my earrings," she would call out. But one year later after marrying my father she died suddenly.
My father couldn't bear this again, so he sent me to an orphanage. I...
It never speaks,
it barely breathes,
it never fades away,
It sucks you up, then spits you out,
leaving you behind.
It tugs at your heart,
then casts it out like trash.
it walks and talks with others,
but ignores you completely.
It cast it's line,
and pulled you in,
then threw you to the sharks,
you spun in it's orbit,
only to fly out and land on your face.
it left you for things,
pieces of paper and plastic.
it orbited your world once,
the left to spin through another.
that is the behavior of the void.
Once in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. She was hoping to catch a cool breeze as well as a paying customer as the slinky dress billowed behind her. Cigarettes were sexy again, and with lung disease the least of her worries, she inhaled with abandon. Another night, another John...
But tonight was different, because as she bent to tap the ashes from her cigarette, she saw a green cloth protruding from behind the fake potted plant near the doorway. Curiousity getting the better of her, she pulled aside the leaves to find the...
The daring were punished. They were punished with exactly what they wanted, and found out the paucity of their imagination and desires.
It was near midsummer when the djinn arrived in Baghdad. He promised to each person, exactly what they wanted, the one thing. There were no rules, no catches. This was no monkey paw to wish upon, but a djinn in all his smoking glory, blue fire leaping from his eyes and his ears, red lightning visible from his mouth when he spoke, and a long rumbling thunder when he laughed at those that came to make their wishes....
When the father arrived home to his squalid, Lower East Side tenement building, he was exhausted. He paused at the door to pose for a Jacob Riis photo, and then trudged though the entryway. The grit of coal from the furnace in the oil refinery still covered his face. This, despite the fact that we worked on the docks hauling fish. His apartment was in the rear of the building: a cramped, filthy space overlooking a pile of rubbish that the realtor had described as a “quaint fixer-upper with a partial city view.” He approached the door, removed a rat...