Sam pulled the tuque tighter around his ears and hunched into the wind. Spring, hah! With no snow to melt, there was no way to tell the difference between today's nasty wind and yesterday's blistering sun.
He banged his way into Tim's and leaned a little too close to the muscle mass in front of him, seeking warmth, if not comraderie. The dude turned, looked down into Sam's wrinkles and coughed. Once. With phlegm.
Sam stood firm and bumped into the plaid workjacket when the line shuffled forward.
When he heard the words, "Large double double...and a Boston Cream for...
She had read somewhere that there were lands beneath the seas, that it was where wishes hid themselves ("Fishes, you mean fishes."), that is was where dreams lived, that it was where pearls of happiness lived.
Pearls were the perfect metaphor; beauty and perfection, born of irritation. Born of an age of suffering.
They had stopped believing in mythical lands that lived beneath the waves, and so she stopped talking about them - there was a look in their eyes that she remembered, the same look her mother had been given.
Mother had tried to take her to the land...
Of course, Heather was twisted. Everybody knew this except Gene, so of course he was the only one who ever professed his love to her. Except Heather wanted to leave him for just this reason; who would act unabashedly and intentionally weird if she did not want to be loved for it? Heather, certainly, wanted to be loved for who she was.
The two of them were watching TV. Good-natured, his loopy grin a chipper wave at the world, Gene turned to Heather and said, "Darling, I will make you a sandwich! Stay put, don't move a finger." She looked...
I never liked autumn leaves as you do. I watched you look at trees, the delight on your face intensified when you closed your eyes and hugged the trunk. You once asked if I had a red ribbon for the pine cone you plucked, it would complete the winter bliss of the photograph you wanted to take. My purse always had what you needed, from floss to batteries, and candies to pain pills, and a red ribbon was procured.
Spring had you enjoying cherry blossoms. Summer had you enjoying shade. Autumn had you enjoying the gold and copper, the natural...
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...
“We were thrown overboard, casted onto the waters left to our demise! They captured us, tortured our very souls mercilessly with wicked demands! ”
“No, I saw you guys, you had parachutes, and falling in the water were totally your own fault.”
“But we were held hostage, left in a God-forsaken tower all tied up with (mostly) nothing to eat or drink! Only when rays of the forgotten sun poked through the crevices of the sturdy wooden door, were we forcefully fed with the remains of frogs and sour wine!”
“Oh, you mean the balcony? Isn’t access to the torch...
"I'm a monster," said my son, dangling my old Nikon camera behind his back.
"I can see that," I said. "What's your special monster power?"
"Scary faces!" he said. "I can make a scary face that makes you make a scaredy face!"
I instantly put on a poker face. "I'd like to see you try."
He puckered his face for a few seconds, then went, "Graaahh," and screwed up his eyes and stuck out his tongue.
"Eeeeeeee!!" I cried, opening my eyes and mouth as wide as I could.
As smoothly as a three-year-old can, he pulled out the camera...
"Travel light, but take everything with you."
That was all the hastily scribbled note said. Now here I was, driving down the back roads of southeast Georgia, my eyes constantly darting to the rearview mirror, knowing someone - anyone - could be trailing me. What the hell had Erick gotten us into now? I wondered as I drove quickly, dust kicked up behind me as I sped toward the cabin. It was our agreed-upon meeting place in case trouble showed up.
My hands gripped the wheel tighter. Dammit! I swore to myself. I was happy, going to be married in...
"So anyway that was what he said yesterday and she wouldn't agree with anything he was...."
The sound drifted away as he continued to stare straight across the carriage. It was the same every morning, she would complain about everything that happened the day before, all the way in on the train, and then again that evening, all the way home.
He, well, he would do the same as always every morning, stare straight ahead at the woman directly across from him. She was beautiful. Here light browne hair rested neatly on her shoulders as she read what seemed to...
May crept silently - or as silently as the fallen leaves and cracking twigs would allow – towards the old house. It was one of those places that every kid knows; full of mystery and the promise of ghosts, ghouls, dead bodies, mad old ladies in wedding dresses, or maybe just nothing, all of which was exciting in its own frenzied way.
May would not normally be any where near the house in usual circumstances, but truth or dare at a sleepover was a serious business and since, at eleven, the truths were all about boys and love and kissing,...