"One scoop chocolate, one scoop..."
"Let me guess, vanilla." the man behind the counter grinned at me.
Was I really so predictable? I felt the colour rise to my cheeks.
"Erm..."
"I was right. I remember." he threw his head back and laughed.
"Actually..."
"2.53 every afternoon. One scoop chocolate and one scoop vanilla. Like clockwork."
He was starting to annoy me now.
"Actually, I was going to ask..."
I stopped. I was going to ask for vanilla. Truth is I only like vanilla and chocolate ice cream. Always have. But now I had started something. Alex was right, I...
"The sheep were at pasture," Daniel typed into his screen. Monica slinked up behind him, read the screen and mocked, "Wow Dan, that sounds like the beginning to a dirty joke, not a children's story."
"Thanks for the encouragement. Hey, I thought you were on your way to get your nails done?"
"I'm getting ready to go, I got stopped by a phone call from your mother."
"What did she want?"
"Nothing really. She just wanted to know if she could throw a surprise party for her little baby boy's thirtieth."
"Shit. I told you I don't want any of...
It approached. The deadline was upon him. There was no more time, no more stalling, no more pleading and simply no more giving. It was time, a harsh fate was to be met. Failure on all accounts, many unsuccessful attempts, it was not good enough. Their eyes met, tears sprang to hers and determination hardened his jaw. There was no way out, this was it. They would not see him cry. They would not see him ground down. He raised his hand and placed it on the window that separated them. She did the same. They had each said all...
She rolled onto her side, the duvet rustling, pulled back to reveal a slender leg, almost too slender for a young woman of 24. Her eyes opened slowly. The expression on her blank, disinterested face was a striking contrast to the expectant face of the girl kneeling next to the bed. The little girl clasped the woman's hand in both of hers and shook. Pulling away, the young woman disappeared back under the covers.
"Mommy! Mommy, wake up today, okay?" Pleas were answered with silence. There would be no waking up that day.
Capriciously, I repudiated the sky and all its lighting and thunder, snow and rain, and changing colors.
The paradigm wasn't there. Or was it?
Well, if it wasn't and if it were grounded by gravity, then so many Big Things are just frivolous.
Like love.
And losing a lover.
And even being born here, gasping for breath at first, and fighting through a mob just to climb some ranks and "make it." And those were the Big Things, too.
The paradigm here can't hold such Big Things if it was made to only hold such small, ambiguous entities like eating,...
Shannon sat up, her eyes wide open. She wasn't sure if she was awake or asleep. She looked around the room (dirty socks, cat puke in one corner, empty Miller cans, a laundry basket filled with clean clothes) and wished it was all unfamiliar. She looked at the man next to her. His back was smooth and tanned. A tiny mole winked at her from his left shoulder blade. She wished he was a stranger.
Shannon lay back down. The pillow was damp with sweat, her sweat. Had she been dreaming or coming out of a fever?
"Where are you...
Fourteen fish
bunched
like a silver
artichoke
They are traveling
farther
than their fathers
who never
left the river
Their futures
are
in lemons
and
bread crumbs
"Because the game is all that matters, Father."
"I like to think it is my company that matters, my child."
A fire could be seen blazing in her eyes. He knew not to call her that. He knew better.
"I am not your child."
"All of you are, Lucifer, but your pride always stopped you from seeing that."
"My pride? It was my pride?"
The old man shook his head in affirmation.
"Father, your pride is what caste us from this place. You wanted to make room for these beings. So they could do what? Slaughter each other? Care only...
Wait ... for a green-clad man. He will come to you either at dusk or at dawn if you stand by this gate. When he comes, you must say to him, "I see, they have dammed the brook below Piper's copse." He will stop and fill his pipe and make small talk with you about this and that. Speak freely and let him know of your grief. Tell him how your crops have failed these last three years for want of rain or too much of it and how sick your children are. He will listen to you quietly and...
Gradually. That's what the doctor tells me. Gradually I will get worse. My liver will gradually fail; my arthritis will gradually turn my hands crooked.
So gradually, you mean, I'm dying? Isn't that bullshit? Could there be something worse for me to hear? So gradually since the age of 13, I've been killing myself. That first drink, to the last, I "gradually" ruined my insides? All because my parents failed to tell me what drinking really does to you? So it's my fault that during summers, parties, college, and beyond, that I "enjoyed" my life while ruining it at the...