My feet ached, but it was well worth it. I mean, how many times in your life do you have the opportunity to attend a championship? Sure, I had to park about three miles from the stadium. Sure, I somehow missed that city bus that was barreling directly toward me until it was too late. Sure, once the bus rolled over my feet, I experienced agony beyond anything I could have ever comprehended to that point. But we're talking CHAMPIONSHIP, man!
I had to drag myself the remaining half of a mile, crawl to the turnstile, beg to be admitted...
Marvin's head jerked up from the desk when he heard that ring. It was an awful ring - one that he should have been used to, and probably would have been, under normal circumstances. But the reason why this ring was so horrendous and annoying was because Melinda accompanied it, with her terrible voice, saying "Marvin! Pick up the damn phone!"
Marvin wanted to go back to sleep, but he knew that he shouldn't have been sleeping in the first place. And that voice, "Marvin, Pick up the damn phone!"
The trouble, of course, was that the phone had been...
Cafes were a good enough way to pass the time. Human drama unfolding outside the window, watching everybody pass by, living out their lives, lost in themselves, acting as though they were unobserved. They gave away clues, hints, promises - she could learn enough about them to become them in the time it took her coffee to cool.
Or perhaps she created them, watching them pass by - that man there, he was meeting his lover, the new young man in his office. His brother (he lived with his brother, and a dog) didn't know, and he was terrified that...
It was the fall that surprised me most.
I had never intended to move to the Northeast. Strange set of circumstances. Long story. Really long. Maybe not too long to relate, but longer than I'd like it to have. I just sort of ended up there.
Anyway, I got there in early December. I thought, having come from California, that that was "winter".
That's not winter.
Winter is bleak. Winter is white death. Winter is hell -- not just for Chekhov, mind you. For Vermont, too.
The first week I was there, I was talking about how poorly-equipped Southern California...
The waves were bigger than she'd ever seen before. They were not waves tonight. They were destructive bombs, pulverizing everything in sight.
The ship groaned and twisted. Her efforts and those of the crew around here proved futile.
She gasped as a larger wave loomed in front of her. She braced for impact as the icy cold water plunged her into nothingness.
Deeper and deeper she went, her lungs gasping for air. She held fast the rope around her waist.
Then nothing.
She opened her eyes to a bright light. So bright. Where was she? Shielding her eyes she saw...
It was the fall that surprised me most.
Helping is the one thing I always thought I was best at. Hearing thank you is one of the things I'd actually pay money for; in fact I do, because I never click that box on my tax forms that would get me paid back for donations. Although, come to think of it, I could have clicked that box and then used to money paid back to donate somewhere else. I'll have to look into that, if I ever have money again.
It started with a smile. I'm a sucker for a...
I looked through my photo album, my fingers flipping the pages quickly, as I looked for that one photo.
There it was, towards the back.
I stopped and smiled.
I could still hear my voice demanding to have this photograph taken.
A woman stood to my right. Her smile shining with pride as her hand held mine. She had always been there for me. Almost as far back as I could remember now. I often thought of her as the source of my conscience because she always seemed to give advice that pointed to the moral north, but at the...
When the butterflies are high in the afternoon sky is the best time to sit by the lake. I am lucky to have the view I do, not many people can just waltz out their back door and be in the wonderland that is nature. I can.
I take my walkman (don't judge me) with me whenever I go down to the lake. I like to think about the day and all the wonders tomorrow will bring. It's not so lonely just being me and my walkman because a few butterflies always join me. Their gilded wings brush the water's...
Gradually.
That was the secret, wasn't it? Build up their trust or indifference, either one would do, like in that fable about the mouse and the lion. First it was hello over the mail as they each made their way back to their separate apartments, next? Why, after months of chit chat, it was coffee shared in the buildings laundrymat. More chance meetings, more talk about incidentals, info on her fake bio. There was no need for him to learn of her unpleasant past. He would only get the wrong idea.
It wasn't really lying, not when she was honest...
I think it's number nine. Eight maybe. All I know is my face is slightly tingled.
"Another," she asks as she walks past me.
I give an affirming nod. She has to know I am nearing my limit, but I have learned to play this off well.
"You had the Green Line, right?"
I nod again.
The Cubs are on, and they are losing. Nothing new there.
A couple sits in the corner talking about important couple things.
Two friends sit the right of me, discussing how much their lives and the Cubs suck.
The glass ends up in front...