He laid back, eyes closed, a smile stretched across his face. Summer never felt so good; the sun beating down made him relaxed, and he felt like he could sprawl out on the grass all day long.
With eyes closed, his mind drifted to summers past, lying on the grass with his dog Buddy after catching a frisbee back and forth. His mind was in another place, somewhere peaceful, simple, romantic even.
A place where the sun rises and sets with beautiful colors, where the grass is plush and Kelly Green. A place where the sailboats against the sunset have...
Gradually. Ever so gradually, he noticed her work routine. She'd come into the shop below the CCTV camera that gave him his vantage point. She'd stop, check her skirt, then turn and wave. Wave straight at him, it seemed.
Once when he spilt his coffee he swore she looked up, about to greet the camera (or him?) and then the smile vanished. As if she had seen what had happened and was sorry for his stained pants.
In trawling through the back footage, looking for a pattern. Something to identify who had planted the device that had wrecked half the...
Mira had been blind for several years, but in a way, she never quite lost her sight. The smell of jalapeños sliced on the kitchen slabs made her taste green and itch with stinging eyes. The jasmine by the porch wrapped her in the white cream of Sunday clouds. The library books were still breathing dust and oil from the days they were salvaged from the great fire.
It was the fire that made Mira blind. It was the fire that Mira started. It was the fire that Mira conjured when she read from the black tome.
"This is your fault," his wife said to him. If you would just put your mother in her place I wouldn't have to and we wouldn't be fighting right now.
He replied loudly, "My fault? How is it my fault she's nosy? She doesn't mean anything by it anyway. You don't have to be such a bitch about every little thing."
"Oh. My. God. Seriously?" She was on a roll now. "It's your fault she's so nosy because you never say anything at all to her when she crosses a line. And once again, I wouldn't have to be such...
The contours of her form were clear under the light shining through my window. She was laying there nude on my couch as I drew her. My eyes, flicking back and forth from the paper to her. My hand, gliding wildly across the paper in motions similar to a snake whipping it's way across a desert. I had asked her to model for me. Not because I have a crush on her. Not because I'm trying to date her. But because her body is so gorgeous. It flows with every move she makes, twisting and bending and flowing. She lays...
They were listening. Annette had no problem reading a report in school to a classroom full of students who were busy catching up on homework, drawing doodles, or discreetly pulling out their cellphones when nobody was looking; but this was different.
This was in front of people who'd come voluntarily. People who /wanted/ to hear what she'd written. People who actually enjoyed talking about math in their free time. Weirdos.
And that's what scared Annette. They were listening. If she'd done poorly, they'd actually care. They had a passion for the subject that she'd hated, despite her natural talent. Why,...
"Wow, that was a fun."
"Yeah, it was."
Water dripped on the floor as they ran through the house and out onto the deck watching the lightning. It scared her at first but then it was like she had never seen anything so beautiful and menacing. Except perhaps her 8th grade Science teacher, Mr. Hanson. He was an odd man, with a thick black unibrow and wrinkles that resembled an old cartographer's first attempt at the East Coast of South America. He had a sinister laugh, not unlike the thunder shaking the ground under her feet.
She remembers thinking he...
Holy crap, this guy is annoying me again. I mean Jesus Christ, what does he want now?
He always bugs me, hits my head and walks right behind me. It seems no matter where I go, he is there waiting.
Then, when I need him, he can't be found. He disappears for what appears to be hours on end, only to take his pants off and then call for me.
What am I? A servant? I don't fetch things like beer. I don't fold clothes.
Fuck man, I'm cat.
I keep the creases in the clothes nice by laying on...
Captive. Surrounded by watr, the woman could not breathe, could not fight, could not even open her eyes. Her waist was bound and her feet were weighted and she was sinking. Soon to be erased.
The man in the boat had asked her one last question before he rolled her out. Now, sinking like a parachuter, she did not think about her little boy at home, or her parents (they would be so sad), or all the things she would leave behind. No. Her last moments, the last grains of sand in her proverbial hourglass, and Mari was thinking about...
.. 2080 ... 2090 ... 2100. 2100 NE Swenson Avenue, that was the address. Harold was certain of it. He could almost feel an unnatural attraction to the simple white door with blue finish that innocently faced the street, surrounded by colorful flower pots.
A hesitant step after another, his heart pounding, he approached it. His thoughts were hundreds of miles away, in his home country, where his family was held hostage. They were watching his every move, listening to his every breath. If he failed, his wife and children would die.
His hand rested on the doorknob. The windows...