"Light. I feel light"
"I should think so, you lost about half of you."
I struggled to open my eyes, afraid to see what had happened. The last thing I remembered before the darkness was the light, the bright light that had surrounded and suffused me, that had seemed to consume me. A hand waved in front of my face, and at first I was certain it wasn't mine, couldn't be mine. I had never been that skeletal, I had always been a rather large man.
"Easy there, you just did something stupid or amazing, and you're rather week. We...
She was a goddess.
Her sacrifices were mostly time; her father was procrastination, and through him most of her sacrifices were received. Her temple was the internet, the pub, every conversation which began "I read somewhere - ", or "I saw the other day - ", or "Am I right in thinking - "
Quizzes were her festivals. Celebrations of (arguably) useless knowledge. The glory of simply knowing something, with no comprehension of whether it was to be useful or not, the pleasure based in facts.
She was worshipped frequently, albeit unbeknownst to most.
You can count me out. In teaspoons if you wish, but it might take a while. I prefer metric, none of that standard or imperial nonsense, it's just not scientific.
You can count me out, I'm certainly in the process of it. Measuring it all, repurposing the materials to a better purpose. 3.7 litres of potable water, the rest bound up in organs or areas that I have not processed yet. 2.5 grams of iron, perhaps that will go to the electromagnet I am constructing, perhaps to the dynamo. But what am I saying? It will have to go to...
There's somebody standing in the corner of my room.
I think they're me.
I mean, she - think it's a she, the lines are fuzzy - looks like me. A bit, anyway. She looks how I could be. Maybe how I should be. But she keeps flickering and altering - maybe she's just a potential me.
Or maybe she's all the potential mes.
I step closer to her - I can't tell, not really, that expression keeps shifting, but she seems to be happy about it, I think there's a smile (more smiles than frowns, anyway).
I open my mouth...
She cradled the faun's head. She listened to its soft breath, listened to its complaint, listened its petition. But what could she do? What judgment could she give that would hold in the face of her ever-shrinking kingdom. Every year she shrunk, every year there were more men, and every year there was less.
At night under the moon she called her sisters, who had all once been close, close enough to be one, but now far and spread. They came if they could, sent emissaries if they could not. They talked until the edge of the sun, bloated and...
I was nothing like his mother. Didn't look like her, act like her yet he told his friends we had to split up because I was like her. WTF. He told me that he no longer fancied me so why say I was like his mom.
I'd known him for over a year, we'd split up and got back countless times. I imagined that this time it would be like the others. He split up then pretended it was the drink. Although this time I decided I wasn't going to accept his apologies any more. This was final.
Jim called...
“Pob lwc.” the elder of Saint Joseph’s had wished me, after his strange warning. I presumed he meant for my first Mass to be held, as traditional, at Midnight on Christmas Eve. It went well, the service, with a fuller than expected attendance, to see the ‘new man’, I presumed.
Later, sat still in just the candle light, I sighed, thinking I’d found a final home. It was then that the Bwgan Fawr sighed too. A man of middling years, he seemed, from one of the middling centuries, but as translucent as chip paper fat.
He pointed at the great...
The conversation lasted two words: REDACTED REDACTED
[Security clearance confirmed]
KKTnI Event 21/12 Exec Summ
Months of supervision of the three alien ambassadors and chaperoning the three chosen human representatives of the UN Science contingent had led to this final one ended discussion. Tom Savage, DoO, predicts we will never meet others from the mothership.
Something that Amy WITHHELD (the NASA astronaut in training, there to the relief of the US) Darren WITHHELD (Irish poet who'd not cut his hair for 30+ years) or WITHHELD Xing (Japanese ex-military) had said, done or shown the three inseparable E.T.s had resulted in...
I looked at my fellows roommates and had to suppress a giggle. I know costumes are supposed to be in jest, but we had really gone over the top. Plumage of chicken wire and silly string. Stilts and dinosaur arms.
Yes, it was that time of year again: Beer Mile.
We collected on the campus quad, shivering in the snow, awaiting the stroke of midnight. Ding Ding Ding...The drunken co-eds began their semi-annual drunken naked/costumed romp in celebration of the end of homework.
What else could be the source of such merriment?
As I rounded the corner of the field,...
what to do in the gutter
with your mind all aflutter
one could tie their shoe
or sniff glue
you could clip your nails
or make trails
i could learn to flip it
or just do a whippit
he could switch his socks
or sleep with a fox
she could play with pip
or learn to nip
they could read a book
or just get hooked
whatever it is they you or i decide to do
be quick
there are only so many minutes
to