My mother loved colour. She spent the last weeks of her life in a hospital bed, with its monotone greys and whites. People gave her all kinds of gifts and cards. But her favourite one was a bright purple robe with pink stitching.
That gift was from me. Truth is, I'm more of a tactile person. Yet I knew this was what she craved most--her two favourite colours in the world.
At her funeral, we released balloons in pink and purple. Or, rather, everyone else did. I held onto mine. I wasn't ready to let her go yet.
Today, though,...
Peasants. That's what I thought when I looked out the window. Nothing but peasants on the street below. Uneducated people. I watched as one of them gave birth. Immediately, she put her baby in a tree. There was a bees' nest there and the bees stung the baby. Even from up here I could hear the baby scream. The baby fell out of the tree. I think it broke a leg because it didn't move after that. The baby just cried and screamed and ate fig newtons. It bled too. A lot.
Slowly, I ate my Almond Joy bar.
Gweedo,...
I was reading a great book when the words turned to sand. A hole opened up on the page and the words drained through, and I, engrossed in the plot, followed them.
When I awoke everything was different. But just slightly so. My alarm clock's red letters were blue. My green-striped sheets were now blue striped. The knobs on my dresser had turned from square to oval. My fat tabby cat was a calico.
The stuff was all there, it was just the details were mixed up. It was like a sketch artist had recreated my room based on a...
She heard it calling out to her. Her clearing in Yellowstone -- it was whispering that it longed for her presence. And on this day, when she felt like the world was collapsing around her -- its edges bent and frayed and its fringes burning up in smoke -- she dragged herself there up winding paths and wild trees.
While most people saw Yellowstone as a national park, she saw it as her backyard, her sanctuary, her refuge. She had a clearing there, all her own, that bears in the hundreds of years they'd been there hadn't even found. But...
She could tell I was faking it. My smile felt wrong, though no one else knew. She knew. A glance at the priest standing before us revealed that he was none the wiser to my feelings. But she could tell, I know she could. She stood there, hands grasping mine, tears shining in her eyes, a wide grin stretched across her face. Was she faking it, too? I was panicked this morning, knowing that I was to be married in a few hours. Maybe she felt the same. My calm facade got me through the waiting, but I was nervous...
In 1921, he flew from the Great Rift Valley. That was the foundation of his reputation. Whispered, announced, stated, introduced, it always provided a collective puckering of lips, a breathing of "oohs" and then sips of champagne as fingers were taken into hand, and warm, hearty pats on the back offered. What a way to enter a party, what a ticket into every party!
He never tired of these parties, the compliments on his swarthy, sun embraced flesh, and the women who plucked at his sleeves and asked what it was like up there, racing against clouds. A man could...
then it picked up, it picked up like the coming of an ocean born storm. Not a movement in the air; a few dark clouds separate. Aeros licks your face, sending a chill down your spine right to your sacrum, right down into the earth: grounded. Crystalized. Everything becomes clear yet remains fractal. You sat down next to me. Your thick accent warming me up on this cold afternoon. But your not present, your a another world away, its probably the middle of the night. Maybe your enjoying a midnight snack.. maybe your thinking of me too. And maybe the...
Her joints screamed as the winter chill ran through her veins and iced her skin. It was so cold out and this blizzard was never-ending.
Julia huddled around the oven pumping heat into the 500 square-foot apartment, something her mother said to never do but it's not like the heat worked.
"Why the hell did I go out there?" Julia said aloud to the appliances.
She threw Ryan out for a reason but months of anticipation made the actual act much harder. She wasn't even sure if it was going to be today, but in the end it was. He...
In these parts, they could not afford trains. Instead, they strapped the Jews and leftists and gypsies and cripples and social undesirables onto sleds on the back of a Volkswagen and hauled them to the camp, which was really a slapdash cardboard affair. The guards were lazy and disinterested. They really didn't see a point in the whole thing, but they did their jobs nevertheless, smoking cigarettes with the more gregarious prisoners. They resented the prisoners and beat them - After all, they thought, why should I have to waste my life standing around guarding these people that the Reich...
"Now, tell me again," said the attractive blond in the black-rimmed glasses, "why do you think you're a super villain?"
Her patient sighed. He was draped across her leather couch, one hand hanging limp over its side, grazing the lush carpet as though it was soft grass.
The therapist chewed on her pencil and waited.
"How many times do I have to tell you?" he said. "I'm a scientist. I come from a long line of super villainy, and it's up to me to keep up the family reputation." He turned on his side to gaze at her. "Have I...