He was dancing the enchanting dance of resurrection: Resurrection of his father.
His noble father that had told him everything: how to hunt, how to dress, how to speak, how to love. He was waving his arms frantically above his head as had been told when stranded. Stranded with no food, no shelter, no companion.
He pointed towards the only thing familiar to him: a round weathered ball with the threads worn out and its surface dull. He looked pleased as he glanced towards its vicinity - almost relieved even - as if it was the only thing tying him...
Absent.
He sat right at the front, but would never once look up at the board all while knowing full well the snippy teacher would think him rude. He would only doodle inside his beat-up notebook he'd kept since seventh grade, and I would never know what exactly it was he was so intent on drawing.
It's a project, he would say.
He is not here today. He and I do not interact much, but I know he is beautiful. He is beautiful and I have loved him since I laid eyes on him. I have loved him and loved...
She didn't look at him as she gingerly opened the sketchbook he had laid in front of her. Carefully schooling her face into it's most neutral expression, just in case she didn't like what she saw.
She needn't have worried.
For as she opened the book and began to gaze over the imagery, the concepts, the scribbled annotations that sounded like he had been talking to himself as he wrote them, she became lost in the world he was describing.
She could feel him tense next to her. She understood that, by being shown his work it was like she...
As I sat on the edge of the meadow, I wondered if I'd been wasting my life. Yeah, I know, everybody thinks that. But not a day goes by when I don't leave projects undone, conversations unhad, stories untold.
And even now, there's so much I could do, but instead I stare at the horizon. I imagine butterflies, and wonder what simple lives they must have. No-- not simple, meaningless. Though I suppose the two are one and the same. After all, it's easy to get through a day when there's nothing you want to accomplish.
I lament the wasted...
"I'm falling in love with her."
"Oh, that's nice, that really is." She watched him sit up, get up, finding his clothes. "I'm glad."
"That means that this stops."
She frowned. "What? Why?"
He turned to stare at her. "Why? Because this is cheating as it is, let alone -"
"This is just physical. Let her have the emotional and let me have the physical." She got out of bed, sauntering towards him, smirking when he turned away. "There's no reason to stop."
"I really feel something for her. I don't want to hurt her."
"You aren't hurting her. She'll...
"Wait, so he hit you?"
We had been over the story several times by now, as Carl sat down bringing a fresh round of amber colored liquid in pint glasses.
I ignored his question as I tried to figure out if this was another IPA or something different.
"Yes," I said, snapping back to reality.
"Damn dude, that fucking sucks," Carl said taking a sip of his beer.
I shook my head in agreement. Took a sip. It was the IPA. Damn that is a good beer.
"Yeah, he just snapped after I told him he was being an asshole...
Being punched in the face for the first time is always a shock. Even with the gloves, it still hurts, and that mouth guard, well, sometimes it does mor harm than good.
I staggered against the rails and spit into the bucket, feeling around with my tongue. Are my teeth in tact? Yes.
"You out, Sam?" Called the ref.
"No!" I yell, adjusting my bandana and flying towards my opponent again. For a little thing, she is surprisingly strong and fast. She lands an uppercut and swift solar plexus blow that leaves me winded before plowing me over.
She pulls...
"Do you like the cats, young one?"
Lilibit pressed her white, lacey gloved hand over her throat, "Yes, my Lord," she breathed. "I've always wanted to see them, since my childhood!"
Sajin laughed, the bells at the bottom of his robes jingled, "You are a child yet, Little One."
Lilibit scowled, "I am a young woman. At the very least. I am not a child."
"Do you feel such?" Sajin asked, squinting, his dark skin shining from cheek to forehead in the way everyone did in this humid, emerald land. Lilibit for her part, felt sweat from head to toe...
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...
Drip. Drip. Drip. The blood plopped to the concrete floor like a leaky faucet. He contemplated about the throbbing pain he felt with every plop.
He enjoyed that feeling. Concentrating so much on one pain over and over again. The first time he asked his boyfriend to blindfold him and punch in him the face - his boyfriend thought he was being dirty.
"You like it rough..." he had coyly responded.
The problem was it stopped being about the pleasure and more about the pain. He wanted to feel the warm liquid glop from his mouth and puddle to his...