Norman was a doctor. He was a doctor because he was good at fixing things, and at some point in his life he determined that the most important things that needed fixing were human beings. So he became a doctor.
He looked rather doctor-ish, in his trenchcoat, his traveling case of medical supplies and his pattern baldness. He was friendly, having the bedside manner that everyone expected of a good doctor.
The day that the sun became sick, people all over the world panicked. Some rioted, looted, killed one another, for in a world that was nearing its end, one...
There was blood on my pillow and when I woke up the right side of my mouth was swollen and swore. I rushed to the bathroom and rinsed the dried blood from my mouth. It came out in thick clumps at first, and then ran quickly as the crimson liquid. I pulled my cheeks wide and saw that three teeth were missing.
I ran back to my room, my jaw aching and throbbing with the intensity of a fire alarm. I lifted the blood stained pillow and saw three dollar bills lying there. They were crumpled and crimped but someone...
I carry you with me.
I carry you with me here.
Right here, in this tender spot
in this hollow space.
I carry you with me.
I carry you on the tip of my tongue
Just on the tip, so that I can
carry you with me here,
in my words, in my sounds
There. That word, that sound -
Said just as you would, just as you have
Because I carry you with me,
I carry you with me here.
Right here, in the downturn of these lips,
In that expression you wore had that carried with it a...
He was a great runner. Clare ambled along at the back, jogging along, lost in a daydream as usual. He steamed ahead, focused on the finishing line. He had lapped her once already; she had felt the wind pick up, the footsteps thumping on the ground, then he'd passed her in a blur. The other girls were right behind him, wanting to be the first ones to be with him when he finished.
There, he'd finished, she saw. The girls were surrounding him, praising him. One even dared to reach out and push back a stray lock of hair. Clare...
I walked along the flat stones that made up the busy road and let the bustling crowds swallow me whole. My heart pounds in my ears. I hear a sharp shout from behind me and instictively dive over the bright green barrier. I press my body into the lush grass and take shallow breaths. The sound of thousands of footsteps set my nerves on edge. For a moment, my mind wanders to the many times my friends and I used to play hide and seek in this garden when we were younger. Children squealing in delight and running in circles....
Daring to be noticed for the first time in her life, she pushed her chair back and stood up.
Mrs. Baer had not picked her for the reading group, but that didn't matter, because it didn't mean she wasn't good enough, it just meant that Mrs. Baer didn't KNOW how well she could read! Mom would say it, loud and clear Emily could hear it in her head, "If you'd just made yourself noticed, Emily, then you would not have been ignored!" This is what Mom always told both of her older sisters when they became too meek.
"You get...
The year was 1986. I was traveling through the American South with a spaniel I had picked up along the way who answered to the name "Kenneth".
My goal was to reach Little Rock, Arkansas in order to see the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library and Museum. Unfortunately, I had committed a great error and had greatly misjudged, as he would not even be elected for another six years.
Whoops.
While the spaniel who responded to the name "Kenneth" almost certainly knew that I was too early, he remained mute. In all the many weeks we spent together, he only...
When he said he'd take me far away, to a world I'd never seen, I had expected more than this.
"You're just seeing the scaffolding."
"What is there that isn't scaffolding? It's...there's nothing else there. It's hollow. It's broken."
He covered my eyes with his hands, pointed me in a direction and hissed "walk" in my ear.
I had presumed this was going to be a date. Clearly I was incorrect.
I could feel the ground beneath my feet alter, and suddenly everything felt different - I was enclosed, and yet not enclosed at all (there was light spilling in,...
Through the veil she was almost as pretty as I'd wished she would have been the first time we met for real, in real life, in person on the street. The love of my life.
I remembered that in certain photographs she had this quality, like an angel or maybe just someone who thought they were one, so strung out they could touch the sky. She wasn't that pretty, no pixie dust queen, just another girl who liked to make faces. But I think I love her.
You hope that, and I hoped that, the love of my life--because that's...
Rudolph ran as fast as his four legs would carry him. He had run out of fairy dust over a remote forest, and unfortunately it was deer season.
The celebrity found it hard to blend in with his shiny nose. In fact, it was damn near impossible. His snoz glowed like a blinking beacon, one the hunting party was only too glad to follow. He heard a voice, not far off, call, “I see him over here, boys!”
Damnation, but they were close!
Rudolph searched the area. Could he pull the ol' mud over the nose trick again? No, who...