The air was thick and close, and the restless wind tossing the treetops did little to relieve it. The earth rumbled with the reverberations of a distant summer blitzkrieg, and every so often a quicksilver vein of fire would race from the darkened clouds to strike the horizon. She leaned out the open window,…
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intermezzo | scene, somewhere
rain and wind, lightning and thunder, snow and ice, dawn, dusk and moonlight — days dance by and become years before i realize they are gone. small whisper-green leaves drink sunlight greedily and strengthen into a roaring chorus in the treetops, only to weaken, drooping in a final defiant blaze of color before they drop,…
Read Moreshort story
he took the path of least resistance; she took the path of most amusement. consequently, they never met.
Read Morefragment | v
“hello, trouble.” “we’re using nicknames now? very well. hello, goner.” “why goner?” “why trouble?” “i asked first.” “fine. because you are.” “in what way?” “oh, come on. don’t tell me you’re going to play oblivious now.” “i’m not playing anything. i’m not even pretending to know what you’re talking about. i just asked you a…
Read Morefragment | iv
“you know, you don’t have to keep doing this.” “doing what?” “explaining.” “explaining?” “explaining situations. reassuring people. what do you think they’ll think?” “who said i thought they think anything?” “you did.” “no i didn’t. when?” “only for the past twenty minutes.” “what?” “every time it even remotely could come up as a question you…
Read Morefragment | iii
“… it was one of those moments when your heart gives a wrench and you suddenly feel like you can’t breathe, and all you can manage to say is … ‘oh.’” “and?” “and … what?” “and what is the point?” “what do you mean, ‘what is the point’?” “what sort of reaction were you hoping…
Read Morefractured fairy tale
she had the sort of disposition rumored to turn princes into frogs, and a face to match. soured, they called her, or shrunken — like a rosebud caught in the cold and frost-burned before it had a chance to bloom. unlovely was she, and unloving. grasping, shunning, temperamental, self-absorbed — the complete antithesis of what a…
Read Morefragment | ii
“you know, i would never have taken you for the hard-boiled type.” “no one asked you to take me as anything.” “mm. can’t break eggs without ruffling a few feathers, i guess.” “what kind of a mixed metaphor is that?” “was it? i’d like to mix you a metaphor sometime. do you prefer yours shaken…
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“i am going to beat you with my slipper,” she said, and she meant it. yet all he did was laugh. he had seen her slippers, after all.
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whimsy in the afternoon
once upon a time there was a family called whimsy. they were a most irregular bunch, being possessed of a certain delightful unpredictability which generous souls chalked up to harmless mischief, but which more suspicious minds regarded as the first signs of dangerous insanity. there were four of them: roberta, the eldest child, of a…
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