Without realizing it, he had grown to hate everything that he once so desperately missed. The home he thought he was at long last returning to proved to be nothing more than a rude awakening to the fact that this was no longer where he belonged.
Category: Competition
Competition
Patience
“I feel like I’ve been looking for something that’s been missing in my life, but how am I supposed to find it when I don’t even know what it is?” Danny asked.
“I’m right here!” Bianca shouted in her mind and imagined pulling him close for a kiss, but she bit her tongue so hard it hurt and simply said, “I’m sure you’ll find it – whatever it is – when it’s meant to be.”
Recalling simpler times
“What happened to the good old days when you didn’t have to worry about reserving a spot in an underground vault to protect you from global super-tsunamis, zombie outbreaks and total nuclear fallout?”
“You mean the days when people pooped in a pot and flung it out the back window and then died in massive numbers from fecal diseases?”
My biggest problem, you
I must eliminate everything that is wrong with me. Please bid your final farewells and prepare to taste death.
What happened, my son
I took little satisfaction in watching the convicted murderer trail behind the guards as they led him away in handcuffs after being charged guilty and sentenced to life in prison, as there was nothing that could comfort the tragedy of my husband’s death, and there was nothing that could take away that painful familiarity in the monster’s eyes. I remember when he first blinked open those shiny little marble eyes to me and the world and my husband had looked at him real proud the way fathers do when they first realize their baby’s potential – a quarterback for the Eagles, a wealthy doctor or lawyer, the President; the possibilities were infinitely immense! – but alas, what had happened to this baby I had cradled in my arms thirty-five long years ago?
Invisible Chains
For years I dreamt desperately, passionately of escape. Had it always been as simple as just walking out the front door?
A Formal Affair
Okay so you’re married and I’m engaged, great. Now that we’ve got that straight – would you care to accompany me to my hotel room?
A little victory
“My mother wants to go see Tom Jones and throw her panties at him.”
“Why, so he can go sailing?”
The Truth
There’s nothing I want more than to tell you the truth.
There’s nothing I want less than for you to know the truth.
Hypothesis Denied
“You know, I was bothered by you at first, but then I thought to myself gee, if someone claims to hate me that much, well, then it must just be they’re intimidated by me, so is that it – are you intimidated by me?”
“No, trust me – honest to God, I just genuinely hate you.”
Math Problems, Life Problems
I loved math back when each problem had only one solution. After that it started to remind me of my life.
A Quiet World
For the very first time I was able to hear the subtle sound of the butterfly’s tiny feet thud softly against the paper-thin petal as it landed weightlessly on the petunia. The world was so quiet now that everyone was dead.
Internet Connection
“Do you ever wonder if Mr. Right is out there somewhere in the world, looking up at the same star that you’re looking at and at the very same time?” Rachel sighed as she gazed longingly out the window.
“Nah,” Jackie shrugged and double-clicked on a link, “but I guess maybe my Mr. Right is looking at the very same webpage as I am right now.”
Shake ‘n’ Wake
The whole bed beneath me jerked violently back and forth, five feet maybe ten each time, the mattress bouncing and shaking more and more with each thrust, the dimly-lit walls wiggling as if they were made of rubber, and after I had flung myself onto my feet and into a pair of pants and ran desperately to the front door, I was surprised to find when I stepped into the brightness of a freshly-ignited dawn that life seemed to be continuing on as usual, the most dedicated (and presumably high-paid) of the infamous Japanese businessmen already whizzing by in their cars at what must have been four thirty or five in the morning.
Despite the evident lack of damage, and although the five floors of apartments above hadn’t fallen in on me and my own ground-floor living quarters like I had so genuinely expected, I decided right then and there that I did not like earthquakes, and that maybe it was time to get the hell out of Japan.
Gone
There’s little sense in trying to ration with a barking Yorkie. No way to explain to her that this time, the man she’s grown accustomed to looking out for every evening at a quarter past six isn’t coming back.
For Grampa, for Bubbles
“Sweetie, what on EARTH are you doing?” Claire asked, beyond surprised to see Chelsea, her pig-tailed, freckle-cheeked, pink-shorts-wearing four year-old daughter, hopping repeatedly on one foot for balance while jamming the other down the toilet, two dandelions grasped in one hand while the other worked the flushing lever.
“Well we bringed flowers to Grampa in the hospital yesterday, so now I’m gonna bring flowers to Bubbles,” Chelsea answered matter-of-factly, of course referring to her comrade who had, several weeks ago after a violent incident involving one of his (larger and more aggressive) bowl-mates, been sent via toilet flush to the fishy hospital.
Human Flesh
“How did you know you could marry him?”
“During breakfast I told him I didn’t like to eat bacon because the striped fatty bits reminded me too much of human flesh, and he laughed.”
A Bath for Bill
In retrospect, I’d say that travelling was quite similar to using a new bath salt: exciting at first because it’s new and different but then you’ve been in too long and your fingers start to prune and get all nasty just like they do for any other bath you’ve ever taken – but I have to admit, Bill’s excitement to see Barcelona and Santorini, Cairo and Istanbul, Tokyo and Singapore, Auckland and Ushuaia and all those other places I’ve already been to not once but thrice, seems to have reignited an excitement in me that I rendered long gone. Although I desperately long to settle down and stay right where I am for once in my life, Bill gave me the gift of feeling young again – that wondrous excitement of youth – so I suppose the least I can do for my husband is pour in the salt and take a bath with him.
Will of a God
After you quit smoking, lost forty pounds through rigorous dieting and exercise, eradicated your debt, and even taught yourself to play the piano, it became very clear that you possess the will of a God.
But I’m sorry – you can’t will me to love you.
Night be my Eyes
She said unto the star-barren new-moon sky: “Night – be my eyes, so that I may see beyond the limits of that which sunlight reveals.” She screamed and hissed and writhed in the searing pain of the acid she splashed into her own eyes, but she welcomed the eternal honesty of an infinite darkness.