She rushed to fill her new home with fine furniture, antiques, and paintings. When the house went into foreclosure, she felt doubly depressed thinking she could have afforded to keep it with simpler furnishings and actually lost it by trying to perfect it.
Repetition
He couldn’t comprehend the fuss over uniqueness in art or the commonly-held belief that what was repetitive was mechanistic, common, and of little value. He considered the fact that eating, drinking, pissing, and bathing were daily occurrences as proof that repetition could also be deeply human and an invaluable necessity for our continued existence.
Resentment
Allison was terrified she might be pregnant when Bridget stepped in with a quick run to CVS for a pregnancy test, with so many hugs while Allison cried, with clothes when Allison’s swelling belly could no longer be contained by her own dresses and pants.
After the baby was delivered, Allison couldn’t stand the sight of Bridget anymore because it reminded her of her weakest moments and her deepest shame.
The Discovery of Heaven
His parents sent him to a religious school where weekly chapel held in a massive gym was mandatory. By accident, one day he discovered the world beneath the bleachers where all the disenfranchised students slept or studied undisturbed during the hour of singing and sermons.
Hippie
When he got back from the war, he refused to cut his hair until his father quit smoking. It was down to his waist when the old man passed away.
Pass-time
She had never really wanted to move out on her own, anyway. That’s how she became addicted to the Food Network.
Vicious Cycle
She avoided arguing because she’d seen so many arguments between her parents. Her mother fought with her father because she had built up decades of resentment after avoiding arguments because she had seen so many of them between her parents.
Either/Or
His grandfather passed only after several agonizing years of cancer, while his father went suddenly in a late-night heart attack. He could never decide which way was better.
Unworthy
The first time she undressed before him, he almost felt guilty. He thought perhaps he should tell her she was too beautiful to be there, because she obviously didn’t know it.
My Dog
Today I put my dog down.
My arms were tired.
Masks
The assassin pulled the mask off of the female target’s dead body, and much to his shock, realized it was his wife and she had been working for the enemy all along. Two hundred yards away, the couple’s only son fixed his sniper’s scope on his mother’s masked murderer and pulled the trigger.
Intruder, Interrupted
Jacob knocked the knife from the burglar’s hand, kicked him in the groin, and pinned him to the stained basement floor with his heavy foot. “Don’t worry, I won’t be calling the police,” Jacob whispered, flicking on the bare light bulb, and revealing the other would-be intruders hanging from meat hooks.
Fortunate Tongue
The young, attractive palm reader took Barton’s hand in her own, sensually licked the length of his life line, and told him he would live a long, fulfilling life. That night, lying next to his wife in bed, he felt guilty for wondering what the crystal ball reader might have done to him.
Curse of the Mirror
The wicked, wart-ful Witch of Winkleton cast a spell on the very vain, very self-conscious Vivian, so that every time young Vivian looked in the mirror she saw the face of a ferocious, fly-infested fox. She’d ask her friends again and again, “Does my face look like a fox?” and they always said no, so that eventually she didn’t ask and she didn’t bother looking in the mirror and so that eventually, she didn’t even worry about what she looked like anymore.
Love
Living and loving differ just by a vowel… and only by that…
A Change of Heart
The day before he had planned to kill himself, Ben completed the ten thousand piece puzzle he had been working on for quite some time, only to find that one tiny, seemingly insignificant piece was missing.
Still, it didn’t look right.
Live Life to the Fullest
I shrugged off the message I found in my fortune cookie after finishing a “pint” of sweet and sour chicken that told me I had only one week left to live. A week and a day later, as I lay sprawled across the couch with remote steadily aimed at TV, I wondered if maybe, just maybe, I should have taken the fortune seriously.
Shopping List
I went to the drugstore last night to get some Vitamin C for my throat, you know, the delicious powdery citrus kind that fizzes up in your glass before you drink it.
When I got back from the store I had the Vitamin C for my throat , some antibacterial bandages for all of the cuts I got when this huge glass shelf thing fell on me, a pair of running shoes for when the vamps in the store chased me (I wore a pair of flips to the store silly silly me), a crossbow I took from this old dude waiting in the pharmacy who was mad packing with guns and lasers and whatnot, a gas mask from when the feds rolled out the garlic gas bombs…and I got the email addy of that cute blonde pharmacist guy who let us all ride out the attack in the back of the pill room…so yeah I had a great night but I’m starting to think that this whole human vampire co-existing this is not working out but maybe I’m wrong.
He had struggled for months, offloading every aspect of his life into the many-tentacled monster, making sure that he had unburdened himself of every last vestige of his individuality.
At last, he had learned to love Facebook.
Tea Time
I was standing next to a frothing crowd with my WWII medals on my chest,looking at an angry guy in a tricorn hat and wondering when patriotism became about demanding a tax cut. It’s about sacrifice, dumbass, I thought to myself, not the other way around.