Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Strongest one there is
"Rarrggghhh!! Hulk is strongest one there is!"
Isaac bounded into the house, thrilled by his costume. Liesl rolled her eyes. She balanced the groceries on her arm to close the screen door, before Cody got out. She was annoyed that he got to go to a halloween party, but relieved for a night alone, no babysitting.
They found Cody lying in the kitchen, a pool of dark vomit drying around his tiny head. Isaac started crying. Liesl knelt down and touched the cold fur. She looked up at the table, saw on top of the comic books the half-eaten chocolate and chewed wrapper. Isaac saw her anger and started yelling, screamed that he didn't do it, and ran upstairs to his room.
Liesl took care of it. She always took care of things. Cleaned up the mess on the floor and the table. She wrapped Cody up into a trash bag, and went outside to bury him. The hole took longer than she thought, it had gotten dark. Returning the tools to the side of the house, she found Isaac's costume in the trash. He was still crying, upstairs. She could barely breathe in the mask, or see. But she thought it would make her feel strong again.
As she sank down onto the steps, Liesl could smell the chocolate on her breath, trapped in the closeness of the mask. Sobbing, burying her Hulk head into her Hulk hands, she wished she was. The strongest one there is.
Friday, October 20, 2006
Momentum. or. Jihad is an eight year old girl.
The little girl was crying again. It made him nervous. His fellow soldiers didn't have family, didn't have the burden of empathy. They were born for this. bred. But educated men with pilot training weren't as easy to find. Concessions were made.
He had traded shifts with the weekend pilot, he wasn't even supposed to be there. His wife had started chemo, this was the only way he could get the time off to be with her.
His daughter was about the same age as the crying girl, same hair. When he looked back, all he could see was his own wife, his daughter. He knew the others were watching him, to make sure he didn't falter, or lose faith.
He remembered the last pilot's strike, how angry he was at the union for dragging it out so long. It was selfish, he thought, the tiny things they were sticking on. He realized just at the end, some of it was on spousal support, in case something happened to him. In the end, he was happy concessions were made.
Shaking now. the whole plane was shaking, stress it wasn't meant to carry. He didn't know how to stop it, if he even could. They would catch him, they would know. He looked back at her again. his hand hovered over the landing gear control. shaking.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
holly's hobby.
She felt her knuckle dislocate. Some of her ribs were cracked, or broken. A few of her teeth loosened, her jaw was on fire, and something not good was going on with her eye. Didn’t matter, she thought; almost done. The man underneath her had stopped struggling, a wet mess where his face once was. She hit him again anyway.
The second man lay, near fetal, in the bushes by the car. A low choking gurgle came from something, not his mouth. She would tell the police that she remembered nothing. They had slipped her something, she would say, and it made her black out. Her friends and family, she would tell them the same thing. After the bar, it was a complete blank.
Of course she would remember. She always remembered.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Dance Card. Full.
May and Agnes ran down the hall to the multi-purpose room. They couldn't really run, of course, but that's how they felt. It was almost five thirty, the dance was in full swing. He was already there, surrounded by harlots and whores. Not one under 70. May knew Agnes had really taken a shine to him. Agnes thought May was his favorite. They had been best friends since before the war, The Great War, and swore they wouldn't get cross or fight over him.
He caught their gaze from across the room, and smiled.
