It struck me one day, one quiet day. It appeared on the right side of the path, though I cannot be certain whether it had always been there. I have only been alive for twenty-two years, and it looked as though it had been standing there since the very first day of life itself.
Read MoreThe weak spot in the ceiling wasn’t there when I moved in. Believe me, I would’ve noticed it. It just appeared, with little parade, benignly, just to the side of my bed, after about three months of living in that apartment. It wasn’t particularly big. I measured it, one day, wobbling on top of my rotating office chair to reach, wielding a ruler. Diameter: around seven centimetres.
Read MoreThe kid unfurls the flag and wears it, cape-like. He jumps and spins, looking over his shoulder at the tail of the flourish.
‘Get it off. This is serious.’
Read MoreThe single yellow light that dangled from the ceiling overhead began to flicker, disrupting the peace I had finally found. But what else could I expect from an old light in an old storage room that had become musty from decades of disuse?
I concentrated on the pulsing light. Stop flickering, I willed it. Unsurprisingly, no magic emanated from within me. The light’s pattern did not change.
Read MoreBut at night, I began to hear them. The sounds seemed distant yet many-faced, resounding into the fields’ black expanse. A thousandfold chorus of owls; an oscillating parade of owls. Their voices produced words in my head that I had never learned before; they took palimpsest in my mind.
Read MoreI first saw you on a rainy Thursday afternoon in February. I had been rushing to the restaurant — not because I was in danger of being late, but because I did not like to dawdle. I liked to be in the habit of moving quickly — you cannot take your time in a kitchen.
Read MoreThe mirror does not reflect my father’s features.
I cannot see his dark brown eyes, his rounded nose or fixed furrowed brow. I cannot hear his dulcet tone or gentle humming nor the scuffle of his shoes on wooden floors nor the dependable click of his pocket watch going… Tick. Tick. Tick.
Read MoreI think her hair would fall in ringlets around her face, when she had taken the time to style it. I can’t quite discern the colour of her eyes in my mind, though. They might be grey or blue or brown. I trace the patterns of nebulas and star signs on her back, but only with my eyes. I don’t touch.
Read MoreFor the first time, I didn’t feel constantly tired. Instead, I had lost track of time; I was so wrapped up in the feeling of her arms around me that I could barely navigate, much less think or do anything.
“Ter?” Ever said. Her voice was uncertain and shaky. “It might be time to stop for the night.”
Read MoreI remember spending summer at my grandmother’s house, swinging back and forth in her hammock, the breeze flying through my long hair. Back then there were no doubts, problems or melancholy threatening to cut it short.
Read MoreHe’s twenty-nine now, but you wouldn’t know it. His eyes are sunken and hollow, lines etched into his skin by the afternoon sun. The 95’ Camry rumbles as the key turns in the ignition, its seats scratched by age and weather and too many nights spent asleep in the backseat. Up the driveway, right, then left, onto the I-6 towards Lincoln, where he is just another pair of hands used to put up the new developments.
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