Behind him, the Monterey shore was turning into a distant speck. He stared out into the vast blue ahead. Cold gusts of briny wind slapped his cheeks. He wished he was someplace warm. He could go inside and sit with the others in the galley, but that would mean sitting with Cora.
Robots had squashed human rebellion by making an example of Crazy Gage. Whip marks on Gage’s back were the stuff of legend. The ‘crazy’ got added to his name after his stint in the underground cells.
A jilted heart, a pink slip, an F grade and an undesirable reflection looked up at the blanket of sequins.
Tiny droplets of vapor collected inside the oxygen mask every time he exhaled. A thin layer of crust had formed on his eyelashes, like cobwebs in an abandoned house. Clear fluid dripped from an IV line in slow, almost hypnotic droplets. The room was quiet except for the staccato beeping of the heart monitor and the whooshing, Darth Vader-ish noise of the ventilator.
I loaded the last spoon into the dishwasher when I heard her coming down the steps. “At last, the tiny dictator sleeps!” she beamed with her hands in the air like a victorious… Read more »
A calm overcame me, a serenity that kneeling before God in a little temple on the hills brings. His eyes were pools of cool water to a thirsty traveler walking through the desert. His sweaty, tanned skin probably tasted like sea-salt chocolate truffles.
As she neared the bazaar, the brightness almost fooled her into happy thoughts. She could smell the warm notes of cardamom and incense mixed with the acrid stench of moonshine from the bordello.
Somewhere in this fluid timeline that I live in, lucid dreams flow. I don’t know where one ends and the other begins. I dream of my past life, my life before captivity. It feels like someone is briskly cleaning that slate, but I try and hang on to whatever memory I can.
A white stick camouflaged against the white marble. Two blue parallel lines stared back at her from a small oval window on it. The lifeless stick was the harbinger of the life growing within her.
I remember the days when Mama sang this to me, only to me. My throat was tight when I heard her singing the same song to Alfie, my little brother. He appeared unexpectedly after Mama and Dad went to the hospital one day. I was dropped off at Gram’s place. Her house smelled like naphthalene balls and Nilla wafers.