I open my eyes to absolute darkness and to a stale woody smell just inches from my nose. I don’t remember being here, how I got here. I don’t even recall where I was last. My amygdala is setting off internal alarms. I’m not in full-blown panic state yet but […]
Any Day Above Ground Read More »
The night is especially silent and the moon is missing the company of its alluring stars. Sitting on the edge of a dusty old mattress, Evelyn Parker holds on tightly to the agate necklace her grandmother gave her less than a year ago. Tonight feels different than most nights and
I met Cassie for the first time when I started high school. She was in my art class, and the teacher, Ms Perez, was always giving her a hard time. She was talented, but lacked motivation, was what she used to say. Cassie didn’t seem to care, and seemed more
My name is Lifeguard. There is a lot of thinking that takes place atop the seat overlooking the pool. I spend most of my days there; watching others play. Watching them have fun. I see grandparents bringing their toddler grandsons and granddaughters to the pool to splash around. Young parents
Hi. I’m Caitlin and I’m eleven years old. I think. I may have been here for ten minutes or ten years. Every second in this place feels very long. Who I am isn’t really important, but if you must know, I’m a girl who loved school, cartoons, and pop music.
Back when we were six, my brother developed a notorious sleepwalking habit among his various other disorders. So much so that dad child proofed the doors to our room and closet (after an unfortunate pissing incident involving a soiled pile of clothes) so that when we were awake, we could
No Rhyme, No Reason, No Explanation Read More »
I saw Heaven. In my dream, I was sitting on a bank of a snaking river. On the other side were houses made from large stone blocks. They resembled medieval castles. They had crenellations, too, but they had never been besieged. The Gods were frolicking there. It was an enchanting
The first phone call came as we sat down to dinner. I had been expecting calls from potential employers or recruitment offices, so I was excited when I heard the ring tone. I was nine months into the job search and our savings were running dry. Though it was six
What are dreams? What are they really? Are they bits and pieces of memories thrown together without design or purpose? Do they whisper secrets of future days to come or hide secrets from days long passed? Perhaps our soul is expelled from our bodies each night, thrust out into the
She gave him the key as soon as he had walked in the door. It had been in a small box, wrapped up with a bow. He tried not to show his concern as he was acutely aware she was waiting expectantly for him to say something. “Well, what do
Okay, so the first thing I’m going to tell you, in the interest of full disclosure and because it’s fairly pivotal to everything that comes next is that I am a drug user. User, not addict. And I realise that this may well lead you to discredit everything I’m about
Act I: Today I Buried a Man I am the Tollman. I sit in this lonely desert tollbooth and collect the tolls from people who pass by. When it is quiet in the night, I hear the voices of people arguing, but no one is near. I can see for
There is an ancient story which tells of how a spider creature named Iktomi created a web which filtered good dreams from the bad dreams. He shared the secrets of this web with a brave leader, who in turn told the world of the web to ensure his people were
I sat on a bench under an autumn-dried tree, where I usually spent my time after school. The cemetery was empty; no surprise. An occasional mourner dropped flowers–always some old person coming in to see a lost loved one–or a jogger taking a new route for change. Nobody goes to
I had to grow up when I was six. I had two little brothers that depended on me. Liam was two and John was just a baby. Our parents were going through a nasty divorce and suddenly the children were just a burden that neither wanted to tend to. I
“Bobby! Pay attention!” he heard his teacher say. He snapped out of his reverie and looked up to see her glaring at him. “Did you hear anything I’ve been saying?” she continued. Bobby shrugged his shoulders. Prior to being disrupted, he was daydreaming that he could freeze time, and before
Have you ever wondered why we see ghosts? Maybe they have a message for us. Perhaps they’re trapped somewhere between our world and theirs, oblivious to the fact that time has gone on without them. There have been tales of long-lost family members visiting us in our dreams and unexplainable
It has been six weeks since my first sighting of the wicked old hag. I woke up in the middle of the night and went to roll over, but my entire body was paralysed. I lay there, scared and helpless, contemplating my predicament when I became aware of a presence
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I chose to sleep the days away chose comfort in dreams, safe from a world so grey My mind gave me comfort my life could not so as I dreamed, I could not stop I was happy at first, with my daily sights European castles with thousands of lights the
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Hey there. Are you lost? Me too. Aw there there, don’t be scared, someone will come along. Someone always comes along. Sooner or later. I’m Amy. We can wait here till someone finds us. In the meantime, would uh… would you like to trade? Yeah I’ll tell you a story
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I am going to tell you a story from my childhood, but I admit that I am not sure the events of the story ever truly happened at all. Although I acknowledge that there might be nothing beyond present human understanding happening here, I have to write this account down
A gregarious cheer warmed the wide living room as we all sat ’round the fireplace, the soothing flames suffusing throughout and thoroughly staving the Winter chill frosted over the window panes. The decrepit mansion we decided to bide our night in was weathered, the floorboards rotten and the walls home
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ALONE By Craig Peterson The dream was the same as the night before, and the night before that and the night before that…. Mathew Scott hadn’t slept well in a long time, hell, he wasn’t sure he had slept at all lately. When would it stop? When did it start?
“Yo, James hurry your ass up!” Damon roared from across the parking lot, standing next to our limo and waving me and Becca down. I quickly stole a kiss with Her before taking her hand and jogging toward the limo with her. We weren’t in there for more than a
