Unanchored
The bird lands on a self checkout machine then flies back up to the next floor. Realizing we’re the only two living things in this little world, I follow it. To my relief, the box store gives me up with little issue.
Fiction
And I’ll be All Alone
Supposedly, it’s 2:00 AM. Alex glares sideways at every clock he sees, letting his head spin in that direction until it loops back into him. Having spent years doing everything he could possibly do in his apartment, he centers himself to the task of pushing his window open. The headlights of a car briefly blind him as the light scatters through the glass, setting off a glowing set of fractals.
He’s on the porch roof now, and the lights swirl into a starry night sky. The stars connect into constellations and shift over time. Not the petty parallel movement of hours or seasons, but the unrecognizable change from eons of the sun circling the galaxy. He leans back against the house’s plastic siding and curls into something much smaller than himself and waits for the stars to notice his reticence and reach out for him themselves.
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Tip-Top Fifty-Fifty
It’s everything the cliches say. The tip-top of the world. Every single point on this Earth is lower than me at this moment. The profound loneliness fills me with power. In all directions, I am alone.
I’ve conquered the mountain.
I’ve conquered the entire world.
I look out at the other peaks and wonder what they hold. All this, and I’m not happy with what I have.
Lucy
Dad said the world didn't end one day. The old ways of doing things just receded, a wave falling back into the ocean. Lucy understood what he meant though she'd never seen the ocean and expected she never would. Even now there were places where people drove cars and few in planes and kept electric lights on all the time, but nobody could afford that in Vermont.
The Fascinating Adventures
THE LIFE AND FASCINATING ADVENTURES OF MISS ELIZA “ELI” GENTLE WHO TRAVELLED EUROPE AND ASIA DRESSED AS A MAN! ALONG WITH HER ENCOUNTERS WITH DANGEROUS WEATHER EXOTIC BEASTS AND THE LAW AS WELL AS HER UNMASKING OF A MYSTERY POET TAKEN FROM HER JOURNALS AFTER SHE RECENTLY DIED OF FEVER
A Personal Tragedy: One
The boasting doesn’t come from pride. It comes from a rotting shame that grasps at any tool of the ego to assuage guilt. Professing, often only to themselves, the righteousness of their act of killing in an attempt to claw back the very humanity that they stole from someone else.
Unanchored
The facade above the automatic doors gives absolutely no warning that this is one of those malls where one entrance sends you straight into a store, forcing you to bear the awkwardness of being inside a store with no intention to buy anything.
What Kind of Animal Would You Be if you Were Happy
Dumbass arts outreach volunteer guy doesn’t realize she’s concussed doesn’t realize she can’t read right now can’t write right now and even if she could it sure as hell wouldn’t make her heal.
And I’ll be All Alone
Supposedly, it’s 2:00 AM. Alex glares sideways at every clock he sees, letting his head spin in that direction until it loops back into him. Having spent years doing everything he could possibly do in his apartment, he centers himself to the task of pushing his window open.