It’s familiar now, this feeling: a heart squeezed by invisible hands, phantom fingernails tearing at flesh that pounds with desperation. Misery squashing lungs like a squeezebox, expelling breath in stuttering gasps. Tears, blurring vision, running in rivulets over stained cheeks and quivering lips. Silently screaming, I stretch the cords that bind us until, ripped apart, the tattered ends whip back. Walk away. Keep wal...

“Finally, it's Friday man,” exclaims Nora as she passes the cigarette to me. We stood outside the Salstone bar which is brimming with young people. Earlier Nora asked me why we drove this far? To that, I just mentioned it’s just for a change. She was worried that she might not get a signal on her phone which recently became her essential part of her family. “Oh yes. I so need booze, want to join?” I asked her knowing the...

If there will ever be a time that words can finally describe how I feel, I hope it is now. Many times I wanted to write this, never had the words been so perfect, if any at all. In this world so bleak and boring, so troubling and confusing, I had hoped for someone like you.I wished many times, for an adventure, for my life to have so many dark twists and turns. Many times I had wished for someone to have good company as w...

"No candy." She glares at me, her nostrils flaring with every breath, fists clenched so tightly she’ll have fingernail marks on her palms. I'm watching an impending meltdown. Its cause? Red licorice twists, and my refusal to count them as a dinner component. "RedVines and tortellini" — her impromptu addition to our grocery list — amuses me, but the rules have to be enforced regardless. It won’t be easy. A child with autis...

I sigh as I walk into the house and drop my backpack. All the cars are here, but I don't see anyone inside. The dogs are put away, the cats are nowhere to be seen, but I spy random lights turned on while most were left off. And of course, I see the full dishwasher opened just enough to signal that it needs to be emptied. Ignoring the dishwasher, I walk to the back of the house to unleash the pups from their confinement. O...

Sappy. That’s exactly what it was. Kyle could feel it as he said it. He knew the absolutely absurd pick up line he was using was probably the most desperate-sounding plea for attention he had ever said. “Hey baby, I heard the Solstice has the longest night of the year. Perhaps I could spend it with you, maybe?” He had asked hopefully. Kyle knew it wasn’t going to work, he had held that thought in his mind even before he m...

Laughter is a distant memory for Jack, the clown. Life, as he knows is over for him. A prisoner by choice, will he find the will to live once again?He was a clown. An ugly clown at that. With his face painted a sickly white and his nose a blood red; the pockmarks and scars were hidden, but not the wood-like hardness that had got permanently etched. He had yellow straggly hair, it's texture almost like the bristles of a wo...

After her 20th pill, the water tasted bitter and she gagged involuntarily. She wanted to pee now, having drunk at least three glasses of water. Whether it was the anti-depressants taking effect or just the numbness which had enveloped her; she didn’t know, but couldn’t get herself up to go to the bathroom. She simply sat on her bed, waiting for something to happen. She wanted to cry but was shocked that she couldn’t. Sure...

It had been easy. Ridiculously easy, really. A couple of phone calls to make the arrangements, a few trips to the bank to withdraw the agreed-upon payment in small amounts, and his biggest problem disappeared — his wife kidnapped by a trio of small-time thugs and murdered, her body never recovered.Joseph allowed himself a slight smile while the mourners bowed their heads in prayer during her memorial service, but at "Amen...

The Winter Solstice became a coming-of-age ceremony for many young men, including myself. The ceremony began as first light of the Solstice reflected off diamond embedded rocks around us. We were forbidden to speak, to see, to indulge in pride until the ending of the upcoming night. I felt my clan mates and friends around me, their presence overwhelming. I was startled when two giant but thin, gentle hands led me away fro...

I have no Time for Time Another second elapses in the world of the artificial constrains we have made ourselves, that of time. “I have no time for them!” “Time is of the essence” "Let's do it, quick-time now!" No, Enough! Time is something we bind ourselves by, make ourselves slaves to. We have the power to break these bonds of hours, day, years, or seconds. We actually live in the moment. The past has done just that, pas...

December 22, 2015 Ricky breathes deeply as he walks through the park. The air, sweetened by the scent of pine and cooled by the fallen snow, refreshes his lungs and spirit. It’s barely evening, yet it’s already dark out, the sun having slipped below the horizon. The snow on the ground is new and untrodden. It casts a luminous blanket all around, as if flying above the clouds at night. He and Crystal are all alone in the p...

There's nothing I wanted more than to get out. It was cold; Dark; Wet. I hadn't seen daylight in so long, my eyes had simply accepted the blackness and had turned my brain over to my other senses. The sound of dripping and creaking was my whole life. The occasional soft whirring and dull throbbing broke up the time and created some sort of regularity, if they were regular at all. Time, however, was meaningless there in th...

“Do you believe in heaven?” That sudden question dragged me from my daydreams as I was sitting by the plane’s window seat. I stared at the guy momentarily as he took his seat beside mine. “I suppose. Don’t we all?” I answered, almost disinterestedly. I liked talking to strangers, but I was hoping to spend my one hour ride in peace. “I guess, human as we are, we will always want to believe in heaven or something similar.”...

Standing here looking out at the frozen approaches to the islands in the channel nearby and it seems that most of my days lately have blended into a single theme. Just like that single road I have followed as the days turn into night. With there being times I have been standing quietly watching all passing me by, as the days just seem to be flowing by. Seeing the dawn’s dark light and having it feel as though it is too br...