The headrest of the seat ahead plopped into her lap as soon as they were off the ground.

She gritted her teeth and held back a number of rude comments. She would, she maintained, remain civil. As tempting as it was to wait for the guy in front of her to fall asleep, then draw something in permanent marker on his bald spot.

"What's the weather today?" he asked.

"Rainy!" she replied, with a squeal. Then, "Do I still have to go to school?"

"Afraid so, honey. But you'll have a good time."

"Yeah, I like games at recess."

He remember his own teaching days. He felt very, very sorry for the teachers on rainy days.

Driving home after work. Tired, but anxious to get to the house and sign in and do stuff I didn't have a chance to do at work.

Hungry, though. Lunchtime on a Friday. "I could use a bite."

Chuckle. "Or a byte. Just a bit of either, or maybe both."

Yes, I talk to myself that way.

"I think I'm gonna hurl!"

I turned to Margie. "Um ... why do we let Katherine watch these cartoons?"

"She watches Justice League."

"I've never heard Hawkgirl say, 'I'm gonna hurl.'"

"The Shaggy Man did, I think."

I was halfway home before it hit me.

Cake. Chocolate cake. Thick, creamy, chocolate frosting.

I was so hungry.

I loved, as a kid, eating the cake out from the layers betwene the frosting on a layer cake. Then eating the frosting.

Hell, who needs dinner. I wanted to have cake.

I looked at the clock. 11:55. It was 11:54 last time.

I tapped my fingers at the table. I took a drink. I looked at the clock again.

11:55. Again.

Would it ever be midnight? Or was I trapped in some sort of Twilight Zone adventure?

I looked at the clock.

The train rumbled along the tracks in the background. People wandered by; some running and leaping in their haste to catch the train (or, having arrived, to get to wherever they were going). Police lights flickered down at the bottom of the ramp.

I looked at the map on the wall. Talos Island station. You Are Here.

I kept waiting for a reaction. Tears. Rage. Despair. Screaming. Growling. Howling. I expected a twist of the steering wheel, hurtling into a tree or another oncoming vehicle. Or at least a punch on the accelerator.

I wondered what was wrong with me.

"'Dar she bwoes!"

I looked up from the breakfast table. The kid was watching the TV, where a huge whale had leapt up out of the ocean and was now crashing downward like blubbery doom.

Where had she picked up that phrase?

My mouth worked silently, wordlessly, as I played with the puzzle on screen -- teeth scraping lower lip, tongue touching upper lip, thin lips, blowing horse-snort lips. No words, during all this, but plenty of sound and action.

I probably looked like an idiot.

I could hear the voices, without words, from across the street. A woman was yelling at a man, a dog was barking at another dog, and it was all an equally unintelligible fuss as cars and trucks whizzed by and roared throatily, adding to the chaos.

He lay there in bed, in the filtered light, waiting for it.

The phone to ring.

The wrath of someone on the other line -- a boss spurned, a credit card company awaiting, a friend or loved one worried but very, very angry.

And he waited.

The snow was cold and wet and heavy, and his feet made sloshy, dirty splashes as he trudged toward his destination.

The whole thing, he thought, was a metaphor for his life. Or maybe his thinking it was a metaphor was an even better metaphor.

He got there. Eventually.

The doily sat on the table, sharing the space with the dust of the quiet, dark room.

"Nice piece of embroidery," I said, desperate for a topic of conversation.

"Mary made that," Joe said. "Before the arthritis got her."

"Um."

"And, of course, before she died."

I was lying there, awake, and I wasn't exactly sure why at first, being in that hazy dream state of not really dreaming any more.
Why were there so many dogs barking? I glanced at the alarm clock. 3:17 a.m. What the hell was going on with all the dogs?
I was awake for a long, long time.

"No use crying over spillt ink."
"You mean milk."
"No, it's a play on that, get it? I wrote it, I regret it, but since I wrote it, it's ink, right?"
"Um ... right."
"So, no use crying over spillit ink."
He considered. "It's still wrong."
"No use crying over it."

Thought about Oneword for the first time time in a while, when someone asked me about a good creative writing web site. It's, at least, a good exercise.

We pressed the drywall board up into place, carefully but firmly, slipping the notches into where the beams ran across and light switch poked out. Then Jim slipped the crowbar under the bottom of the board and levered it up flush to the ceiling.
You learn a lot of things as a Boy Scout leader, I thought to myself.

Okay, okay. I patted my pockets. Keys, wallet, Palm. Watch on the hand. Rings on the fingers. Bells up my nose. Book gripped tightly. Glasses, shoes, all the necessaries.
Forward, then, to lunch.

Sleep is valuable.
Without it, our minds wander, as if in a cloud, and carry our bodies along, slowly, ploddingly through the day.
Without sleep, the border between reality and dreams grows soft and porous. And that can be really scary, whichever side of the border you want to be on.
Sleep is good. Sleep is useful. Sleep is valuable

The wind whistled around me. It only felt like I was atop a mountain, a tall, craggy, impossibly high peak. I was on a diving board. That was it. Just a diving board. That wasn't a lake below me, but a swimming pool. It wasn't the wind, but the hot sun. A swim would feel good right now, I think. Yeah, that's the ticket.
I held up my hands above me, and began my dive.

It was silent. Too silent. Gleaming, clean, unoccupied cubicles extended as far as I could see. Bright white light flooded down upon them. A fax machine sat on file cabinet, but that was the only thing to blot the hall-of-mirrors repetitiveness of it all.
"Hello!" I called out. My voice echoed.

There's an amazing lack of rest stops on that particular stretch of Interstate. Ditto for gas stations, restaurants, private residences and, truth be told, bushes.
I'd gone at least fifty miles further, and it felt like five hundred, so I finally pulled over.
There was, I noted, no lack of cars driving by.

I walked through the streets of the city of darkness, wishing my eyes were blinded by its neon, or enshrouded by its shadows. My mind, though, retained the image, superimposed over the always-wet pavement, carnival-reflecting the signs in a thousand colors.
I'd had my monthly lesson repeated to me: never, *ever*, go into the catacombs. Except when duty called.

The straw on the ground crackled a bit, thick in the dirt. We passed by a tent where folks could throw balls that were too large into holes that were too small and earn a trinket that was too cheap.
Tooting, hooting, joyful music from the carousel pierced the din.
A marvelous place, the carnival.
Too bad I was going to be in the center ring when they executed me.

"Okay, so open it with Acrobat."
"Huh?"
"Just double-click on it. That will make Adobe Acrobat Reader open."
"Am I opening the thing, or the program?"
"Just double-click on it."
"Okay, so it's opening Adobe ..."
"Adobe's the publisher. Acrobat's the program. I hate it when people get those mixed up."
"Nobody likes a smart-ass, either, dear."

I felt used. It was a sort of sickening feeling, a betrayal of the whole conceit of being an independent, autonomous, thinking, feeling, ensoulled and ... well, all sorts of otehr words, but I suppose "man" summed it up.
"How -- how dare -- " I sputtered.
She just shrugged, a little smile playing on her lips.

The car whipped around the curve, rear tires squealing a bit as their treads tried to keep the whole thing from fishtailing them of the edge of the highway, into the Mediterranean below.
Regardless, he stepped down harder on the gas, speed-shifting through the bend.
He was going home.

The truck wouldn't start. The truck. Wouldn't. Start.
So he pushed the bike (the one with the flat rear tire -- but, heck, he ever needed to, he could use the truck to carry it, right?) to the gas station.
He inflated the rear tire.
It popped.
The day went downhill from there.

"Hmmm. I like that one."
"How come?"
"I dunno. The contrast is better. Or the color saturation. One of those things."
"Can you be any less technical?"
"I think it looks better."
"Well. Okay then."

She suddenly reached out, touched my cheeks, giggled.
"You like Daddy without a beard?"
She laughed again. "Yeah!"
I knew the beard would be coming back, sooner or later. "Do you like me better with the beard or without."
She rubbed the stubbly roughness. "Wi'out!"
Oh well.

"Peace, baby."
Great. Just geat. "You're stoned."
"You got it, baby. Just like Superman. I'm super. I can fly, y'know?"
Wish you'd fly somewhere else. "Right."
"No, really. Watch."
Shit.

The office was cool and dark with the lights off. I leaned back, headphones plugged into the computer, and let the stereo sounds drift through my head. My eyes closed, and, for a while, I could almost imagine I was somewhere else. It was a good feeling.

"Look! Up in the sky!"
He floated there, like a butterfly, his eyes high above everything, watching the city, waiting for a crime to be committed, or a robot to go berserk, or an alien to invade.
There was irony in *that* point all right.
Then he was just a blue and red blur. Gone.
Good riddance, as far as I was concerned.

The acid sizzled and fumed on the metal. I backed away. Breathing that stuff just couldn't be good for you.
"How long?" she asked.
"For it to eat through? I don't know. Five, ten minutes."
"Hope it's five. The bomb goes off in seven."

"So you're saying I'm being held captive."
"Not at all." He gestured expansively. "You have free rein of the island."
"But I can't get off of it."
"Certainly you can. The nearest land is -- about 240 miles in that direction. Are you a strong swimmer?"
I hated this guy already, and I'd only known him five minutes. That was a record.

I really wanted to get off the phone. The Boss kept talking.
"Now, turn to the next page. Strike section 3.0. Take section 4.0 and split it into two, making one of them 3.0, the other 4.0. Get it?"
I glowered at the phone. He couldn't see it, which made me all the more frustrated. I was being held captive by my own will.
"Good. Now, turn to the next page ..."

Katherine continued to beat her hand on the table.
"Katherine, please stop that," I asked her, in my Polite Yet Firm voice.
She frowned, and kept at it.
"Katherine, please stop that," I said, in my I'm Not Kidding Here voice.

"I'm stuck."
I looked back at him. "You've got to be joking."
"Do I look like I'm joking? I'm stuck."
I shook my head. "But they alway crawl through the ventilation shafts in the movies. That's the way it works."
"Except when they get stuck, you idiot," he snarled at me.

He began to tremble uncontrollably. His eyes focused on the gun in my hand.
"Please," he said. "Please."
"Give me a reason not to," I suggested.
He just shook his head. "Please ... please ..."
Well, if he couldn't come up with a reason, why should I?

Heat vision lanced out of his eyes, tore open the mountainside, and exposed the armored shell beneath the rock and dirt.
"There's your secret alien base, General," Superman said to the scowling man beside him. "Right in the middle of your training reservation."
The general looked like he wanted to say something, but decided against it.

Over there, there's a mountain.
It's had a lot of names. The first tribe of folks who lived in the area called it something. They got conquered by the next wave of immigrants, who called it something else. Then one of them got famous, and they renamed the mountain after him.
Then some other folks had another idea. And they managed to change the name yet another time. That makes forty-seven times, most of which we don't know about.
Still the same mountain, though.

"Save me!"
I could see her sinking, though I couldn't tell what she was sinking into. I took a step toward her -- then froze. If I didn't know what she was sinking into, how did I know I wouldn't sink, too?
"Help!"
"Um ... let me find a long pole!"
I hurried away.

You form a bond with the people you work with, risk your life with, kill with. It's a bond you don't usually talk about -- if you have to talk abuot it, it's probably not real -- but it's very real, and very strong.
That's why it really pissed me off that I was going to have to kill Mack.

I lay down, in the comfort of my own bed, enjoying the familiar feel, the familiar sounds, the breeze and noise from one direction, the presence of my wife from the other.
It was good to be home. Really good.

I skidded to a halt, bits of gravel and dust and path debris fluttering ahead of me, into the crevasse, down into ...
"Lava? There's a frickin' volcanic fissure across the middle of my only escape route? What insane god decided that?"
A voice echoed from above. "WANT TO FIND OUT?"

The arrow thunked into the tree trunk next to me. I stared at it for a moment, and noticed a mate grow out of the tree next to it.
Someone is shooting arrows at me. I should do something about that.
I ran. Not straight-down-the-road-ran like the idiots in the movies do. Into the trees.
No more arrows hit near me. Which was just fine.

"Well, this sucks."
"Who's saying that?"
"I am."
"You the character? Or you the player?"
"Um ...
"Because if it's the character, then the Bronze Man will take mortal insult and then take you apart. If it's the player, then I, the GM, will do the same."
"Um ..."

The car behind sped up, slamming into my bumper, making me swerve and sway and skid, just like in the movies.
So, when could I get up and go for popcorn?
Sarah screamed next to me, which didn't help, except that it kept me from doing the same thing.
"He's trying to kill us!"
I couldn't spare her a glance. "Yup."

"The road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began ..."
"Why do you always sing that when we pull down the driveway?"
"It's from Tolkien. Bilbo sings it. Remember in the movie? And in the books?"
She looked at me. "You're weird."

The tires screamed as I wove the car down the road. My mind held the most unnaturally calm debate: was my chance of survival greater if I made myself a marginally more difficult target to hit, but remained in view longer, or if I drove hell-bent to shelter as directly as I could.
I'd find out, I guessed.

I looked down on the ground. There was never a good stick when you needed one. After a few moments, I spotted one several steps away. Meantime, Lap kept looking at me with those big brown eyes, totally trusting that a stick would soon be hurtling somewhere for him to chase after, pick up, chew, and refuse to bring back to me.

I moved very slowly, very carefully. I'd dug the hole as deep and broad as I could in the limited time, and I managed to squeeze myself even flatter than usual as I crawled below the fence.
It's amazing how many people think barbed wire and electricity and chain link will keep folks out, but never think to extend it all below the surface.

"Why do they still call it filming someone?" I asked Pierre.
He shrugged, the quintessential gallic shrug. "Some call it videoing, I think you say. Or, if you are pompous, lensing."
"Hmmm. Doesn't sound the same."
"Guess that's why they still call it filming."

Oneword has now changed its domain. Ah, the smell of success.

I fired the flare into the air. The extraction team would know where I was -- and so would everyone else.
Gunfire began to pock the ground and trees around me. The best thing I could do, though, until the shooters got closer, was to hunker down and hope for luck.

I gestured at the centerpiece.
"You've got to be kidding," Sasha said.
I rolled my eyes, peeled back the silk flowers, pointed at the small disc affixed in the middle.
"A microphone?" Sasha snorted. "How cliche."

I reached down, and peeled away some of the clay from the hillside. This was, they said, what we were all made of. "Mortal clay." Not very impressive.
And, yet, the whole mountain stood upon this seam. Remove the clay, and there would be only dust. And maybe not much of that.
That was more impressive.

The child was dead. There could be, so far as I knew, no greater crime. When you killed a child, you killed a potential, a future. You killed innocence, someone who could not be held accountable for any but the most petty of crimes. You killed the most important thing in the world.
There would be more blood this night. I swore it.

The room was vast, incapable of being lit by the solitary candle that rested in its center, surrounded by chalk drawings of ancient runes and curious circles.
I couldn't see the edges of the chamber, shrounded in shadow. But they could see me.
So I knocked the candle over. And out.

I drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and considered. Was there another angle I could tackle this e-mail from?
I hated dealing with personnel issues. The cliche "Can't we all just get along?" was my subconscious mantra. I really didn't understand why folks wouldn't want to be team players, and hated having to force them to be.
Hell.

"Anybody want another glass?"
I hesitated. I really didn't want one, mostly because I was already feeling muzzy-headed. On the other hand, it was good wine, light and cool, and it was the boss asking.
And, after all, I didn't need to keep my wits about me all that much, right?
Right?

"I'm flying away on a wing and a prayer ..." I crooned. Susan interrupted me.
"That's the silliest thing I've ever heard."
"That's because you don't believe you can really fly."
"Of course not."
"That shows what you know."

There were sparkles in her hair, glinting in the waving, strobing, multi-colored lights. It was hard to tell what color her hair was right now, let alone what it was naturally. But there were sparkles there, which matched the ones in her eyes, as stupid as that sounds. And I loved her, and didn't know why.

We were breaking down the stage, instruments put away, drums packed up, electronics all unplugged.
"That's a really stupid song, y'know?" Jack asked.
"Which one?"
"'Talkin' 'bout my generation?'"
"Oh. Yeah."
"Stupid."

It was just one more glitch in an otherwise glitchy day.
Planes that didn't work.
Airport layouts designed to drive one mad.
Seat designs made to drive you into painful insanity.
And now a hotel room air conditioner that spit out cold air, one molecule at a time.
It had been one hell of a day.

"You can't say that."
"Why not?"
"Folks will go nuts if you put it that way. They already think the worst."
"But it's the truth."
"So?"
"So, isn't that our job?"
"I'm not suggesting we lie. Just that we give it the right spin."
"Spin?"
"Yeah. Twist it around, a little. No harm in that."

"Dave Hill. Nice to meet you."
He stared at me, coldly. "Uh-huh."
"I had an appointment? I think it was today." I fumbled with my Palm to see if I'd made a terrible mistake.
"Yeah, it was." He didn't seem thrilled about it.
"Oh, good." I grinned, winningly.
He just kept staring at me.

I looked at the horizon, saw the roiling, flaming clouds, pitch black and fiery red, hurtling toward me like God's Worst Thunderstorm.
That's when I knew it was The End.
Which didn't bother me so much, except that I knew I wish I'd had a chance to do some revisions first. Not to mention a dedication.

Oh, hell.
I tried to reach down to the floor of the car, where the Coke cup lay toppled over, trying to get it before I had a permanently sticky carpet -- while, of course, trying also to make sure that I didn't plow into another vehicle on the freeway, or drive off the road.
I was, at least, successful in the latter attempt.

No matter how I sat, it was uncomfortable. It occured to me that airports did not really build seats for comfort, either sitting or (worse) lying down. The population was, by nature, transient, and caught in this particular market. I was impressed on reflection they even had carpet.
I twisted myself around, trying to find a tolerable position. I felt like I was doing yoga.

I walked along the sidewalk, behind the building. There were grass and trees there, which kept it nice and cool.
A squirrel ran up the pine tree to my right, a big hunk of stale bread in its mouth. It paused, chittered at me angrily, and went on.
"You and me both," I said.

Slowly munching, utterly still save for the sliding jaw, the cow watched me over the fence with dark pools of eyes.
I wondered what it was like to be so stolid, so heavy, so just-oneself. It sounded attractive.
Then I remembered my steak last night.

And another.

"Just take it."
"What is it?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"Huh?"
"I mean, are you going to take a chem class and learn what the chemicals are and do? Are you going to look it up on the Net and read the alarmist literature about it? Are you going to ask for a second opinion? It's just a tablet. Take it."
"Um ... okay."

And ...

Her voice was flat, heavy. "I can't do this any more."
I didn't know what to say.
"I tried. But I just can't."
I still didn't know. I hoped she'd give me something I could work with.
"I know it's not your fault."
That didn't help.

I was juggling the notebook on the insanely small drop-down tray next to me, a steno pad of notes on my lap, a plastic cup of soda water and nuts on my own tray, and my Palm on the seat next to me.
The steno pad dropped to the ground.
Shit.

"Well? What now?"
"Um ..."
"You do have a spare, don't you?"
"I think so ... but it's not easy to get to."
"How about AAA. Do you have AAA?"
"Yeah -- oh, hell, the card's on my dresser."
"In case you get a flat in your bedroom?"
"Hardy-har-har."

I piled the last handful of sand onto the massive fortress. It would be washed away by the sea, soon enough, but it was a good, temporary triumph.
"Daddy!" came Katherine's voice, wafted across the breeze. I looked up, and she was runnning across the sand, right for me.
I knew what would come next, and knew the triumph was premature.

"Helmsman, steer a course away from the space phenomenon."
"Aye, sir."
"Captain, you should just let me shoot it."
"Quiet, Worf. Number One?"
"No, I just went."
"Shut up, Worf. Commander Ryker?"
"No, I'm okay, too."
"Data?"
"Scanners show an intense tetrion field."
"Of course they do."

When she smiled, her face seemed to glow. It was bright, brilliant, infectious in its purity and intent. When she smiled, it was as if the entire world spiraled down around her face, the center of the universe, the only thing I wanted to look at, to bask in, to see forever and ever and ever.
It never lasted. But it was good while it did.

"It wasn't my fault."
"Yeah, right."
"No, really. The policy is unclear."
"You could have asked."
"Why should I ask? I thought I understood."
"But it was unclear."
"Well, yeah, I know that now."
"But it's not your fault."
"Nope. It's the policy's fault."
"Right."
"Really."

I looked out the window. The sky was full of stars. That's what most folks say, full of stars, even though some of those stars are actually a galaxy, or a nebula, or some other strange astronomic phenomenon.
But we need to simplify. And full of stars is a lot easier to say, and not all that inaccurate.

I licked the stamp, put it on the post card.
Weird. My words would fly, out in the open, "in clear," from here to the edge of the continent. But nobody would read them en route, except for the address.
I hoped someone would read the rest of it when the card arrived at its destination.

I was only halfway down the stairs, when I heard her door open. Again.
I spun around. "Dammit, Katherine! It's Quiet Time! Get back in your room!"
She looked at me, a frown creasing her smooth face, then closed the door.
"All the way," I called after her.
Click.
Then I wondered, if it's Quiet Time, why was I shouting so much?

Yup. Been a long afternoon.

"Jeez. It's spring!"
I was looking out the window. The now-normal treescape of long, grey-brown branches, reaching up into a cloudy sky, was now a whirling brush of green leaves, blocking my view.
"Cool."

"It looks like a sail."
I glanced over my dad's shoulder. There was a pond there, but no boats. "What does, honey?"
Katherine pointed. "That does. His cheese sandwich. It looks like a sail."
I looked at the half-cut sandwich.
"But not now," she added, as he took a bite.

"Please, don't do this," he said. "I really need this job."
I shook my head, even though he couldn't see me. "It's not the way I would have handled things, but that's the way it is."
"Do you want me to beg?"
"Dammit," I said, blaming him for how he was making me feel. "It's not my fault!"

I held the pad in my hands, tried to visualize what it was I wanted to draw. That image, that cover, that way of holding the body unnaturally but heroically.
The pencil danced across the page, producing something that looked like what I wanted, in the way a Yugo resembles a Ferrari.
"Nice sketch," I muttered.

Sick

I tried to draw in a deep breath, but only managed a choking gasp. My nose was completely plugged, to the point where not only could I not breathe through it, but not even a deep inhale could keep the snot from dripping out of it.
Ick.
At least I could cough really well, whether I wanted to or not.

Collage

Multicolored squares of paper, arranged in a display that shows both a greater pattern and which can be appreciated for each piece. Variations in tone, orientation, markings, passage of time with pieces overlapping one another ...
Office bulletin boards are fun.

Miscellaneous

Books. Top shelf books.
Oooh, coffee mugs. Lots of coffee mugs. Office mugs, company mugs, funny mugs.
Toys. Action figures. Figurines. A little statuette of Belle reading a book.
Lava lamp.
Papers. Stacks of papers. Framed photos.
A little thank-you for the move team, 1999.
Hate packing my office.

(Just in case you're worried, it's not what you think. They're laying down new carpet this weekend, and we have to pack up a bunch of the fragiles and upper-shelf items before we leave today so that they can jack up the furniture for laying the carpet down.)

Lust

"So, which Circle did you get?"
"I'm a heretic."
"I'm a virtuous pagan."
"Huh. Wish I'd gotten the Lust one. Sounds hot."
"Well, it's really a punishment. Dante's Inferno wasn't meant to be an enabling group."
"Oh. Bummer."

(More on the Dante's Inferno test here.)

Feature

"And now, back to our feature," the TV intoned.
I looked at Margie. "Does anyone say that, any more?"
"Say what?"
"Call a movie the feature? I mean, we don't have newsreels, or cartoons, or B-movies, just trailers and commericals."
She looked at me. "You're weird."

Of course, Paramount videos all say, "And now, our feature presentation," just so you don't mistake it for ... well, the commercials and trailers.

Bowl

Humongous sign, reaching out from the streetlight-illumined pavement into the star-washed sky. Flickering neon of blue and pink, pinwheels and bold, exciting, letters. A temple to some great god, it would have been, in Homer's day.
It flickered: BOWL. BOWL. BOWL.

Pink

A carpet of brown and sere. Slowly, crawling in, like gray hair over weeks, a tinge of green, then more of a tinge.
And then, sprinkled here and there, white. And yellow. And purple.
And pink.

Elegant

The dining room table was an antique, dark, rich wood. A very nice table cloth was draped over it, some burnished candlesticks upon it. The crystal from the night before was clustered in the middle, along with the silverware, clean and dry.
Underneath the table, the little girl cried.

Voice

It droned and droned, without feature, without pause, on and on and on.
He hit the mute button, sighed, let the noise flood out of the receiver without comprehension. Surely there was a web site he needed to hit.
The voice paused. "What do you think?"
He scrambled to unmute. "Makes sense to me."

Boss

I heard something. A vague, high-pitched, beeping -- aw, crap.
I fumbled at my waist, cross-handedly, trying to turn off the radio, roll up the window, grab the cell phone *and* not crash at the same time.
I managed to do so -- and beat the voice mail threshold, too.
"Hey, Dave, this is Pete. Did I catch you at a bad time?"

Glamour

"Is he still alive?"
"Of course."
"He's not mov -- oh, he's breathing."
"Yes. Slowly and heavily."
"What does he see?"
"What he wants to see. What I want him to see."
"Pretty nice."
"Pretty. And nice. Yes."

Yes, I am a geek.

Screen

I glanced up at the TV screen. There were pirates dancing on a ship, singers dancing on the dock, little kids dancing in front of the singers.
"Katherine?" Silence. "Katherine?"
"Yes, Daddy?"
"Don't sit so close to the TV screen."

Princess

I sat in the chair on the back porch, watching her. She ran around like a maniac, one end of the yard to the other, grab something, carry it back up, throw it down, abandoned, grab something else, carry it back to the other end.
Little Miss Entropy.
My princess.
Yeah, she has me wrapped around her finger. No question.
She's my princess.

Order

Dammit. Why the hell do people drive that way? Where's a cop when you need one?
Okay, sure, maybe he's legitimately late for something. I know I've driven like a manaic at times, if there were cause for it.
But it's different when it's done to me. Isn't it always?
Where's a cop?

Candle.

p class="block">I lit a candle, set it on the table. A dim, yellowish light filled the room in shades of brown. Candles are funny -- they both illuminate and hide. You can't look at the flame, or else it blinds you to what it's trying to light up. But if you try to look around, inevitably you cast your own shadow, and can't see, either. Weird.

This is an interesting little daily writing exercise, though I'm considering doing it elsewhere than on my blog (to spare my readers).

enemy

"He's your enemy! Get him!"
I squeezed slowly on the trigger. There was a deafening roar. He went down.
"Keep shooting! He's your enemy!"
I saw the figure lying there, still. He wasn't my enemy any more.
I was sick.

step

I paused at the bottom of the three steps. The door was there, tan wood, varnish slightly peeling -- why was I obsessing on the details? Was it that important? No, but it was better than worrying about what would happen when I knocked on the door.
Would someone answer? Did I want them to?
I took a step.

Today's word: demo

Here it is. Just try it. No, go on. You'll like it. It will take some getting used to. You might find it awkward at first.
But it's just a demo. It's not going to change your life. Unless you let it.
So go on. Just try it. For me. Okay? Great. Thanks.
Just try it. Just. Try. It.

(via Doyce, who obviously is out to drive me mad)