literature

Whether written centuries ago or just last year, literary couples show that love is timeless.

Princess of Lake Lure
I spent the night after our loss, unable and unwilling to sleep. Each time I dozed, horrifying moments from the game would invade my dreams like an endless loop of the movie A Nightmare on Elm Street. In the dream I’m dribbling up the court I look down at my feet, my right foot vanishes. I fall and continue falling down this black bottomless pit; the only thing capable of occupying my mind and relieving my mental and physical anguish is the sight, sound, and scent of a beautiful Co-Ed. Win or lose, Courtney and I had plans to spend the day and night together at her parents’ lake house on Lake Lure. Lake Lure’s claim to fame is where they filmed the popular movie Dirty Dancing starring Patrick Swayze.
By Timothy Kincaid5 years ago in Humans
May I Have a Pain Halo Please
There are several types of electronic circuits. There are computers, cell phones, radios, TVs, and various recording devices. However, there is another group of electronics that I keep track of in my mind.
By Mark Stigers 5 years ago in Humans
Return to Sender
I've been waiting on this package to arive for some time now. I got this new guitar and when you strum it, the strings linger forever and ever. It reverberates through my entire existance as i cradle this peice of fine craftsmanship from Japan. The thing is... I can't tune a guitar to save my life. I know the open 'E' string progression but I can't down tune it or even up tune it for that matter for it to synch with my voice. orkers are due to the current pandemic. So I'll just sit and wait.
By Beau J. Hathaway5 years ago in Humans
Forgiveness
The thing about losing your self-respect is that it happens a little at a time. You do one thing that you think is wrong and it gets easier to do the next wrong thing. Before you know it going against yourself is as easy as breathing. At least that is how it happened with me. Maybe it started when I was very young, stealing my sister’s toy, or a little older, stealing that five dollars out of my mom’s purse. Maybe it was when I was a teenager, screwing some guy thinking he would probably take it anyway….maybe when I was really becoming an adult…staying in abusive relationships out of fear or love… or maybe it was after my divorce for giving up? Or after my divorce for staying for far too long? Or was it after that? Did it really start when I was with a man only for his money not giving a shit about his feelings?
By Lolita Libra5 years ago in Humans
Excerpt on Fate
Fate is a funny thing. It pairs with misery with fortune and hope with coincidence, while it lays the tracks for the determinism express. Was it fate or cruel coincidence that as the moon of Sofra was plummeting into its gravity well, and the not yet spacefaring civilization of Sofrites were facing their extinction, that several newly minted Gar-a-bone transport ships were being towed to pick up fresh colonists meant for the Broch-Gar system only two days away? The date on the manifest for the transport ships was printed nearly two years prior to any plans by the Sofrites to bomb their own moon.
By The Hooded Man5 years ago in Humans
Lemons and longing, lingering kisses
"Can I ... erm ...kiss you?" he had asked intently, his clear, hazel eyes shining. Abbi's heart skipped a beat as she nodded tentatively. Then he leaned in and their worlds collided. It was electric, she was in love.
By Shirley Twist5 years ago in Humans
Choked on Chocolate Cake
As a young girl Sharon was the cutest of all the girls. We had a club we called it the Four Aces. Sharon, Cheryl, Valerie and Rhonda. Every day when we got to school the whole school had to freeze but us. We got a chocolate treat. We performed a routine for the entire school and then the day bell run. We had a secret and it was mama home made chocolate cake. Once we would take a bit we got an extra energy that no one else had. So for Sharon's birthday Mama let Rhonda bring her chocolate cake so we could all eat. But what happened that night scared us all. After we ate the cake we were trying to sleep, and it seemed some boys kept coming to our window. Well in the morning we found out the boys never were really there. Once we ate the cake were up most of the night dancing and laughing. One day at school it seemed like a normal day. Rhonda snuck to restroom ate some cake and came back to class. It was not a normal day they told her she was gifted and awarded a certificate for reading the most books in the school. Her parents held her back the fees were high. So she planned her own party when she turned 11. It was a really nice party until the cake arrived. Her parent ordered her a large cake and it was chocolate of course and her picture was on top of the cake. It was beautiful. Once she started eating the chocolate cake she was getting weird. Her mom came home and sent all the guest home. Rhonda was so embarrassed she did not have another party for many years. Rhonda started to wonder why was chocolate cake so different for her. It was because her grandmother choked on chocolate cake and died suddenly. The problems showed up and really hit the fan when Rhonda decided to get married. For awhile she avoided cake all together. But at her bridal shower which her Sister gave she ordered the largest cake she could find and had a stripper jump out. The cake was chocolate and so was the man. Rhonda got very embarrassed by the shower. Her biggest fear really was to die like her grandmother did, eating a piece of chocolate cake. The Four Aces her childhood team stayed with her all the way. She was friend with them when her grandma died unexpectedly. After visiting the grave of her grandmother one day she said it was probably a heart attack no one dies from eating cake. As she sat at her grandmother grave an Angel appeared. She was told do not eat anymore chocolate cake made by your mom, be careful. Well her mom was now up in age and while her mom was sleep she looked around. She notice more pills than usual and some unusual cleaning supplies. Rhonda said Mom I am adult now would you mind showing me Grandmas death certificate. Mom felt that request was rather odd. Next we see Rhonda sorting through some of her mother paperwork and fines that death certificate. To her dismay it reads said dead due to choking on chocolate cake. Rhonda refrained from eating chocolate cake the rest of her days. To this day she wonders was something in that cake that killed her grandma. Who chokes on a piece of chocolate cake. Rhonda decided to refrain just in case maybe the cake was laced. Unknown what was put in the dough but she decided to let it go. Rhonda lived happily ever after. Grandma died when she choked on a piece of chocolate cake. What a fate.
By Wanda B Henry5 years ago in Humans
IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT...
When I was a child, perhaps pre-teen, I had the opportunity to watch a few old horror movies — the black-and-white ones that came from a simpler time cinematically and from an equally pre-adolescent society with now-outdated mores. In these films, there would almost always be a scene similar to this:
By Jason Knightman5 years ago in Humans
WordWeaver
Summer in Tennessee is glorious. Life has sprung up all around us and the mountains thrum with a subtle energy that permeates everything. Kids are out of school and making their own sort of noise on the playgrounds, the hiking trails and rampantly through the streets. The job has me tied to a phone for most of this, watching it through windows or occasionally hearing it over the phones I answer for eight hours each day.
By Frank Geier5 years ago in Humans
The Letter
Her eyes always glistened when she talked, and I always said that was what I loved most about her. It almost made it seem like she was reading what she was saying, as if it was on a billboard, and she just repeated what she was reading as she talked. But it didn’t ever make her feel out of touch with you, it was just part of her charm, and she always made you feel that you were the center of her universe when you were around her. I guess that’s one of the reasons why she had to leave. I was never used to feeling wanted, growing up I spent most of my adolescent youth talking to myself because I never felt like anyone was actually listening to what I had to talk about. There were times when I often wondered if what I had to say really was important at all, which of course, it was. I think that it was because of this that I became so observational of people- being silent gave me time to watch them and understand how their bodies often read completely different than what their mouths were saying. I learned to understand that while most people are screaming loudly what they want using their body language, their mouths are usually pulled tight into a grimace, almost as if they are trying to literally hold the words in their mouth, squeezing it tight so they don’t let any slip out. She was entirely different from them though. That was why everyone liked her, even though she didn’t like any certain person more than any other person. She seemed to just kind of love everyone equally, which made people fight for her attention. Everyone wants to feel they might be loved more than others. I have found that it gives them a sense of false security, but that there really is no pattern to the type of people who crave this love. I have seen loud men who craved her attention, and I have seen quiet souls cry for her attention through the closeness of their bodies to hers. And this made me realize that everyone craves love and attention, there is no specific pattern of people who crave it more or less. And the reason they all flocked to her, all these different types of people, was because she didn’t ever seem to crave it at all. It seemed that she truly loved herself as much as she loved everyone around her, and the sense of security people want from others, she understood came from her. It was almost as if the air around her that she emitted, (everyone has air around them that they emit that is specifically their own,) was just made of a sort of knowing. I know that sounds strange, and it was strange to see when you’re used to seeing air around people being that of sadness, resolution, energetic, loudness, bitterness, and everything in between. So when she picked me, I always wondered what she thought of the air that surrounds me. Or if I even emitted any. And sometimes I wonder if that’s why she chose me. It wasn’t because I didn’t crave her love or attention like other people did, it was because she sensed something in me that she had never sensed before in anyone else, as I did with her. I think first and foremost, she truly just wanted to understand me. And everything that happened between us after, we never forgot about that beginning. Our curiosity of each other, and how we had never met another like it before. Somewhere in the space of our time together, people forget that in the beginnings we just want to understand each other. And so it goes. I had seen it happen a million times through my people-watching, sometimes it happened in an instant over conversation in the middle of a coffee shop, and sometimes it happened gradually, over the span of decades spent between two people who began to forget why they loved each other in the first place. And it’s always interesting because I’ve noticed that when it happens, only few people try to remember the beginning, when beginnings and endings are vastly similar. You would think that people would try to understand the beginning as much as they reflect on the middle or end, but they don’t. They seem to just want to remember that they no longer like each other. But we weren’t always like that. When we forgot our beginnings, one of us would remind the other in a particular way that was relevant to our individual style. For example, I would always make the coffee in the morning, (though somehow she was the one that always seemed to smell like freshly ground coffee beans,) and sometimes I would switch it to hot chocolate or Prosecco some mornings because she liked change and surprise. And she would sometimes move my shoes around after I had placed them in the particular order and fashion I liked because she knew I made patterns to find stability. We were virtually polar opposite in every way- light and dark, morning and night, change vs pattern. The only thing we could ever really agree upon was that mirrors should always be hung, fruit bowls should always be full, orange juice is the reigning supreme breakfast drink, and that we never wanted kids. I like to think that might have changed had we been given more time, but I don’t think it would have. We enjoyed our individual solitude as much as we enjoyed being around each other, which made it easy for us to find compatibility and lessen any jealousy we had both endured with past lovers. And I like to think we would have been happy till the end. And even now I still always remember our beginnings. I remember her vividly, walking along the campus talking with other students while I sat with my book, reading and people observing. Sometimes I wonder if she saw me first and acted like she didn’t as I’ve seen many girls do that and feign it later. I think it has to do with always having to be aware given their sex. They never seem to be allowed to show that they are more attentive than they seem. In any case, we noticed each other, and every day would meet on the lawn to read, or discuss or just sit in the sun. She used to poke fun at my everyday apparel because it never changed, and would often have me remove my sweater vest and roll up my slacks and just sit there in my button up. I would allow it because I also would force her to compromise by insisting that we always sit in the same spot on the lawn, though she sometimes wanted to sit under a tree, or on the bridge. It seems silly, but I do now wish I had been more accommodating. And I wonder if she would have too. She had an affinity with my glasses and would always push them on top of my head tangling them in my hair. I think she loved my hair as much as she loved hers. Mine was as brown as hers was light, and mine was as curly as hers was straight. During our beginnings, we never ran out of topics to discuss, ranging from politics, to written works to the nearest and newest art galleries (and which were truly the best to visit,) to which professor seemed to be losing his or her touch. I remember the beginnings because they never left. All throughout the beginning, middle and end, we stayed the same. We never ran out of topics to discuss, and though they gained more range, they became less philosophical over time. Instead of politics and art, discussions ranged from our favorite restaurants to why take-out was more ethical. I am noting our beginning and why it is important to reflect that it stayed the same throughout, because I think it is pertinent in understanding the end. Just as I retained patterns, our fights were always within a specific pattern, and would always emerge due to a specific topic. She always felt I didn’t quite open up as much as I should, and I felt that she didn’t just trust that our relationship was simple. Because to me, life is simple. The cause and effect for everything is very evident in all things, and though the reasoning behind certain actions can be full of depth, there is a point behind each action. To her, life was full of hidden mysteries that would never be explained. Just as I understood that the moon affected the gravitational pull of the ocean, she understood that the motive behind why we felt closer to each other when we stared at it together, was because it was just an unresolved mystery. And it’s really only now that I understand that I needed her mysteries as much as she needed my resolve. The world can’t run on ideas built on fantasy, but it also can’t run on factual logistics. They need one another to understand that they are not so without the other. I think this is something she always knew, and that’s why she stayed so long. But she also might have stuck around too long. Sometimes I’m grateful that she left when she did, I don’t think she would have lived long under my current circumstances. She was as strong as she was loving, and I wonder if she would have had to give one of those attributes up over time. I still wasn’t ready for her to go though, and I truly don’t think I ever would have been. Her leaving may have been abrupt, but it was noble. I’ll always remember the day as clearly as when it happened. They had been out patrolling the streets all day, and when I had gotten home from work, she wasn’t in the back room as she usually was with her typewriter. I knew that it was unsafe for her to go out, and that was why she stayed near the back of the house with little windows and a safe route to the attic that had a hiding place they couldn’t see. We had built it together when they first appeared and everyone was unsure of how invasive they would be. I remember I tried not to panic when I didn’t find her back there, and calmly checked the attic space for her. When she wasn’t there I walked a couple doors down to where she often went to meet with our neighbor Sylvie. And I remember it was then I started to panic when Sylvie mentioned that she had been over earlier that morning. I remember that Sylvie told me that something had happened, and that I had better hurry back home so that she could tell me. And I remember walking back to our little house in confusion. And I remember walking up the steps and opening our front door that always creaked like a barn cat. I remember walking through the kitchen and to the room past it that we always called the “missing room “because we never knew what to do with it and so had converted it into a library to get lost in the works of Keats, Wordsworth and Jennings. And I remember how two minutes can feel like an hour, or a year. And I remember how much of your life you can remember in just two minutes. And I remember the look in her eyes as he had one hand on the back of her neck and one holding the gun to her head. I remember she looked calm. I remember she looked at me the same way she did when we sat on the lawn on the campus together. I remember she looked peaceful. And I remember she reached out for me, not for comfort or frantic hope, but in the way she had reached for me on our wedding night. She reached for me in the way she always had, with an air of knowing. It was like she had known her whole life that this moment was going to happen, and had rehearsed it over and over so that when it did happen, it wouldn’t be traumatic. And I remember I didn’t realize I was crying till I couldn’t see two feet in front of me and the vision of her started to blur. I remember that I wished crying hadn’t been invented so that I could have had one more moment seeing her alive, even if she had the look of someone who knew her fate but also understood that it was to happen. I remember the blood and the way he dropped her. I remember realizing the sounds I was hearing were my own screams. I remember the black eye and broken rib he gave me before he left. And I remember he took most of our rationed coffee grounds. And I don’t remember burying her. After that day, I took all of her writings and safely stored them away to read at night. Sometimes I wondered if I ever really knew her when I read them, and sometimes I felt like I only understood her through her writings. Her last writing she had written I found though, was addressed to me. I had found it in her book that she kept specifically for her poems because they were so rare, and she had written it the day she left. I only read it once in my life, and it helped me to understand her more than I ever had before. I have decided to write it down here in case someone comes across this decades from now, when the world has decided to let peace survive and that it’s easier to get along than send young men to destroy everything along their path on their way to death because of hatred for a certain people. I also want to write it because writing down the words she has written helps me to remember our beginnings.
By Isabella5 years ago in Humans
Artistic Solace
The modern concept of, "me time" hasn't been something I've been able to fully perfect, let alone practice much of. Spending time working on hobbies, honing in on crafts, or even creating for creation's sake has always been something that I do for others. Ask me how many self-portraits I have, and I'll tell you I created one during a state of depression after feeling very alone and abandoned. Not being able to create for anyone else, I made something of my own, for my own. It never felt natural, and it didn't fulfill me.
By Joannis Rodon5 years ago in Humans
Beauty
“I told you to grab the bag and go!” “Forget about it! We can’t go back!” “Shit-! They’re right behind us!”
By Fisher 5 years ago in Humans