literature
Whether written centuries ago or just last year, literary couples show that love is timeless.
In The Stillness of Remembering
The first day of the second summer after my dad died, I came in thirteenth place out of fifteen people in a watermelon seed spitting contest. Of the two people who placed behind me, one of them was a five-year-old boy, so that was embarrassing, to say the least.
By Rachel R. Carroll5 years ago in Humans
Just Feed Sam
From the frosted panes of a dirty bus window stuck shut with ice from a storm the night before, Ms. Vivian Johns sat in the regular meditation of sameness that passed before her every day at this time. No remarkable thoughts surfaced on this early morning, just as they did not on most mornings. She is waiting for the bus to make its way to the center of town, where she hurries the down three quick steps where she steps off and marches nearly straight into the same greasy spoon where she has been a server for the past 17 years.
By Erin Western5 years ago in Humans
To Paint a Sunset
Gilded and gleeful. The dining room of the pretentious social elite. Daily trudge through the monotony of meaningless interactions. This was the perpetual existence of Eliza Loughnan. Fraudulent interactions of the societally upward with the person that brings them their seventy-six dollar steak. Still, it pays the bills.
By James Frogge5 years ago in Humans
Carry On, Little Gabby
The pen was smoothly gliding across the paper like a ballerina dancing, or a bird drifting in the wind. Gabby was deep in thought as she took notes on a project she had privately been working on. Tabitha’s stern words pierced the air of the quiet building.
By Reilly Carter5 years ago in Humans
Godmother
The death of Keisha wasn’t a surprise, but rather a long awaited event. Keisha expired in the county hospital at 7:24 pm on February 24th, 2021 having succumbed to an illness she had been fighting for a little over two years. Two years, four months, and seven days to be exact−two weeks after she gave birth to Michael and started treating the stage 4 ovarian cancer found during a routine ultrasound in her first trimester. So, Keisha’s death did not simply mean that she shed her mortal coil, but she also shed her motherly duties and gave full parental control to Melissa, her best friend who had already been helping with Michael’s childcare throughout his entire twenty-eight months of life.
By Alena Malaika Asuma Otieno5 years ago in Humans
The Scarab Notebook
April was an ordinary girl. Every morning she woke up at 7:30am, an ordinary time to wake up she always thought, to the cry of whatever default alarm her iPhone came with. She would get dressed, in attires made of neither high-end retail nor charity shop items and head downstairs to have breakfast with her parents. At breakfast she would pour herself a bowl of Wheaties and add 1% skimmed milk. April had often asked to change the cereal, on account of its bland taste and boring character. However, no matter how well-constructed the request April’s Mom always responded the same way: "Wheaties! Helping you through ‘til lunch April!"
By JAMIE MCCLELLAND5 years ago in Humans
Catalonia
From the silence a gasp echoes though the dense sea air. Swaying on the large smooth waves a lone life raft is cradled by the sea, up and down, down and up, gently rocking, serene and hypnotic. The sea as mother. From the raft a man awakens and heaves forward towards the sky raising his arms as he grasps at the heavens, he screams, “I am blind”! The sea air has wrapped him in its cold embrace. A thick dark fog limits his vision to but a few inches. He mutters, “Am I dead”? Frantically he searches for vision as he gropes around him, seeing and hearing nothing. He freezes and holds his breath as fear overtakes him. “I must be dead”, a tear drips from his eye. Setting as stone, not moving, not breathing, not hearing, not seeing, he is, alone. Waiting, waiting, waiting, for an angel, or a monster, for Poseidon? His mind races as to what is next. His body begins to shiver, and he knows he is alive. Slowly, he hears his heavy breathing; then the gently lapping waves, but nothing else, only silence. Finally, his eyes begin to focus and slowly he can see his hands, then his arms, his torso, and then, he feels the pain. Pain shoots as a lightning bolt through his head to his toes and he cries out, “Lord”! ‘What have I done? Where am I”? ‘I don’t know”! The pain strikes again, pushing him forward, he writhes as he pulls his head forward so violently that he lands face first into the water that covers the rafts the thin cold floor.
By Timothy Kiser5 years ago in Humans
