literature
Whether written centuries ago or just last year, literary couples show that love is timeless.
A Harmonious Encounter
Maggie hastily jotted down the rest of the sentence in her little black notebook. She had found her groove, and the words had just been flowing today. The girl could barely get them written down fast enough. It was closing in on dinner time, though, and she still had to make the walk back home. She glanced over the page and nodded before closing the book and stuffing the pen into her pocket. She took out her phone and put in her headphones before pushing play. “The Rocky Road to Dublin” by The Dropkick Murphys kicked in the headphones as she stood up and headed out of the woods towards the trail.
By Anthony Crutcher5 years ago in Humans
Roach
The coffee was cold and burnt. A gritty drizzle of charcoal lingered at the bottom of the mug with “Worlds Greatest Dad.” in large red text on the side. Lenny’s lips cracked and flaked as he opened his mouth and emptied the bitter dregs onto his tongue. His large thumb flicked through the pages of the black notebook. Grey ash collected in the corners of his knuckles and joints of his fingers, glowing against his brown skin under the dimmed kitchen lamp. The pages ripped through the air one by one until the notebook closed for it’s 37th time.
By Mesha Mcneil5 years ago in Humans
A favor for a friend
It wasn’t unusual for Billy to show up at 3 in the morning. That was the sort of thing he did all the time. It wasn’t even strange for him to show up beaten and bloody. Billy had a bad habit of getting into fights. It was a normal night for Billy. When he said I was the only one he could trust, that’s when things got weird. He handed me a little black notebook and whispered, “in case anything happens to me…you’ll know what to do with it.” As he turned to leave, he stopped in his tracks just long enough to say, “it’s a sure thing.” And then he was gone. I was still thinking about what he said the next morning when a mutual friend called to tell me that Billy was dead. Murdered. Floating in the river. I didn’t need any coffee to wake me up that morning. A million thoughts were going through my head as I took my first look at the notebook.
By Robert Austin5 years ago in Humans
The Misrepresentation of a Wild Thing.
The man painted himself in all the wrong colours. He drowned his thoughts in whiskey and found his mirky likeness in the bottom of a glass. He got in quarrels and woke in foggy mornings, with a mirror of black and blue remember me bye’s, hiding his true features behind their inky stains. He rarely bathed, sitting in a bath seemed like a rotten thing to him, his black hair course and matted against his skin like some unwanted dog, though this man had house and home. Apathy soaked the room, drenching into the curtains and the walls, staining their colours grey. That same shade dripped its colours into the foundations of the house in tiny little percussions, like rain that causes the wood to rot and mellow, so that as he walked across the floorboards it fawned beneath his weight and he heard those same doubts creaking back at him, as if they were a real thing, a noise of the world and not a product of his own imagining. You see our man had fallen into the worst of sicknesses, the belief that he was a worthless thing.
By Marius Van Den Berg5 years ago in Humans
20k
Sal’s been sitting in his chair since he woke up today. Though there are no less than a dozen things he could be doing, he hasn’t found the motivation for any of it. The apartment has been so quiet, aside from the squeak of his rotating computer chair. Soon, the realization that his roommate also hasn’t made a sound hits Sal.
By Martin Maldonado5 years ago in Humans
Deliver Us
The club was dead, and I wasn’t surprised. Anytime there’s a major sporting event, the club is dead. To pump myself up, I hid in the dressing room and listened to the Lion King soundtrack. When I came back out into the strobe lights and deafening music, they had arrived. I moved past the glittering bodies--no glimmering (never glitter, you could get sent home) bodies as quickly and gracefully as I could. Even though I can run pretty well in heels, no one likes a desperate stripper, and nothing screams desperate more than a 6-foot glamazon running at you.
By Sayoni Nyakoon5 years ago in Humans
Damp Fire
On the first day of my life as Maria Garcia, they told me skin was fish food for days, but the baby was safe. Smoke enough tobacco, and you'd have heaven itself smelling like your local pub; that was precisely what Doctor Jones did wherever he went, and on that day, the first day of my life as Maria, he chose to satiate the ashtray by my hospital bed. Oh, I knew I ought to be used to the smell of wet cigarette ends--I knew some things I know I always knew. And thus, as Doctor Jones carried on narrating how the kind fishermen of Carmarthen spotted my body floating along the shore where Laugharne Castle stood, I knew I missed out on something somewhere. Doctor Jones told me how among suitcases, champagne bottles, jewelry boxes, hardbound books, leather-bound notebooks, hollow ceramic icons of gods and saints, cans of Pepsi-Cola, cigar cases, and shards of the plane I went down with, my belly swelled out to the chill and seagulls. My hands got nibbled to the bone, so they couldn't know if I had a ring.
By T.M. García-Reiș5 years ago in Humans
The Second Death of Mr Arlington-Locke
Olive Arlington-Locke was four years old when her father died for the first time. Her family lived in Edinburgh at the top of a Victorian townhouse, in an apartment tastefully decorated by her psychologist mother. It had been a straightforward accident: a shifting of space, a window mistaken for a mirror, and a fall. After the funeral, the neighbours across the hall had gifted them a vegan casserole. It had sat, stubbornly, on the kitchen counter for ten days before its own burial in the food waste bin. Olive remembers watching the progression of decay on its mealy surface and imagining her father succumbing to the same process.
By Laura Croenen5 years ago in Humans
Copi
They pushed her off the cliff. All assuming she had fallen to her death, the crowd dismantled. No one waited long enough to see that she had survived properly. The fall was fierce. Instant gushes of wind maneuvering her flow for landing, hair as velvety as can be; she thumped. Into a head of lions feasting on an already dead body for supper, she thumped. “Oof”, murmured Copi as she slowly scurried away from the herd. No blood pierced through a pore on her flesh of fate. The lions were too consumed thrashing into the flesh of another, Copi managed to crawl out from under. During her escape, she saw a little black book. Drenched in blood, it embraced Copi’s intrigue to grab it swiftly and run.
By Maude Carruthers5 years ago in Humans
The search
Past It’s the 1800’s . A woman who was once married to a very rich man is now a widow. When her husband dies, she inherits his wealth, something that angers his relatives. For the rest of her life, she fights against his greedy family and before she dies, she hides all the money. She never marries again, fearing suitors are only interested in acquiring her fortune.
By Becantie Kouame5 years ago in Humans
