literature
Whether written centuries ago or just last year, literary couples show that love is timeless.
Hooks
I walked out with my feet throbbing and my head banging from the music that surrounded each and every person. The lights made contact with my eyes almost instantly, and wincing as inevitable. Imagine waking up after a long surgery, and the light shines straight in your eyes. That was the feeling. My suede heels guided me through the hall towards the open door. I looked around at the timeless photos of parties of years before, weddings, anniversaries, and the occasional class reunion. As each photo got older, I could feel the rush of air blasting me from the winter weather outside. The bite of jack frost felt good as the sweat from dancing seemed to dry. My bandage dress was no match for the ice box feeling of the outdoors, but I wasn't trying to fight it. I made my way to the opening of the venue, and in front of me stood two dark oak doors that seemed like they weighed a million pounds. The designs of each door screamed "ancient" and "classical", something out of the manors of Downton Abbey. As I walked through these wooden behemoths, the chilliness seeped right into my body, the hot breath making little clouds out of my nose and mouth. The doors led right out onto stairs that showed me to a little path, surrounded by the snow and leaves that signify the transition of fall into a cold winter. It was calming, standing under the stars and breathing in the thin air that stung as it was inhaled. In that moment, I remembered why I had come out here in the first place. To run away from the person I could never have. Have you ever wanted something so bad, and known you could never have it? It makes you want the item all the more. Just like the one cookie before dinner or getting into your dream school when they want a 4.0 and you have a 3.0. That was this feeling. In that party there was a person who instantly filled my head, something about them drew me to them, and it wasn't something I could control. The way they strayed away from the crowd and I dove right into it. The way that I had to look up at them to get a real detailed look at their face. Even with my heels I had to take a step back and admire it. Then after, I remembered why I couldn't have them, and why I shouldn't want them. The hurt they caused me, and how they tried to catch the fish, caught it, and let it go before taking the hook out. I turned around and looked back at the building, the multi-color lights shining through the aged windows. The ground seemed to bounce along with the music. My eyes made my way to the Downton Abbey doors, and in the doorway stood a figure I didn't think I'd see. I stood back onto the snow in my heels as the figure made their way out as well. Crossing over to the opposite side of the entrance, they stepped onto the brick path and onto a cleared off bench. The figure sat down and took a deep breath, the big cloud of breath that formed in the air proved it. I slowly stepped back onto the path avoiding the lone sticks around my feet for fear of stepping on one and gaining attention from the loud crack. My feet made their way to the entrance without a glance from the figure. As I stepped onto the first step, I seemed to forget that high heels were possibly the loudest inventions in women footwear. The figure glanced over my way and realized they had company.
By Samantha Cabbil8 years ago in Humans
Evergreen
Chapter 1 “Do you like to dance, Mr. Darcy?” “Not if I can help it.” “No, Wil, no,” Dani ripped the remote out of my hand, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy were replaced by black screen with me looking back at myself lying face first on my couch in day old pajamas. “You can’t do this to yourself. It has been three weeks since that ass hat left. I will no longer stand by and watch you be depressed. I won’t do it. As your best friend I am responsible for your wellbeing after a break up.” I grunted and rolled myself off the couch.
By Jessica Briggs8 years ago in Humans
The Mock Life – Chapter Two
I'm home. I haven't even been out of the house that long and I feel like I've vanquished a great demon. I find my bed, I find my nook, and my head rests gently on the pillow and I feel comfortable. I sense her. Before she even says my name, before her stench wafts in, before she breaks in like the shittest cat robber ever. There she is, the overwhelming figure of matronliness (or lacking of) lurking at the end of my bed for the second time today. Two times more than I would have preferred. She tells me that Janet her therapist has told her that maybe that I need to hear she loves me more. The Thug began seeing a psych a couple of years ago when she self-diagnosed that she was having a midlife crisis, obviously only me, my father and Janet knew this. I'm aware I sound cold, but she's just really fucking annoying. Like if you don't know someone like her you just won't understand. So then she sits. She sits on the end of the bed, she asks me how my day way, feigns some general interest and then she blindsides me. We are not an open family, we don't have family meetings or discuss our feelings the closest we've ever got is when my great aunt Marie died and my dad gave me a quick hug and a pat on the back. We're not emotionless, we are just not like this. She asks me if I'm a virgin. I feel my jaw literally drop a little and my irises widen three centimetres. This is not what we talk about. This is not who we are. Even the Thug can recognise my disbelief and slight nausea.
By Ellen Brooking8 years ago in Humans
Toxicity
You exhaled. Your face is sunburned and freckled. I watch as the wind whirls your blue hair around, hitting your face like microfine whips. You smile at me, ripping grass out of the earth and watching it fly away. We are family, more like sisters than my own flesh and blood. Laying on my chest feeling roaring heat resonate on our skin, I have never felt more alive than when our hearts beat to the same rhythm.
By Alastor Kommer8 years ago in Humans
Reckless
Astrid sat cross legged on cement so cold it almost felt wet through her dark jeans. She tucked a strand of short, greasy black hair behind her ear as she sucked on a clove cigar, blowing out the smoke as slowly as her lungs would let her. The setting sun blurred the barren trees and brick buildings surrounding her, the textured walls seeming to stretch into the sky forever. She wondered what it would be like to climb them as she watched the smoke curl upward from her fingertips, slow and smooth as caramel, before the wind crept along and spread the wisps into nothingness.
By Kye Earley8 years ago in Humans
The Mock Life
Characteristically you deal with situations the way that has come before, the circular relationship between a child’s actions and the actions of the parents. If your father is an asshole, this leads to the assumption that you will eventually become an asshole yourself. I’m sure Freud suggested that we long for our parents in our romantic lives, but I believe we do not long to love them but long to become them, because familiarity breeds content and we as human truly only strive to be content. Maybe the world has made us this way, our lives dictated and regimented by the world we live in. The cavemen and the explorers strived for more; it never ended well. Explores killed civilizations with a simple sneeze and the cavemen were often killed or eaten alive. Why challenge your destiny, destiny will always claim its reward. Maybe because why strive for more, because we know subconsciously that the ones who strive for more become outsiders, the free spirit in a prison of contentment. You inevitably become the characters that guide you, you become not quite replicas but copies of what came before, you will never break the circle, because inevitably we all live in a circle of destiny and life. Second to the debilitating fate that your parents unknowingly cast upon you, you’re a creature of your circumstances, you live in a dead end town, then that dead end is all your fated for. Your father is an investment banker, then you inevitably will become an investment banker, this is obviously if you’ve chosen not to become a "boy of the world"; a term coined to represent the rich boy (but not exclusively male) that chooses to cast his good fortune on the children of Africa, believing that his "generosity" will help them in there eternal struggle. Until he ultimately gets bored and goes back to table service in Mayfair. I myself fall somewhere between the two, not quite terminally unemployed but nowhere above a solid office job that will make me redundant at the tender age of 43, where I fall into crippling debt but refuse to sell the Mercedes that I bought second hand five years before. We’re all destined for a fate predetermined by the great all mighty lord or by the bank, characteristically limited to a life we know that will be unrewarding but will keep a roof above our heads and food in out stomachs.
By Ellen Brooking8 years ago in Humans
The Great Dive
I sat on the smooth, flat edge of the cliff and gazed out into the sea. My bronze hair tumbled haphazardly in the cool breeze. It was an unseasonably cold day for early July, and I could feel the goosebumps rising off my skin. The clouds were a deep silver gray, a colour that I would have fallen in love with if it didn’t so perfectly match my mood. I could appreciate nothing in this state of mind.
By Athena Maverick8 years ago in Humans
The Urban Sleeplessness
The city, Toronto, never sleeps. In the darkest hours of the night it breathes and lives like an animal. But at night life takes on a new image, shadowed and mysterious. The darkness fills in the city, like a plague, giving it an entirely new sense of existence. It is as if stepping into a parallel universe.
By Amanda Rose8 years ago in Humans
The Back Door
If I were to write a story, I would write about the safé on the corner of Lupus and Flitcroft Street. It probably has an actual name but I don’t know what it is. I don’t like it all that much. Its walls are of a sickly lime green colour and the chairs are hard, modern and white. I also don’t drink coffee, but if I did, I certainly wouldn’t drink it there. They always buy the cheapest brand and then the whole café stinks like someone died in there. But no one really cares. I usually drink orange juice. The oranges are good; they get them from a nearby market, so it’s not some cheap stuff out of a box.
By Felicity Jade Lawrence8 years ago in Humans
Autumn and Winter Romance
I met Robert on Halloween in 2015. I was dressed head-to-toe in early twentieth century clothing as a vampire who could not bring herself to dress in modern fashion. I was particularly proud of myself because I had managed to spend less than five hundred dollars on the costume, which I could use for multiple purposes outside of Halloween. I was also the most fancily dressed at the Halloween party — that was, until Robert walked in the room.
By Colleen Sweeney8 years ago in Humans
