Write a random short story!

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The man in the London trench stepped out of the subway train as it came to a stop. Slowly, but surely, he took out a cigarette and lit it, smoking it as he walked through the empty subway. Taking a flight of stairs to the streets above, he dumped the cigarette in a trash bin, and continued walking. The job was simple: get the folder, get it back.
“We don’t care about what happens in-between,” the clients said.
The trenchcoat man called for a taxi, asked the fat, balding driver to drop him off at Grand Central. He could tell by the look on the cabbie's face that he didn't enjoy his work. The trenchcoat man was paid more; he had no need for financial worries. There was no music during the drive. Only silence.

Arriving at Grand Central, the man in the London trenchcoat made his way to the safety deposit boxes. They were huddled together in a tiny, narrow hall; more private than the main ones. He had the locker and the number committed to memory. Finding it would be easy. And sure enough, he did, along with a surprise. There was another man in a London trenchcoat, standing at the box and trying to hack it open. The first man in the London came to a stop, cleared his throat. The second man in the London froze, then turned his head to his right.

Sweat leaking through the pores of his head, he asked "Who sent yo..."

Suddenly, there was a thump. For the second man, everything went black.

The first man stood over the second. A bullet in the right eye, crimson water spreading throughout the floor.

The first man said: "Sam Peckinpah, that's who."

The snow was different this year.
As it fell, it outlined everything in a fine translucent covering, showing only the shadows of objects underneath.
First the ground was covered. Next, low-growing plants and small animals were enclosed. This continued until even the tallest buildings were spun in hard cocoons of frost.
Then there was only silence, and white statues that showed the shadows of living forms and their dwellings.
The stillness continued through the winter.

It was the day before spring. The skies turned green, and this would have been a sign had anyone been left to see signs.
Everything was still. Then, in the middle of the day, a single hailstone fell. It landed on a small plant, a weed, encased in its ice cocoon.
The ice broke, and nothing was left but transparent shards, no trace of the once-living leaves.

The hail continued to fall.

He couldn't remember the last time he had forgotten what she looked like.  "November third.". She said.  "It was a tuesday.  You just ate a burrito."

"Oh yeah..." he said gazing at the newspaper.  And then suddenly "I'm sorry, what was that?"

"The green paint chips..." she said.  To anyone else it would have meant nothing.  To him, it was the whole novel, complete with footnotes.  That subtle way she pressed her index finger into his palm as they held hands.  The faint whistle as she sucked in the cold winter air between her teeth in January just after she told him about the pregnancy.  And that dull, chalky green of the paint chips...

He looked back into his paper and pretended not to know what she was talking about.

Every day in Los Angeles seems to be different for me, but not today. It was time to head to work, to the high school where I taught English. 5am was almost NEVER fun for me; I've never been a morning person.
First a shower, make sure I am meticulously clean; then breakfast........ which I cook myself. It's something I teach myself daily, and have been for years. Of course, before I go, I always make sure everything is turned off, my teaching supplies are there, and my glasses are alright. Good.

It's about 6:30am, and then I see my whole staff say hi to me. They all know me. No one is there yet but us staff, but that will change in an instant. People to teach, to talk to. it's just part of my day.

_________________
LIONS-STAMPEDERS-ELKS-ROUGHRIDERS-BLUE BOMBERS-TIGER-CATS-ARGONAUTS-REDBLACKS-ALOUETTES

The Canadian Football League - What We're Made Of

Feel free to talk to me, if you wish.

Every day is a gift- cherish it!

"A true, true friend helps a friend in need."

There were razor butterflies. They flitted across people's skin and sliced them open. But the butterflies were covered in bright colours that shone in the sun, so they were beautiful. They filled the air.
The cotton thread industry thrived. The iron supplements industry thrived. The minor surgery industry thrived.
One day, everyone stopped treating their cuts. Their wounds all festered.
The butterflies were still beautiful.

It was just another Friday night in this north Florida college-town. Classes done, exams passed or failed. Tight and toned fraternity boys pursuing girls dressed in their finest drag that took them only four hours to put together, down the city's main street lit by neon globes that painted the town in vibrant colours of red and blue, pink and green. And with a group of friends in an apartment preparing cocktails that would get us to where we wanted to be, is where I found myself before you danced into my life.

It was one of those falling dreams. He awoke with the sudden lurch and he twisted in the air, trying to catch himself. The blanket tangled around his feet and in the darkness and he reached down to pull it away. As he opened his eyes, he could see the glint of the sun appear above above the horizon, but then it quickly spun away.

"Well, that doesn't make sense," he thought.

The falling lurch eased in his stomach, but he could feel a sharp rush of air around him. This wasn't how he was accustomed to waking. Still disoriented with the fog of sleep, he looked around. The world was spinning below him. This wasn't a dream. He was falling and falling and falling. And then this bit of wisdom occurred to him, perhaps a day too late; "Don't get drunk and then go pissing off the sky diving pilot."

It felt like she had been running for days. She had wrenched her knee a mile back where the hard path had given way to the soft, decaying dirt of a small hill eaten through with gopher burrows. Now she could only heave her body forward, hoping her legs would stay under her despite the pain. She ducked her head to pass under the low, grasping branches of a near dead tree. Her hair caught in the gnarled fingers and ripped out at the roots. She gasped from the pain, but this was beyond crying out in rage and frustration. There was nothing left to do but run.

He had been watching her through binoculars as she wove back and forth ignoring the path. She disapeared into the grove but soon reappeared, still struggling. Maybe she was stronger. Maybe she was just more afraid. Whatever the reason, she had kept running far longer than he ever would. And despite her pain, it looked like it would be a while before she succumed to exhaustion. The terrain didn't leave her with many options, so he could predict the path she'd most likely take. That would make the job a bit easier.

She stopped briefly as she heard the truck start up. She couldn't see it and she couldn't quite decern where the sound had come from. Maybe she would be able to hear it drive away. She waited.

Nothing.

She was standing in an open field, fully exposed to anyone with a rifle or a net. The manzanita covered hills left few options if she needed to move fast. She might be able to crawl under their cover, but that left her trapped if they spotted her. And it was pretty likely there was someone watching her right now.

“Why even run?” she thought. “Why not let them get me now?” Even if she escaped this time, she would always be running. Every night of sleep was another risk that they'd get to her. Every day would be a careful dance of to guess who she could trust and who would betray her. And even those she trusted would probably betray her eventually. The temptations were too great.

There was only one path through the hills. They knew she'd have to take it. She couldn't go back. She was the fox in the hunt and the dogs where coming up from behind. The situation was pointless. Die now. Get it over with. There is a point at which you just have to say “this is enough.”

Once she might have cried at the thought, but now she just felt drained. She wasn't terrified anymore. She just wanted all of this to end. She turned and looked into the arid hills behind her. There was no sympathy there. It was as if they regarded her as a curriosity. “Die or live,” they seemed to say. She scanned the hills, looking for a hunter. Did they see her or had they moved on, waiting for her to run in the only direction she could?

Before she realized she meant to do it, she sat on the ground and fell limp with the ache of exhaustion. This was giving up, and it felt okay. “I can live with this,” she thought and then smiled to herself at the irony. It felt good to know that she had made the choice of when it would end. She closed her eyes and for the moment it was peaceful and quiet.

She reacted to a series of sounds and she didn't really know if it started with the cracking of twigs, the roar of an engine or the sound of the door opening. It really didn't matter. It was a hunter and she was on her feet and running before she really even understood what she had heard.

She ran and despite the pain, despite the certainty that this would all end with her in a broken and bloody heap, she ran.

There's the gun right there on the table. If you are fast, you could pick it up, aim and fire. Problem solved. This is what you're facing. Do you go for the gun or do you wait and see?

He's sitting there across from you, fat, but muscled. You thought you could out maneuver his corpulent ass and now you are in this situation where maybe he's going to kill you and maybe he's just enjoying this game of mental torture. He steeples his fingers and swings the chair around so he isn't quite facing you just to show he's that fast... He doesn't have to be on his guard and he'll still get to the gun faster than you. Anyway, that's what he wants you to think.

And if he's playing a game, maybe you can have the upper hand. Just play along with him, but play smarter and better. You've never had confidence before. You've been bullied a lot and every time you just back down. You didn't even try to fight. But now your options are limited. If you don't take a stand now, you just might die. But then you fall back to what you've always thought: if I do nothing, maybe I can get out of this alive.

"It's a confidence game," you think. "The only power he has over me is that he is certain he can beat me." We'll, what if you are certain you can beat him? Even if it means lying to yourself? What if, by lying to your self, you can create a truth that had not existed until the lie made it real?

You relax yourself, turn and stand up from the chair.

"Sit the f**k back down," he yells. He swings his fatness toward you and reaches for the gun. You turn and start walking toward the door, not because you are so confident, but because you can't afford to let him see the fear that grips every part of you. You keep walking.

"Are you f*****g stupid?" He yells. And that's when you know you've won. If he wasn't afraid himself, he'd have already shot you. You open the door and walk outside.

And then you run like hell!

The light came on in the window across the courtyard. I could see a figure moving inside but couldn't say whether it was a man or a woman, young or old. The person paced for a few minutes then turned off the main light, leaving only the blue flicker of a television show. In windows of the apartment directly below and four windows to the left came the same blue flicker; the same program playing to separate viewers.

The apartments where I live are cold and dank. The sun only grudgingly shines and even when it does, most of the building still seems to remain in shadow. A kind of grey-brown moss grows on most of the walls causing a slow decay that the landlord claims one day he will repair. And perhaps there is no rush.

Many people live here and yet we all abide by the same unspoken agreement to keep our greetings brief and non-committal. Without knowing why, I always felt it impolite to say anything more than a swallowed "g'morning" or "afternoon." It is customary to ride the elevator looking only at the green lit floor indicator. To ask "what floor, ma'am" was an imposition not to be borne.

So when the woman in the floral dress arrived, there was a trembling agitation that spread throughout the complex. She was fat and lively, loud and carried with her an unbroken smile.

"Hiya. What floor do you live on?" I could hear her almost shout to someone in the lobby. I stopped and pretended to be interested in a small stack of free newspapers that had been left just outside the door. I picked the top one off the pile and though it had not rained recently, the paper was limp and damp. I couldn't hear the neighbor's response. Perhaps it didn't matter; the woman in the floral dress chatted on loudly and at length ignoring the custom of our buildings to leave each other in peace.

That night I watched the same set of TV flickers from the same set of dimmed windows. The figure stood in the window for some time. I couldn't tell if it was looking out into the courtyard or standing with its back to it. Then after a while, it shuffled away, doused the light of the television and left the window dark.

But now in the window was the on off rhythmic pulse of red, green, yellow and blue lights. I thought at first that it came from inside the room, but upon a closer look saw that it was the reflection of something above my own apartment. I leaned my head out the window and looking up, i saw the short string of christmas lights surrounding a window. The gaudy display bothered me and I felt that it must be against some building code. But as much as I disliked it, I could think of no ordinance against it.

I told myself I could ignore it. But I found that if I arranged my favorite chair at the angle I best liked and sat down to read, the insistent pulse of the lights would yank at my attention. I pulled down the blind, but that left my apartment feeling closed and small. Furthermore, although the lights no longer itched at my attention, I knew they were there and that was enough.

The whole thing bothered me, maybe more so because I tried to not let it do so. I could see the argument from the other side. What was wrong in the display of a little color? Why should it bother me? I had no answer except that it did bother me and that those lights must be taken down.

Those lights had come with the woman in the floral dress. Although I knew I had no right to impose my own rules over her, I felt that both the lights and she must go away.

I did not want to speak to her, but there was no alternative. When I wanted to avoid her, she seemed to be everywhere, but now that I actively sought her out, she was nowhere to be found. Once I heard her talking, loudly as usual, but when I turned the corner into the hall, all I could see were the elevator doors closing on her voice. Even then I heard the ringing twang of her words rising up through the building.

I had little luck in discussing the problem with her so the next night, chose a different tactic. I walked out across the courtyard and looked up at the lights. They continued to flash in a visual equivalent of a late night car alarm that the owner cannot be bothered to get out of bed and shut off. At the far end of the path, an older man carrying two shopping bags slowly made his way toward me. I stood, arms akimbo, looking up at the offense to the population of the apartment building. As the man approached, I quickly glanced at him, expecting a brief look up at the lights and and silent, but knowing acknowledgment that this had to go. To my surprise, he continued past with no look nor comment.

"Hello, neighbor!" I looked up and she was standing in the window, surrounded by her halo of christmas lights, looking down at me. I was mortified, but there is a delicate and undeniable code of conduct one obeys with neighbors. I gave a clipped smile and half of a wave and quickly walked back toward my building before she had a chance to engage in further conversation.

I was sick for most of the next week and stayed in my apartment. Mostly I tried to sleep, but I was too often awakened by slamming doors and the too loud vacuum cleaner in the hallway outside. As I lie in my bed at night, I knew those lights were pulsing away around a window two floors above. "It shouldn't bother me," I thought, but not seeing them almost made the problem worse.

After I recovered, I resolved to confront the woman as quickly as possible. I waited in the hall, near the elevator. I didn't know her schedule. I didn't even know if she were to sort of person to keep a schedule. But I would wait until I saw her and I would say "Ma'am, we have standards here." I would be polite, but direct. The issue needed to be resolved.

But she was no where to be found.

At first I was angry that she should waste my time like this. I had better things to do than to stand around, waiting for her. And then I started to worry. I had been sick. What if she too had become ill, but had not recovered? What if she were lying in her apartment, unable to help herself. I didn't like her loudly insistent voice or the colors that seemed to swirl around her like leaves caught in a autumn wind. She was everything I was not and the whole of her personality seemed like a reddened sore on the grey complex of buildings. Yet now that I couldn't find her, instead of being happy, I was anxious to the point of distraction.

That night, I walked out into the courtyard. The lights, glaring and harsh as they might be, would give me some comfort in suggesting that I would run into her eventually. But there were no lights. Perhaps I had mis-judged where her apartment was. No. I knew it to be two floors directly above my own. The christmas lights had been taken down. And yet christmas had yet to come and go. What other reason but that she had died?

I ran into the building and up the stairway. It was unheard of, but I found her apartment and knocked loudly. There was a long pause and then a scraping sound from behind me. The door opposite opened a crack and a weathered face glared out at me.

"Do you know what happened to the woman who lived in this apartment?" I asked, indicating the florally dressed woman's door?

"Moved away." the person grumbled.

"Where?" I almost cried. The watery eyes gazed out at me for a moment and the with no further answer, the door shut with a sucking rush of air and again I was alone in the hall.

I walked slowly toward the stairs feeling as if the wind had been knocked from me. It made no sense. I should be happy. She wasn't sick or dead. She'd just moved away. Didn't like the place, I guessed. Fair enough. I didn't like her lights and her floral dress and her too loud voice or all the other little things that left me irritable and annoyed when she was around.

That was when I fell to the floor, overcome with exhaustion. I wept. What did I care about sense? I felt a loss that I couldn't explain unless my heart was broken. I looked down the grey hallway toward the elevators at the far end. The bell rang to announce the arrival of a car and the green light came on as the doors opened. It was empty. But the green light gave me the smallest hope and I picked myself up and walked down to my apartment.

I looked out the window and the light came on in the apartment across the way. The figure moved into view. I couldn't tell if the person were looking out or not, but I raised my hand just slightly in the most tentative of waves. I couldn't be sure, but maybe I saw the figure wave back. After a moment the light went off and the flicker of the television was left as the only sign that there was anyone there at all.

Rumpolo was a real man.

Big and hairy. A bear. A bit fat, but in a good way. She was a bit fat too and she liked that about herself. Her friends said all she needed to do was lose a few pounds and she'd be real pretty. But she liked the pillowy softness of her breasts, the heft of her thighs, the rounded shapes of her hands. And she liked Rumpolo's belly. It stuck out and protruded above his belt and under his tee-shirt. They were both a bit fat. Not too much. Just enough.

But Rumpolo was married to some bone thin rail of a shrew. And Blossom wasn't exactly single herself, although married wasn't what she was either. She never officially told Mort she was dating him… she just didn't deny it when he told his friends they were a couple. And so, while she knew it wasn't quite right, she allowed herself to consider Rumpolo's belly as something she might rub and press up against and kiss playfully. And yes, Mort would be hurt, but really, she hadn't said they were dating. She hadn't made promises. Not really.

But what was in Rumpolo's mind? What was the character and quality of Rumpolo's love for her? Could their love over come the narrow opinions of others? And surely Rumpolo's wife could not be hurt as she clearly did not love her husband, the old, brittle voiced harpy. Yes, she'd be angry the way a rich man who has lost all his money rages against the injustices of the stock market, but would she have real emotions…? No. No she wouldn't.

So Blossom waited, seated on her favorite park bench across the street from Rumpolo's auto shop. She liked watching him work. She liked sitting in the shade on a warm day, watching him lean over into the engine of a truck or roll himself under a car. She had come to like the dark smears of oil and its smell, that rich, acrid burnt aroma. She liked to watch him move around the cars with an agility that belied his densely rounded middle. She just liked watching him because she knew, despite his protestations of shyness and being married and all, that in his heart, he yearned for her.

What was it she was waiting for? Certainty. She felt in her heart that he secretly loved her, but was too good a man, too faithful to give full license to his passions and desires. And because she felt it, it must be true. Feelings, more than any fact, was what defined the world. All she needed to do was look across the street at him and feel his love emanating toward her. But for all the fact that she knew, without a doubt, how he really felt, she feared Rumpolo himself was unaware of his own feelings. If she were too direct, if she spoke of her love for him, his own love might explode too forcefully, frightening him and forcing him to scurry back to his foolish commitment to that rodent of a wife.

He was a stout hearted man, but like all men, he was a child when it came to emotions. He had locked them away, pretended not to be affected for so long that he lacked experience. He was a real man, but he didn't know what to do with love. And that's what Blossom had been born for. She had come into this world to show him, Rumpolo, what his love was meant for.

She wasn't physically strong. Yes, she was stronger than many women, but she was still a woman and she didn't have the strength she needed. That's what the ether was for. And the ropes. And she felt sure she could get him into the car once he was unconscious. She had found a good book on knot tying at the library and felt she had learned enough that if he had not yet understood the full nature of the love they could share, he would be restrained enough to give him the time he needed to do so.

So Blossom sat and watched the man of her dreams and smiled quietly to herself as she wondered what sort of things he liked to eat and if she would be able to prepare his favorite meals once they were a couple.

The city lay desolate, ravaged by the foe. The aged seer who had seen it all coming and tried to warn the authorities emerged from the shattered prison cell in which he had bee placed for his pains. He wept bitterly, wishing that he had been wrong.