fiction

Franklin, I was absolutely terrified of having a child. Before I got pregnant, my visions of child rearing- reading stories about cabooses with smiley faces at bedtime, feeding glop into slack mouths- all seemed like pictures of someone else. I dreaded confrontation with what could prove a closed, stony nature, my own selfishness and lack of generosity, the thick tarry powers of my own resentment. However intrigued by a __urn of the page,_ I was mortified by the prospect of becoming hopelessly trapped in someone else__ story. And I believe that this terror is precisely what must have snagged me, the way a ledge will tempt one to jump off. The very surmountability of the task, its very unattractiveness , was in the end what attracted me to it. (32)

Can you imagine how many people got laid in here?" Abby said, walking to the other side of the Jacuzzi.

You know that euphemism, she__ expecting? It__ apt. The birth of a baby, so long as it__ healthy, is something to look forward to. It__ a good thing, a big, good, huge event. And from thereon in, every good things, too,_ I added hurriedly, __ut also, you know, first steps, first dates, first places in sack races. Kids, they graduate, they marry, they have kids themselves- in a way, you get to do everything twice. Even if our kid had problems,_ I supposed idiotically, __t least they wouldn__ be our same old problems... _ (22)

Or you just might say that destiny finally caught up with me.

I had a lump in my throat the size of a bundt cake pan.

The days I__ passed with my mom before she died were still there, it seemed, seared into the corners of my heart.The atmosphere of the station brought it all back. I could see myself running to the hospital, glad to be seeing my mother again. You never know you__e happy until later. Because physical sensations like smells and exhaustion don__ figure into our memories, I guess. Only the good bits bob up into view.I was always startled by the snatches of memory that I saw as happy, how they came.This time, it was the feeling I got when I stepped out onto the platform. The sense of what it had been like to be on my way to see my mom, for her still to be alive, if only for the time being, if only for that day. The happiness of that knowledge had come back to life inside me.And the loneliness of that moment. The helplessness.

Danilo's was the kind of place where many drinking men come to hide, be it from their wives, in-laws, their jobs or life in general. it was where men and women can come to drink poison as if it was the only form of medicine available to remedy the migraine headache called life. The lighting dim and secluded, mostly covering the tables, counters and the door to the bathroom. The walls were decorated in decades of memories, favorite sports teams and other miscellaneous decor that was typical of small bars such as this one. It was too dark to tell what they were from a distance. There was a thick layer of smoke hovering in the air around the ceiling lights, the place was smothered in it but was strongest above everyone's heads. The smell was the classic stale bar odor of cigarettes and cheap cigars.

I beam back at her. Fuck the surgery, fuck the kids, fuck the men in our lives or no longer in our lives. This is sweet. When she catches up with me, I say, How many, just how many forty-plus women would do that?We gaze back up at the face bleeding into the chute we__e just skied. We *did* that, I crow. Someone should love us just for that. --Hangfire

I told you; I am Arianna, the Siren, your Guardian, and how is a Guardian supposed to do her job if she is clueless about the Guardianee?

You are the belle of the ball tonight._ He said as he moved in closer. __ow can you be so sinfully beautiful Mrs. Norman?

She snorted in amusement at my remark. __hen are the guards going to start to notice?_ Keith peered into the distance. __tarting now,

No,_ I said. __ can__ remember doing this.___h,_ Rena made and gestured dramatically. __ou don__ remember it. And that automatically means you didn__ do it?

The audience-- the book's actual cast-- quickly realized what had happened. The reason the movie dropped everything that made the novel real was because there was no way the parents who ran the studio would ever expose their children in the same black light the book did. The movie was begging for our sympathy whereas the book didn't give a shit. And attitudes about drugs and sex had shifted quickly from 1985 to 1987 (and a regime change at the studio didn't help) so the source material-- surprisingly conservative despite its surface immorality-- had to be reshaped.

Allegedly, allegedly I say, the R.G.A. were extremely miffed of portrait painted of their monarch, King Tingaling XX, by Master. Portrait apparently, as it__ yet t__e unveiled, depicts King Tingaling XX in rather compromisin_ position with a pineapple, a wad of cash and his favourite pig, Buttercup.

The monkey liked most humans. They left food cans outside their homes for his family to rummage through in the morningsun. Some yelled and threw sticks, but were slow and didn__ bite. Humans were mostly harmless.

Kids never jumped head first from the top ledge. Never. It seemed forever beforeStoney came back to the surface. Most of the white bubbles had already disappeared.

Quinn froze. There was nothing he could do now that would not be a mistake. Whatever choice he made--and he had to make a choice--would be arbitrary, a submission to chance. Uncertainty would haunt him to the end. At that moment, the two Stillmans started on their way again. The first turned right, the second turned left. Quin craved an amoeba's body, wanting to cut himself in half and run off in two directions at once. (Chapter 7)

I touched his face. "Look," I said. "I love you more than everything else in the world combined. Isn't that enough?" "Yes, it is enough," he answered, smiling. "Enough for forever.