Waves

The wave crashed and hit the sandcastle head-on. The sandcastle began to melt under
the waves force and as the wave receded, half the sandcastle was gone. The next
wave hit, not quite as strong, but still managed to cover the remains of the
sandcastle and take more of it away. The third wave, a big one, crashed over the
sandcastle completely covering and engulfing it. When it receded, there was no
trace the sandcastle ever existed and hours of hard work disappeared forever.
It had been her dream for years but Dana had failed to take any action toward
making it come true. There had always been a good excuse to delay or prioritize
another project. As she woke, she realized she was once again at a crossroads.
Would it be another excuse or would she finally find the courage to pursue her
dream? Dana rose and took her first step.
There was little doubt that the bridge was unsafe. All one had to do was look at it
to know that with certainty. Yet Bob didn't see another option. He may have been
able to work one out if he had a bit of time to think things through, but time was
something he didn't have. A choice needed to be made, and it needed to be made
quickly.
He heard the crack echo in the late afternoon about a mile away. His heart started
racing and he bolted into a full sprint. "It wasn't a gunshot, it wasn't a
gunshot," he repeated under his breathlessness as he continued to sprint.
He knew what he was supposed to do. That had been apparent from the beginning. That
was what made the choice so difficult. What he was supposed to do and what he would
do were not the same. This would have been fine if he were willing to face the
inevitable consequences, but he wasn't.
What have you noticed today? I noticed that if you outline the eyes, nose, and
mouth on your face with your finger, you make an "I" which makes perfect sense, but
is something I never noticed before. What have you noticed today?
He sat staring at the person in the train stopped at the station going in the
opposite direction. She sat staring ahead, never noticing that she was being
watched. Both trains began to move and he knew that in another timeline or in
another universe, they had been happy together.
The trees, therefore, must be such old and primitive techniques that they thought
nothing of them, deeming them so inconsequential that even savages like us would
know of them and not be suspicious. At that, they probably didn't have too much
time after they detected us orbiting and intending to land. And if that were true,
there could be only one place where their civilization was hidden.
There was something in the tree. It was difficult to tell from the ground, but
Rachael could see movement. She squinted her eyes and peered in the direction of
the movement, trying to decipher exactly what she had spied. The more she peered,
however, the more she thought it might be a figment of her imagination. Nothing
seemed to move until the moment she began to take her eyes off the tree. Then in
the corner of her eye, she would see the movement again and begin the process of
staring again.
There was something beautiful in his hate. It wasn't the hate itself as it was a
disgusting display of racism and intolerance. It was what propelled the hate and
the fact that although he had this hate, he didn't understand where it came from.
It was at that moment that she realized that there was hope in changing him.
Debbie put her hand into the hole, sliding her hand down as far as her arm could
reach. She wiggled her fingers hoping to touch something, but all she felt was air.
She shifted the weight of her body to try and reach an inch or two more down the
hole. Her fingers still touched nothing but air.
He watched as the young man tried to impress everyone in the room with his
intelligence. There was no doubt that he was smart. The fact that he was more
intelligent than anyone else in the room could have been easily deduced, but nobody
was really paying any attention due to the fact that it was also obvious that the
young man only cared about his intelligence.
She sat in the darkened room waiting. It was now a standoff. He had the power to
put her in the room, but not the power to make her repent. It wasn't fair and no
matter how long she had to endure the darkness, she wouldn't change her attitude.
At three years old, Sandy's stubborn personality had already bloomed into full
view.
The alarm went off and Jake rose awake. Rising early had become a daily ritual, one
that he could not fully explain. From the outside, it was a wonder that he was able
to get up so early each morning for someone who had absolutely no plans to be
productive during the entire day.
Josh had spent year and year accumulating the information. He knew it inside out
and if there was ever anyone looking for an expert in the field, Josh would be the
one to call. The problem was that there was nobody interested in the information
besides him and he knew it. Years of information painstakingly memorized and sorted
with not a sole giving even an ounce of interest in the topic.
The wolves stopped in their tracks, sizing up the mother and her cubs. It had been
over a week since their last meal and they were getting desperate. The cubs would
make a good meal, but there were high risks taking on the mother Grizzly. A
decision had to be made and the wrong choice could signal the end of the pack.
Dave found joy in the daily routine of life. He awoke at the same time, ate the
same breakfast and drove the same commute. He worked at a job that never seemed to
change and he got home at 6 pm sharp every night. It was who he had been for the
last ten years and he had no idea that was all about to change.
She looked at her little girl who was about to become a teen. She tried to think
back to when the girl had been younger but failed to pinpoint the exact moment when
she had become a little too big to pick up and carry. It hit her all at once. She
was no longer a little girl and she stood there speechless with fear, sadness, and
pride all running through her at the same time.
Eating raw fish didn't sound like a good idea. "It's a delicacy in Japan," didn't
seem to make it any more appetizing. Raw fish is raw fish, delicacy or not.
The box sat on the desk next to the computer. It had arrived earlier in the day and
business had interrupted her opening it earlier. She didn't who had sent it and
briefly wondered who it might have been. As she began to unwrap it, she had no idea
that opening it would completely change her life.
He couldn't move. His head throbbed and spun. He couldn't decide if it was the flu
or the drinking last night. It was probably a combination of both.
She asked the question even though she didn't really want to hear the answer. It
was a no-win situation since she already knew. If he told the truth, she'd get
confirmation of her worst fears. If he lied, she'd know that he wasn't who she
thought he was which would be almost as bad. Yet she asked the question anyway and
waited for his answer.
As she sat watching the world go by, something caught her eye. It wasn't so much
its color or shape, but the way it was moving. She squinted to see if she could
better understand what it was and where it was going, but it didn't help. As she
continued to stare into the distance, she didn't understand why this uneasiness was
building inside her body. She felt like she should get up and run. If only she
could make out what it was. At that moment, she comprehended what it was and where
it was heading, and she knew her life would never be the same.
She's asked the question so many times that she barely listened to the answers
anymore. The answers were always the same. Well, not exactly the same, but the same
in a general sense. A more accurate description was the answers never surprised
her. So, she asked for the 10,000th time, "What's your favorite animal?" But this
time was different. When she heard the young boy's answer, she wondered if she had
heard him correctly.
What were they eating? It didn't taste like anything she had ever eaten before and
although she was famished, she didn't dare ask. She knew the answer would be one
she didn't want to hear.
It was their first date and she had been looking forward to it the entire week. She
had her eyes on him for months, and it had taken a convoluted scheme with several
friends to make it happen, but he'd finally taken the hint and asked her out. After
all the time and effort she'd invested into it, she never thought that it would be
anything but wonderful. It goes without saying that things didn't work out quite as
she expected.
I'm meant to be writing at this moment. What I mean is, I'm meant to be writing
something else at this moment. The document I'm meant to be writing is, of course,
open in another program on my computer and is patiently awaiting my attention. Yet
here I am plonking down senseless sentiments in this paragraph because it's easier
to do than to work on anything particularly meaningful. I am grateful for the
distraction.
You can decide what you want to do in life, but I suggest doing something that
creates. Something that leaves a tangible thing once you're done. That way even
after you're gone, you will still live on in the things you created.
There are different types of secrets. She had held onto plenty of them during her
life, but this one was different. She found herself holding onto the worst type. It
was the type of secret that could gnaw away at your insides if you didn't tell
someone about it, but it could end up getting you killed if you did.
Sleeping in his car was never the plan but sometimes things don't work out as
planned. This had been his life for the last three months and he was just beginning
to get used to it. He didn't actually enjoy it, but he had accepted it and come to
terms with it. Or at least he thought he had. All that changed when he put the key
into the ignition, turned it and the engine didn't make a sound.
The amber droplet hung from the branch, reaching fullness and ready to drop. It
waited. While many of the other droplets were satisfied to form as big as they
could and release, this droplet had other plans. It wanted to be part of history.
It wanted to be remembered long after all the other droplets had dissolved into
history. So it waited for the perfect specimen to fly by to trap and capture that
it hoped would eventually be discovered hundreds of years in the future.
Dave watched as the forest burned up on the hill, only a few miles from her house.
The car had been hastily packed and Marta was inside trying to round up the last of
the pets. Dave went through his mental list of the most important papers and
documents that they couldn't leave behind. He scolded himself for not having
prepared these better in advance and hoped that he had remembered everything that
was needed. He continued to wait for Marta to appear with the pets, but she still
was nowhere to be seen.
It was a scrape that he hardly noticed. Sure, there was a bit of blood but it was
minor compared to most of the other cuts and bruises he acquired on his adventures.
There was no way he could know that the rock that produced the cut had alien
genetic material on it that was now racing through his bloodstream. He felt
perfectly normal and continued his adventure with no knowledge of what was about to
happen to him.
Do you really listen when you are talking with someone? I have a friend who listens
in an unforgiving way. She actually takes every word you say as being something
important and when you have a friend that listens like that, words take on a whole
new meaning.
He was an expert but not in a discipline that anyone could fully appreciate. He
knew how to hold the cone just right so that the soft server ice-cream fell into it
at the precise angle to form a perfect cone each and every time. It had taken years
to perfect and he could now do it without even putting any thought behind it.
Nobody seemed to fully understand the beauty of this accomplishment except for the
new worker who watched in amazement.
He had done everything right. There had been no mistakes throughout the entire
process. It had been perfection and he knew it without a doubt, but the results
still stared back at him with the fact that he had lost.
MaryLou wore the tiara with pride. There was something that made doing anything she
didn't really want to do a bit easier when she wore it. She really didn't care what
those staring through the window were thinking as she vacuumed her apartment.
It wasn't quite yet time to panic. There was still time to salvage the situation.
At least that is what she was telling himself. The reality was that it was time to
panic and there wasn't time to salvage the situation, but he continued to delude
himself into believing there was.
Stranded. Yes, she was now the first person ever to land on Venus, but that was of
little consequence. Her name would be read by millions in school as the first to
land here, but that celebrity would never actually be seen by her. She looked at
the control panel and knew there was nothing that would ever get it back into
working order. She was the first and it was not clear this would also be her last.
Things aren't going well at all with mom today. She is just a limp noodle and wants
to sleep all the time. I sure hope that things get better soon.
The words hadn't flowed from his fingers for the past few weeks. He never imagined
he'd find himself with writer's block, but here he sat with a blank screen in front
of him. That blank screen taunting him day after day had started to play with his
mind. He didn't understand why he couldn't even type a single word, just one to
begin the process and build from there. And yet, he already knew that the eight
hours he was prepared to sit in front of his computer today would end with the
screen remaining blank.
There were little things that she simply could not stand. The sound of someone
tapping their nails on the table. A person chewing with their mouth open. Another
human imposing themselves into her space. She couldn't stand any of these things,
but none of them compared to the number one thing she couldn't stand which topped
all of them combined.
The robot clicked disapprovingly, gurgled briefly inside its cubical interior and
extruded a pony glass of brownish liquid. "Sir, you will undoubtedly end up in a
drunkard's grave, dead of hepatic cirrhosis," it informed me virtuously as it
returned my ID card. I glared as I pushed the glass across the table.
At that moment he had a thought that he'd never imagine he'd consider. "I could
just cheat," he thought, "and that would solve the problem." He tried to move on
from the thought but it was persistent. It didn't want to go away and, if he was
honest with himself, he didn't want it to.
Then came the night of the first falling star. It was seen early in the morning,
rushing over Winchester eastward, a line of flame high in the atmosphere. Hundreds
must have seen it and taken it for an ordinary falling star. It seemed that it fell
to earth about one hundred miles east of him.
He heard the loud impact before he ever saw the result. It had been so loud that it
had actually made him jump back in his seat. As soon as he recovered from the
surprise, he saw the crack in the windshield. It seemed to be an analogy of the
current condition of his life.
It went through such rapid contortions that the little bear was forced to change
his hold on it so many times he became confused in the darkness, and could not, for
the life of him, tell whether he held the sheep right side up, or upside down. But
that point was decided for him a moment later by the animal itself, who, with a
sudden twist, jabbed its horns so hard into his lowest ribs that he gave a grunt of
anger and disgust.
"It was so great to hear from you today and it was such weird timing," he said.
"This is going to sound funny and a little strange, but you were in a dream I had
just a couple of days ago. I'd love to get together and tell you about it if you're
up for a cup of coffee," he continued, laying the trap he'd been planning for
years.
She didn't understand how changed worked. When she looked at today compared to
yesterday, there was nothing that she could see that was different. Yet, when she
looked at today compared to last year, she couldn't see how anything was ever the
same.
It was that terrifying feeling you have as you tightly hold the covers over you
with the knowledge that there is something hiding under your bed. You want to look,
but you don't at the same time. You're frozen with fear and unable to act. That's
where she found herself and she didn't know what to do next