There was something about clowns that was worse than zombies. (Or maybe something that was the same. When you see a zombie, you want to laugh at first. When you see a clown, most people get a little nervous. There's the pallor and the cakey mortician...
I like bars just after they open for the evening. When the air inside is still cool and clean and everything is shiny and the barkeep is giving himself that last look in the mirror to see if his tie is straight and his hair is smooth. I like the neat...
THE PLAQUE read HARVEY GOULD, P I. It was the middle of the day, but the blinds were closed. Inside a desktop sat flanked by three non-matching chairs, a creased, leather sofa and a bookcase full of fiction. A middle-aged man lay back with a pair of ...
I missed the sound of her shuffling her homework while I listened to music on her bed. I missed the cold of her feet against my legs when she climbed into bed. I missed the shape of her shadow where it fell across the page of my book. I missed the sm...
Grover wore his fake feet and his pants to pass as human. He wore a green rasta-style cap, because when it rained his curly hair flattened and you could just see the tips of his horns. His bright orange backpack was full of scrap metal and apples to ...
You realize I can never sleep under this blanket with this thread as it is. The thought of it would plague me all night.' 'Were you going to?' he asks, looking over his shoulder at me. 'Well, I'm not going to now.' 'Suggesting you were going to at so...
[Piper] rushed to get dressed. By the time she got up on deck, the others had already gathered—all hastily dressed except for Coach Hedge, who had pulled the night watch. Frank’s Vancouver Winter Olympics shirt was inside out. Percy wore pajama p...
If I had a girl, I’d want her to know that she can be anything she wants and that she doesn't have to rely on her looks or clothes or hair or make-up to define who she is or to get respect from other people. I’d want her to know she has a right t...
I would think of certain winter nights when he wedged himself between Nona and me in bed, a furtive warmth embedded in his skin already tinctured with virginal earth and milk and possibility, or how that peculiar scent common to all small children be...
The driver got out smiling. He looked about seventeen or eighteen, and for a second, I had the uneasy feeling it was Luke, my old enemy. This guy had the same sandy hair and outdoorsy good looks. But it wasn't Luke. His smile was brighter and more pl...
The silver car had been closing in, but just then, it took a sharp turn to the left. Where are they going? Leor wondered. But he decided to keep it to himself. The cabby nodded and ran a hand through his hair. “Alright. Well, we’re here anyways.�...
In a world of fog and gray, the youth is a shining being dressed in dark violet, his golden-flecked hair smoothed back from his bronzed temples. He resembles a human, but no man I have ever seen holds himself like a king, like a gleaming statue chise...
I looked at her, with her hair spilled out on the pillows and the warmth of her body warming mine. And I thought, god-dang, if this ain't a heck of a way to be in bed with a pretty woman. The two of you arguing about murder, and threatening each othe...
There is none other like me. There is none other like her. We are unbelievable, impossible. I fly as high as the Heavens which cast me out. I have run out my comet's course: she is the world, I have sought out. Round her I have cast the loop of my or...
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another woman sitting over in a wing chair, a pleasantly attractive lady wearing the tasteful clothes of a senior redactrice, or senior civil servant, the stylish black skirt, the dark stockings, the black pumps, ...
The first thing I needed, possibly the only thing, was to kiss her and I did, for as long as I could. I let us both breathe for a minute, and I perched her on a counter so I could touch the face I’d missed so much. I poured every bit of frustration...
If he closed his eyes he could dwell in the circuit of air that had once held her, he could hold his breath and be inside her again, within the close and burning borders of her- she stood here, washed her hair in this sink, wrote upon this wall, ate ...
Over the years our mother has beaten us with belts, shoes, rulers, extension cords, hair brushes, a wooden spoon, a fly swatter, a toilet brush, wire coat hangers, wooden coat hangers and sometimes one of our own toys. When you get whacked by your ow...
I ripped all her clothes off. She twisted and turned, slow, so they would slip out from under her. Then she closed her eyes and lay back on the pillow. Her hair was falling over her shoulders in snaky curls. Her eye was all black, and her breasts wer...
And indeed there will be time To wonder, 'Do I shed?' and, 'Do I shed?' Time to turn back and stretch out on the bed, And give myself a bath before I'm fed -- (They will say: 'It's the short-haired ones I prefer.') My flea collar buckled neatly in my...
The face that greeted me, however, was far from welcoming, it was a miniature stick insect of a woman with wiry white hair and enormous glasses that emphasized her heavily wrinkled face. She blinked twice and looked me up and down. By the look on her...
