literature
Whether written centuries ago or just last year, literary couples show that love is timeless.
WHY BLUE JAY HAS SUCH A SCRATCHY VOICE
WHY BLUE JAY HAS SUCH A SCRATCHY VOICE (or, Why Human Beings Should Learn To Guard Their Words) Once long ago, as you well know, Blue Jay had no voice. In those days, she was a lazy mean thieving bird. She stole eggs and nests from other birds, she stole food from other birds, she stole anything she could find to steal. Mercy! She even stole her color from the sky! In the First Times..., she had neglected her First Instructions and hadn't gotten her real song. A day came when she began to wish she could sing. So of course, she looked around for some songs to steal. She would have done it, too, except all birds guard their songs very carefully, only letting them out at just the right times. Other wise, they keep them locked up safe in their feathered breasts. Although Blue Jay tried and tried, she couldn't ever catch a song from another bird.
By William L. Truax III5 years ago in Humans
Gone the Tides of Earth
Late midseason was crisp cold and fresh snowfall blanketed the mountains. All along the roads were levelled by a few inches of powder, remnants of disowned sleeping bags and tents covered ivory like alpine miniatures. Shovelled walkways led the way from the cabin back to the outhouse, to the cellars and there was another that connected with the outpost on the distant side of camp. Trailing them was customary only for the preparations of meals, routine checks, to use the toilet or rarely in the odd case that fresh stationery or candles were required. It gave one a false sense of secondary soldiering in the habituation dugouts that accommodated personnel behind frontline trenches.
By James B. William R. Lawrence5 years ago in Humans
Gone the Tides of Earth
Inertia overcame us in the heated sedan cruising through the clear, crisp coldness of the mountain roads. Nestled up front Cian had dozed off quite fast, incubated in the direct, warming stream of the radiators. In the backseat sat Alci and I, windows rolled down until from the chill could only bear leaving them open a crack. The driver was a trim, middle-aged man with beard stubble and a stern lip; he was in uniform, so were we, although unlike us his lapel boasted the colours of a few commendations.
By James B. William R. Lawrence5 years ago in Humans
Gone the Tides of Earth
The lodging of our mandate was a basic troops’ tent, blue with a white cross ordaining one side, stripes horizontally the other. Three foldouts were inside equipped with twill blankets, one against the backwall, two the sides. Off a notch on the uppermost point of the ceiling hung an LED lantern, and on each cot a nylon pillow, file-folder brimming with contents. Both flaps, outwardly tied back made the interior visible as we came up; finer, bland assignment made better without bitterness of mountains.
By James B. William R. Lawrence5 years ago in Humans
Gone the Tides of Earth
The game was afoot ever since leaving estate - finally at sundown a great party commenced, festivities of the night turning into a whole different beast. Beforehand, sometime along families, certainly all youths had retired from the field. Those who remained were recruits, drifters, tent-dwellers; mostly a rowdy type of spectator entertaining grand expectations of debauchery, intent on putting dents in the part of brain which processes memory. Evening onward any available meals became sparse, non-perishable, and alcohol grossly expensive. Vendors carted supplies as well; spare bits of cloth, cut into little squares, sold pants, t-shirts to the ratchet and defunct.
By James B. William R. Lawrence5 years ago in Humans
Gone the Tides of Earth
Court had one hers bare, fair-skinned legs propped up, my jacket as blanket merely covering body. I sat on the grassy floor, neck hyperextended back, head rested on the edge to look up at her. Her soft fingers, she played through my hair, whilst puffing slow drags on a cigarette taken from the folder offerings.
By James B. William R. Lawrence5 years ago in Humans
Love at first sight
Vince sat in front of a nearly empty computer screen, eyes fixated on what at first seemed like a simple question, "what would be your ideal first date?". He came across t his same question on a couple other dating apps he tried signing up with, and not unlike the rest, he just couldn't seem to come up with a acceptable answer. Frustration washed across his face as he thought out loud, " I don't know why I keep pretending I'm going to actually finish signing up for these sites, I can never get passed such mind boggling questions," and then he closed out the app.
By Siosiua mafoa5 years ago in Humans
Red Between the Lines
The rain-darkened sky intensified the neon lights prancing across puddles on the pavement. The sizzling of the grandiose marquee was audible from the street. The man slipped the valet a note before surrendering his rumbling chariot to the valet’s keeping. He bounded between the murky voids seeking salvation under the restaurant’s awning. The door attendant looked the man over like a wet dog. The wet overcoat ruined his image temporarily, but he wouldn’t let it ruin the evening. Foreign food would do that.
By Nom de Guerre5 years ago in Humans
Gone the Tides of Earth
Back in the village the crone was hosting a banquet, families had come far and wide to attend. Most people were sickly and deformed, children cried in their mother’s bosoms, malnourished, riddled with leprosy. Adults begged mercy for the young, the elderly passed away in puddles of vile and excrement. A woman, naked and scarred, fumbles her way through the middle of the deathly orgy to the foot of the crone. She is worst of all, everyone else taking pause from their own misery to pay attention hers. At the final second the poor wretch falls at the sandaled feet of the crone; the old pagan takes up a bristly water pouch, cups the defamed girl’s chin in a hand and spurts a line of water into her blistered mouth. Each forlorn disciples’ heart flutters in beats of humility at the crone’s good, decent human grace, she raises the wretched girl up from under the shoulders to lift her afoot:
By James B. William R. Lawrence6 years ago in Humans
Gone the Tides of Earth
That same very beach before greeting the dawn, the blue sky evenly lit o’er its soft, cool sands. Gentle tide rolled in, in crevices of each wave dazzled the whitish light and thence undulated upon the shore where scale-esque formations, hard and firm underfoot ceased at the brink, an intimate kiss unto the moist beginnings of golden respite. Alas simply, with surety enough I didn’t care to leave out from there, those soothing waters of the Aegean, yet to wade the ways I still had to go on towards dusk would require pain - afoot on dryland I’d glide along at a better pace. Anyways then there will have been more time for it, going that way by the end of it all.
By James B. William R. Lawrence6 years ago in Humans
