“In Shakespeare they are utterly lacking in distinguishing characteristics, serving more as a plot mechanism than as living characters. They come on stage, advance the plot a bit, are cruelly used by Hamlet, and then sent away to die.”
“Debbie was thrilled that I enjoyed it so much, and told me about another book by the same writer—actually three books telling a single story, which was related to The Hobbit, but more adult. I begged her to bring them in for me, so on Friday she brought in the first book, The Fellowship of the Ring. I couldn’t wait to get a chance to start reading it.”
“Robbins’ sprawling tale of a Washington hot dog stand, a mystical earth mother, and the Second Coming of Christ is dizzying, especially when you’re a white suburban 15 year old kid who reads too much in the first place.”
“A sack of clothes wakes up while being stuffed with straw? A woman dissolves when she gets wet? A race of tiny people made of china, who can only move if they stay in the area where they are born?”
“She got better grades than me. She always knew the answer, but didn’t jerk her hand into the air when the teacher asked for volunteers, waiting instead to be called on. She had long, straight brown hair, and mismatched eyes, one green, one blue. And she was clearly smarter than me. It was love at first report card.”
“As I made the right onto her street, I started to get a creepy feeling, like something was wrong. I saw her walking towards my car, from the bushes at the side of the road. She was saying something, but I had the AC on and couldn’t hear. I rolled down the passenger window to hear her, and she started to shout ‘Look out!’”
“‘If you don’t go to your senior prom you’ll regret it for the rest of your life!’ So said my mother, with the conviction only a mother can muster.”
“The first fully intentional and anticipated kiss I ever received was at about age eleven.”
“She noted that the grease is getting deep in the pan, and that I was probably going to set the house on fire. We laughed, and I poured the grease into a cat food can. When I put the pan back on the burner for the eggs, it immediately started to smoke and set off the alarm.”
“I guess the detail which surprised me the most was the genuine compassion in the judge’s voice.”
I caught one of a group of kidnappers in the act, and when he tried to get a gun out of his pocket I stabbed him in the throat with a plastic fast-food knife.
Hundreds of people, a crowd scene, a stampede, people I didn’t know, all kinds of people, teenagers and crones, bums and CEOs.
In a blur, someone grabs my shirt front and yanks me into the darkness. I stumble, nearly falling, but am quickly slammed backwards against the wall.
It’s a bad start for your day when you wake up with a 45 pound invisible demon squatting on your chest trying to suffocate you. I stayed up a bit late, and went to sleep with my mind agitated, spinning wildly around topics too heavy for a bedtime story. No surprise then that I woke [...]
It’s hot out, but there’s some breeze, so it isn’t too bad. I’m wearing my backpack with my belongings in it, including some blank books. The batteries for everything else ran out long ago. The country is flat, and I’m trudging up the empty highway toward— I’m not sure. But going there isn’t a question, [...]
He was swinging his arms wildly around his head and face, batting at something invisible.
I am standing in front of a whitewashed wood frame house in New England. The house is completely surrounded by cobblestones, and there are several similar structures inside the high stone wall. There are other people with me; I am part of a tour.
Suddenly, I was taken with a strange compulsion. I picked up one of the books, a paperback copy of A Wrinkle In Time, and tore out the first page, stared at it for a moment, then popped it into my mouth and started chewing it. It was surprisingly flavorful, tasting like Sno-Cones, with a faint scent of summer grass. I only hesitated for a moment before tearing out another page, and another.
I was working at the computer when I saw the snake glide across the floor. It was about the width of a pencil, maybe a little thicker, about two feet long, and a slick, glossy black. I rolled my chair back in surprise, and saw the tail of another glide under my desk, just inches [...]
I stumbled from bed into the darkness outside, confused by the heat of the night air.
I am in my living room, listening to something electronic on the stereo. I am walking around straightening things up, shelving books, stacking magazines, when I notice that wires seem to have come out of my ceiling.
I was at the airport waiting for my lover to come through the gate when I burst into flames. Pale indigo fire enveloped me, but I was not consumed. This was my soul pouring out of me, my corporeal form no longer able to contain it.
I was downtown near my office on a Saturday. There was a large park across the street, and I saw a few of our plainclothes security guys moving into it quickly. On a whim I decided to follow them, and saw them rapidly scaling a grass-covered stone ziggurat.
“This will be my last post on Hidden City using Blogger.”
“Imagine that one day, while walking aimlessly through grassy fields and green forests, you come across a peaceful glade. The sunlight filters through the high limbs; a cold mountain stream splashes across smooth gray stones; brambles are heavily laden with blackberries. You pick some berries, drink some water, and rest for a while against a tree.”
“The first time I can remember being inside a church I was paid to attend. A high school classmate’s Baptist church wanted a brass quartet to perform an Easter service, and I was asked to play trombone. It was fun, if a little weird. We were positioned in the upper choir loft at the back of the church, so we weren’t visible to the congregation. It was an ideal perspective for witnessing some strange and new customs.”
“I stole a Danish off the breakfast table. I didn’t want the whole thing; I just wanted the jelly in the middle. I took it when my mother wasn’t looking and then snuck into the family room to eat it. I carefully tore it in half and ate the dollop of cherry, then stuffed the doughy parts under the sofa.”
“It takes several seconds for the sound of Palo!’s ‘Lengua Larga’ to penetrate my sleeping brain and let me know a phone call is coming in. It isn’t a number I recognize, so I fumble the phone off its charger in the dark and groggily answer.”
“My younger brother, Scott, is getting married today. Apparently his fiancée, Vikki, in an attempt to work off some sort of karmic debt, has agreed to spend the rest of her days with him, barring that ”til death do you part’ clause being deliberately invoked, anyway. That isn’t much of a concern, though: she’s far too sweet for that, and Scott would manage to mess it up if he tried, so I think they’re both safe.”
“Years ago I built web sites for a few clients, back when HTML skills were still hard to find, and even then there was an attitude of ‘Well, my nephew took a couple of classes and says he’ll build it for $50.’ Would the nephew-built site be as good as I could create? No, probably not, but many clients were willing to take that chance, because $50 was all that they budgeted for it. It was — in their opinions — good enough. I know that designers still face the same issues.”