Queen-of-Marigold

The office was dimly lit. A fan wobbled lazily overhead, and a wreath of smoke had gathered like a private smog beneath the hat-brim of the man lounging behind the desk. May Abernathy knocked daintily before she entered, pausing in the doorway and throwing a truly dramatic silhouette. "I'm looking for a private detective," she drawled. "They tell me you're a man who - gets results." The seated figure stirred only a little, turning to look at her. His eyes seemed to glow in the smoky shadows, almost as brightly as the end of his cigarette. "Are you the man?" She asked, when he made no response. On the wall, a clock ticked noisily; sou

There once was a slow-driving hearse Whose windows were covered with verse And the poet inside Who had tragically died Thus ensured that the mourners felt worse

Risk leaned back in his chair, smiling lazily at the camera, knowing how much his casual attitude in meetings irritated the executives. He was trying to win them over today, but he couldn't let them know that. So he behaved as he usually did, showy and overconfident. Their faces on the monitor were wry, thinking they were in for another punishing hour of his cocky attitude. 'Friends,' he said, though they were certainly no friends of his, 'My project is all but complete.' A few faces perked up a little - others fell. Opinions about his 'project' were mixed. 'We're ready to release the bacteria. A controlled dose, of course,' he smiled as c

don't fade away! eat vitamins walk in the sun make the time to take the time to breathe and be the beauty that surrounds you recapture your spark! eat with your hands and talk to strangers from the proper angle every face looks like an angel's each moment bears the makings of a miracle have a little faith! throw caution to the wind leap without looking life would lack for love without a little falling find the future full of feeling at your fingertips

The child was cowering when he found it, huddled at the alley's end, trying to be small and inconspicuous. He couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl - it was encrusted with grime from head to foot. "There's no point in running," he said grimly. The child began to cry and for the first time in his life Shadow felt real pity. Despite her wretchedness he had never pitied Katie, even in the beginning, because she had rallied so well and proven her strength even from that first day. But Katie would have sympathised with this little urchin, she would have despised Shadow for what he had intended to do. No matter to her that the child was an agent

They breathed in unison. All over the city, all over the planet, the bots were breathing together. They moved and walked and spoke as their individual programming dictated, but their breathing was synchronised, in and out with the constancy of a ticking clock. She was in her twenties when she first managed to make her own working robot and it breathed with inexorable regularity. In out. In out. In out. "Hello," it said. In out. "Are you my mother?" She laughed. "The female creator of my form," it insisted, "The instantiator of my existence. Are you my mother?" She had to concede that she was, although the term made her uneasy. In out. I

Every culture has stories, that have grown and changed over time just as the people who tell them have grown and changed. They reveal more than you could imagine about the nature of the teller and their world, but that is not the reason that you have brought me here today. You asked me here to tell stories. I will tell you the stories that laid the foundations for all others. I will tell you the first stories. There was a time before time, when men and beasts and the stars themselves did not exist. The very earth was nothing - there was only the realm of the gods, a garden of beauty surpassing anything ever witnessed by the mortal eye. It wa

Men. Men with guns. Why not? Two of them, two men, and in keeping with my usual themes they'll be brothers. The older of the two, that's Jack—and while we're on the subject, the younger one's Lawrence. God, just looking at them, you're reminded—they're the kind of people who can remind you—of what the difference is between the merely good-looking and the truly beautiful, between those of us who are fine to look at and those of us who are fine the same way a masterpiece is fine. These two men, our brothers, are really and truly handsome, so handsome it's almost painful sometimes to look at them. You see them out of the corner of your eye in t

1. without giving everything away, there are days too hot to remember, our bodies shaking dust from the curtains with slow, familiar rhythm. we did not look like people, then, we looked like gods, we looked like lovers, we couldn't see the ending, then, we were tangled up in gold.

one day I will tell my son to look for love like a drowning man, to fill his lungs with it. I will raise him with gentle hands and teach him to touch a woman or a man with his fingertips. I will tell my son to cry when he feels like crying and laugh when he feels like laughing and sing out loud when he feels the voice of God in his chest. I will teach him to be unashamed of his body or his thoughts, to spend days naked with himself and his dreams, the proper way to throw a punch and when to walk away. I will tell him to get dirty, that every human being will spend at least one night on their knees, value of humility and of sore