It takes some by surprise during the night — I think they’re the lucky ones. I think others are holding off for something — their daughter’s marriage, their grandchildren — something powerful enough to give the last grains of the hourglass weight. Others simply make up their mind that it’s time. There’s one man in particular I remember who hadn’t moved a muscle for a day. Several of us at the hospice thought he was already gone a half-dozen times, but then all at once he stood up. He carefully put on his suit, tied his tie, fastened his shoes, and then laid back down. He was dead within the hour.
Supernatural
If Bill Nye can’t explain it, then there’s space for it here.
You don’t have to sell your soul. Any soul will do.
Madness isn’t usually loud like it’s portrayed on the screen. It’s not bright either — no supernova of unfettered emotion or physical deformity to hint at the rot inside. I didn’t bellow until my throat was raw or bloody my hands on my walls and mirrors. I didn’t splatter my paints across my skin or shred the half-finished canvases which mock my chosen identity.
Read MoreYou don’t have to sell your soul. Any soul will do.
My daughter is an only child, but she has a twin
Don’t you dare tell me that there are lots of kids who look the same. Don’t pretend this is some sort of funny coincidence either, like the kindergarten teacher does. I’d know my baby girl anywhere. I know the way her hair smells, and how her soft little hands feel in mine. I know her giggling laugh, the way she puffs out her cheeks when she’s angry, and the light in her eyes when she sees me across the room. I know all the things that only a mother can know, but for the life of me I still can’t tell them apart.
It wasn’t a hit and run. I reversed too.
I’m wearing the wrong suit. This one has a hole in the back. I forgot my phone charger at home, but it’s too late now. I shouldn’t have packed so much — I won’t have time to check my bag. I never should have booked such an early flight in the first place. And I REALLY shouldn’t have hit that pedestrian.
Our boat sailed over the edge of the world
There wasn’t a giant waterfall spilling endlessly into space, if that’s what you’re wondering. Only a damn fool would think the Earth is flat. Besides, I figure we’d run out of water pretty fast that way. The things we’ve seen though — the things that seen us back — well if they belonged in this world, then humans wouldn’t. I guess it’s easier for me to tell myself I sailed right over the edge into some new place entirely than accept that those creatures are here with us.
Am I dreaming, or am I the dream?
I’ve decided that it must be one or the other. How else could I explain seeing the same person everywhere I went?
Underwater Microphone Picks up Voices
I couldn’t have known they were voices when my hydrophone first recorded the sound. My best guess was a bowhead whale, although the pitch didn’t fluctuate or go nearly as high as the typical bowhead. This sound was sonorous and powerful, a seemingly sourceless echo reverberating through the ocean depths for at least a dozen miles around my ship.
The Fourth Horseman
Part one:
There’s a stretch of ground near my hometown that everyone says is cursed. Past the lamppost that only flickers between midnight and 1 AM — past the gutted remains of the house which has burned down four times, never to be rebuilt again — through the lingonberry bushes that are ripe all year; there you’ll find it. A patch of fine powdered dirt hidden in a copse of birch trees. The same rich earth that the rest of the verdant wilderness thrives on, although no grass or flowers or even the hardiest weed can be seen struggling through this blighted space.
The world’s oldest tree is trying to communicate
“Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t real.”
My soul is in a paper lantern
Do you know what it’s like to live without a soul? Because I do.