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process by which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape. If used in Hollywood, then it could be the process by which actors are casted in a movie.

Posted By Mira On 05.22.2013 @ 9:49 am

the people clung to whatever piece of the city they could hold: buildings, streetlights, fire hydrants. they formed human chains, gripping each other by the arms and legs. around them, cars rained down to the distant earth; pedestrians, too, people who hadn’t managed to find an anchor when the city rose up out of the ground, a great beast made of concrete and pavement. miles below, the hudson, harlem, and east rivers swirled violently around the beast’s ankles, sucked into the gaping hole it left behind, crashing into the atlantic ocean and making it roil. the beast did not roar: it had the screams of its thousands of citizens to herald its awakening, the shattering of glass, the groans of crushed buildings and crumpled streets as it stretched and bent its massive limbs. there was blood now in the whirling waters below, and more bodies shaken off by the moment. the beast did not roar; but it breathed its first breath, and the wind howled.

Posted By mira On 05.17.2013 @ 9:11 am

her mother had told her that some things were considered life essentials, no matter how rich or how poor a person, no matter their faith or their politics or their education. soap, she said, with a flourish, was one of these unsung treasures. and the selling of it was a booming business. Melise and her mother, alone for near a decade now since her father had gone to war and not returned, kept themselves afloat and comfortable by producing (at impressive rates) tiny bars of soap: colorful, scented, cut into shapes like seashells and flowers, engraved with names. Soap with tiny bright beads inside them, soap that could be molded and shaped like clay, soap that could soothe minor aches and calm the mind. the two of them were industrious and self-sufficient. Melise and her mother needed no one, until the day Melise came home to find a body facedown in a pool of lye. Melise did not need to turn the body over to recognize her mother.

Posted By mira On 05.10.2013 @ 10:21 am

“it’s all a mess, an absolute mess,” he blustered. anxiously, he smoothed down the ends of his white moustache, which were damp with sweat.

his assistant, a young, plump thing with mousy brown hair, shushed him. “there, now,” she said placidly, “I’m sure it’ll all work out.”

micah said, “no, it won’t.”

the assistant glared beadily at him, the sort of look you gave dogs before you smacked them with a rolled-up newspaper. the mayor, however, had not seemed to hear him speak. his attention had been caught by something outside his window. micah looked out, but they were on the fourth floor and he could see nothing but sky.

before either micah or his assistant could stop him, the mayor had waddled to the window.

“I don’t think that’s a good–” said micah.

the end of his sentence was swallowed by, in quick succession: the sound of a gunshot; glass breaking and raining down into the office; and the mayor toppling to the ground like a felled tree, a bullet in his forehead.

Posted By mira On 03.25.2013 @ 3:10 pm

–to the silence with all of his might, waiting for the slightest rustle to break it. he hadn’t been this far outside the village since he first became a man and his father had taken him to see the edge of the world.

(he wasn’t meant to see it again until he was on his deathbed; if he ever went back to his village, they’d be furious.)

(he would never go back to his village.)

there were no grasses here to whisper at the touch of wind; nothing green at all, in fact. just dirt and dust and stone, and in the distance, becoming clearer with every step, the swirling white clouds that blanketed the abyss.

it was said that a single phoenix feather could endow a man with just enough flight to enable him to walk the clouds above the abyss, as if they were made of solid stone and not mist.

he had reached the world’s edge. against his better judgment, he tried to look down, but it made no difference: the clouds were thick and silky, and he could not catch even a glimpse of the distant ground.

(it was said that there was no ground, anyway, that the world dropped off into the void of space and if he looked below the cloud-cover he’d see only stars.)

he clutched the searing warm feather in his hand. then he took the deepest breath of his life, and he stepped off the edge of the world.

Posted By mira On 03.24.2013 @ 5:36 pm

“and another thing,” she said, although she was losing steam, “a phone call would have been nice. a text message, even. a postcard? anything to let me know that you were goddamn alive and not buried in pieces somewhere.”

the years had changed him only a little. he had stubble he’d never have been able to achieve five years ago, and his face was more defined. there were new scars, too; she knew because she had memorized all his scars long ago, and the one at his collarbone and the other at the sharp corner of his jaw were unfamiliar. what had not changed was the way his features could arrange themselves into the most perfect expression of anguished guilt.

she did not allow his melodrama to interfere with her own in the slightest. when she stuffed a handful of socks into her bag, she did so with unnecessary force.

“I know,” he said, with a tone that told her he at least knew how inadequate the platitude was at this moment.

She did not respond. She finished packing, and then she said, “We can go now.”

But on the way out, she took his hand in hers. This time, she decided, he’d have to cut it off before she let him go.

Posted By mira On 03.08.2013 @ 9:49 pm

his shrunken, weathered face tilted towards her. there was but a little sight left in his bleary eyes. still, the power of his gaze left her rooted to the spot.

when he laughed, his throat creaked like an ancient door.

her temper flared up. “I didn’t come here to be mocked,” she said, and added, in the best attempt at deference she could make, “sir.”

the Captain puffed out his chest like a wrathful bird. “He wasn’t mocking you,” he spat, “and you should know better than to speak to the Elder that way.”

she took a chance on the Elder’s all-but-finished sight to show the good Captain a rude gesture. he spluttered.

Posted By mira On 02.20.2013 @ 4:40 pm

quickly, she grasped his hand and tugged him in to her side.

“I invited him,” she said. the Mage looked at her with obvious suspicion, but her smile was easy and fixed. he nodded curtly and swept away.

“Thanks–” the boy began. she did not let him finish. she used her grip on his hand to lead him sedately to the balcony. only after she had shut the glass double doors behind them did she allow herself to turn her scowl on him.

“What were you thinking?” she hissed. “They’ll kill you. Who let you in and why didn’t they stay with you?”

“No one let me in,” he said, barely bothering to keep his voice down. “I thought I could blend.”

She resisted the urge to shake him. The doors were only glass, after all, and anyone could be watching. Everyone could be watching.

“There is no blending here,” she told him. Her throat ached with the effort of holding back a scream.

Posted By mira On 02.19.2013 @ 8:04 pm

growing. it starts with painful strains on your legs. then spreads to the arms. Then, comes emotional growing. The most painful kind. All expect you to be an adult before your time actually comes. growing pains.

Posted By mira On 02.09.2013 @ 10:55 am

there’s a hot, aching knot of tension behind her breastbone. it’s been a long time since she’s faced something like this. for years she’d had something of a lucky streak, the scattered bits and pieces of her life falling neatly into place without her having to struggle with them as she normally did. it looked, though, like her good fortune had dried out, a trickling spring that disappeared in the summertime, leaving nothing but a narrow bed of shiny-smooth rocks. and she knew, even as she began packing up her essentials in a spare duffel bag, that her choice was really no choice at all. her path was carved in stone. the only options available now were to walk it with dignity or to be dragged along, screaming. and she screamed for no one.

Posted By mira On 01.17.2013 @ 12:29 pm

they sorted him in with a group of similarly compromised youths, each with their own reasons to wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, but even among them he seemed… misplaced. the others were extraordinary in ways that were unmistakeable, ways that were visible and tangible even to the untrained. aida had /wings/, for heaven’s sake. and those with gifts that did not alter them physically made sure to flaunt their abilities, so that everyone knew who could breathe fire or manipulate plants or make doors open with their mind. but the boy was not so willing to show off. in fact, he acted as if he were unremarkable in every way (except in that he was burdened with the kind of misfortune that most people had to live very long to accumulate).

Posted By mira On 01.03.2013 @ 8:51 pm

she took the stairs at a run, almost stumbled when they came to an abrupt end far sooner than she expected, and made up for her lost momentum by rolling into a somersault. stable again on hands and knees, she kept her body low to the ground as arrows whistled over her head, so close to shaving her scalp that her hair rustled. yards ahead of her, armed with bow and arrow of her own, Odette gave her a scowl which she took to mean something along the lines of, /if you’re going to slow me down you might as well get shot and put us both out of our misery/.

rather than scowl back, she did the mature thing and threw herself behind odette for cover. in the distance, a few heavy thuds were accompanied by a cessation of the firing. but just as io allowed herself to taste relief, a new squad picked up where the others had left off. odette swore quietly and began herding her backward.

Posted By mira On 01.02.2013 @ 11:24 am

pilots come a dime a dozen nowadays. of course, the average skill level tends to the lower end of the spectrum, what with the fact that any twit with a quarter and a dream can get their hands on a ship. then there’s the lack of any real law enforcement in the outer stretches of space, away from the Colonies. pilots die off faster than mechanics can build ships, and there are junkyards the size of small cities where the wrecked remnants of their short careers wait for the next lout desperate enough to try and salvage them.

after him, the standard changes. he’s a veteran with an almost cliched devotion to rules and procedure, and he all but single-handedly trains the new generation of pilots. the trick of it is that his apprentices outlive the rest. before long, no one in the skies is there without a license they took straight from his hand.

Posted By mira On 12.24.2012 @ 7:01 pm

and she knows before she even opens her eyes, knows it the way an animal knows when it is about to be eaten by something larger and faster than itself, that she is very far from home.

rewind. she doesn’t remember how it happened. she’d gone to sleep in her own bed.

had she locked the door?

she opens her eyes a crack and peers out through her lashes, though that helps her almost not at all. there’s a ceiling. it’s all metallic and shiny. it matches the smell of this place, sterile and pungent.

/it’s finally happened,/ she thinks hysterically. /i’ve gone and been abducted by aliens, and it’s karma for laughing at scott all these years./

sick of squinting at the ceiling and waiting for the situation to make sense of itself for her, she takes a deep breath and swings up and into a sitting position. her head protests immediately. pain lances through her skull, so sharp she thinks for a wild moment that an actual lance has stabbed through it. she touches her forehead, expecting blood, but her fingers rub over the taut synthetic material of a bandage. she shivers. she’s… been hurt, in some dreadful way. she realizes, suddenly, that she is perched on a makeshift cot, and that her head is not the only part of her body wrapped up in bandages. her entire left hand is dressed, her fingers immobile and clublike.

there is a window on the far side of her bare room. she stumbles over to it – her legs are like noodles, how long has she been asleep? there are bars over it, and she clings to them for balance with her good hand as she peers outside at a perfect scene of chaos.

Posted By mira On 12.23.2012 @ 10:07 am

There’s no time. It’s just that big red hole in the ceiling. The escape route. You might wanna choose the stairs, but, you remember where that led you the last time. Just leave it. Run for the hole. Soon. Enough.

Posted By Mira On 11.26.2012 @ 7:12 am

time passes by, i didn’t go to the meeting, i didn’t have a chance to tell her how i feel, i just wanted to sleep more, you did not come to dinner last night

Posted By Mira On 11.23.2012 @ 3:14 am

The texture of his lips calmed my racing heart- I wasn’t in danger anymore. He would protect me from anything and everything.

Posted By Mira On 09.01.2012 @ 3:05 pm

There is no such things as half. When something is half, it was never meant to be whole. Perhaps others don’t see it this way, but this is the only way I can reassure myself that life is still going on.

Posted By Mira On 08.22.2012 @ 12:24 pm

I wouldn’t want to erase all the bad stuff that’s happened to me. The mistakes and the losses make us who we are. It’s easy to put on the personality you want to when your happy, but when things get hard, and when you loose something, that’s when you’re really yourself.

Posted By Mira On 07.30.2012 @ 7:44 pm

There’s a cabinet in the corner of the kitchen in the green room. No one knows what’s in it. We can’t open it. It’s become this huge game among the cast to try and guess what’s in the green room cabinet.

Posted By Mira On 07.28.2012 @ 2:57 pm

There’s a broken cup holder in my car. It’s not good for anything but loose change. There’s a paper clip and a rubber band in there too. I’m not really sure why. I’m not sure why I don’t get the cup holder fixed, but I like my semi-disfunctional car. It’s got character.

Posted By Mira On 07.24.2012 @ 7:09 pm

I read the instructions, I swear I did! How did I get such a bad grade on this? How can he write that I need to follow instructions better. My paper fits every aspect of his rubric. If my grades slip, my parents will kill me, no-worse, they’ll stop paying my tuition.

Posted By Mira On 07.21.2012 @ 10:27 pm

It’s late, it’s dark. There is a thin line between good and evil and there are a select group of people to whom protecting this border falls. You may think that neighborhood watch is a bunch of bogus, but it’s not. It’s far more important than anyone could imagine. The neighborhood watch is what protects the neighborhood from evil, but only when they don’t abuse their power. Like I said, it’s a slippery slope.

Posted By Mira On 07.19.2012 @ 7:50 pm

Stiff, everything was stiff. My breath, my arms, my legs, her body. I couldn’t bear to watch as they loaded the stretcher into the ambulance. It was an out of body experience as I watched, my mind completely paralyzed, tears streaming down my face.

Posted By Mira On 07.18.2012 @ 8:04 pm

It’s dark and damp. All my bones ache. I don’t know how everyone else can stand to be folded up like this all night, just waiting for it to get dark. It’s unbearable for me! Why aren’t I like the rest of them? Why can’t I just be normal? What if I’m not really a bat?!

Posted By Mira On 07.17.2012 @ 9:07 pm

The crew ran up and down the deck, in all different directions. From the mast, the boatswain shouted orders over the roaring waves. The salt water blew into their faces, erasing the need for tears of fear or regret. The only thing on anyone’s mind was how to keep the ship from sinking.

Posted By Mira On 07.15.2012 @ 7:34 pm

Does anyone know what this button on the remote it for? You press it over and over again and it does nothing! Maybe my remote is broken. This button is no help at all, isn’t that ironic?

Posted By Mira On 07.14.2012 @ 3:37 pm

I hate these white bandages on my hands. They remind me of that night. Even when they take them off, the scars will still be there. I can’t face the scars, I can barely look at the wrappings with out sobbing. Without flashing back to screaming and the blood and the lights.

Posted By Mira On 07.12.2012 @ 8:30 pm

moving to nonsense area where u can’t think u can only talk and kill to survive. I don’t under stand what’s the point of writing this. yet, i’ll write it never the less. A train going very fast stealing you away from your life.

Posted By Mira On 07.01.2012 @ 7:42 pm

I saw it there one day. The perfect piece of paper hung lazily on a wall. Colors swirling, melting, ingesting each other. It was as if the paper was only created to have this exact sense of freedom. Colorful freedom. I was jealous of it.

Posted By Mira On 04.26.2012 @ 4:38 pm