yoshie
Once, I was respected.. Needed. The rattle of wooden wheels as they clattered across my crossbeams still echo in long forgotten memories. Far below even now, the river endlessly rushing past.. glints of sunlight captured as moments of reflective beauty. Rainbows into eternity. Now all I can do is stretch my boards and wait... reduced to little more than a home for wayward birds and amateur fishermen alike. Once, I was respected... Needed...
"You've got mail..."
Peter rolled his eyes, as yet another stupid chain letter appeared in his Inbox. "Why the hell do my friends insist on sending me this crap?" It'd become one of those mornings, where something cute or funny or whatever would be ping-ponged around the office, sometimes hitting Peter's mailbox seven or more times in a single morning. "One of these days, I'm going to have to learn how to set up a junk mail filter on this thing..." he thought, as he clicked DELETE on the message.
"Damn it, the pencil sharpener was just here," grumbled Greg.
Over the past few days, quite a few things has suddenly not been where they should be. Not anything of any real importance, just a few little things that nobody would miss... Until they were needed. What's worse, it wasn't even like someone had taken any of the missing trinkets off Greg's desk. More like, they'd simply blinked out of existence.
"I wonder how long it'll be before I...", thought Greg. And then he wasn't...
Gerald stood in the shadow of the building, bracing for what he knew was to come next. With whatever little bit of courage remained, he closed his eyes and stepped forward.. Just before the lights went out, Gerald caught sight of the the piano overhead as it landed squarely on top of his head. Having this sad bit of news get delivered so abruptly was not all that big of a surprise, because Gerald was learning the hard way that only one thing in life truly is certain: what we don't learn, we are doomed to repeat.
All around the city, buildings began to crumble as the ground shook violently. Bits of concrete and broken glass rained down on the panicked people below, as a collective feeling that the world was ending became palpable in the air. An hour later, the Mayor held a press conference to let the citizens know that everything would be done to find the person or persons responsible...
Watching the whole scene unfold, a shadowy figure smiles.. His gnarled teeth grinding as glee washed over his face. "Success... is in the eye of the beholder!" he cackles, as a building on the television wall collapses onto the street below.
As the magician waved his hands over the hat and said some magic words, the audience sat in utter silence. A few feet away, Mary smiles a little as she tried her best to at least look interested. She'd seen this trick far too many times to care what was going on, beyond waiting for her next cue to "look pretty" or whatever they called it. A pungent smell of vomit and cologne drifted through the air from the pulpit as a literal horde of drunken middle-age men stared at her, like lions sizing up a meaty feast...
The old man smiled, as the stone wheel in front of him slowly turned. A small, shapeless lump of clay atop the wheel quivered with potential, waiting to be unlocked. "What was this to become?" questioned the man. "A pot? No. A bowl? No. This feels like something all together different." He shifted his weight off the small pedal under the table, and waited a moment as the spinning wheel slowly came to a halt. Then, with the kind of precision that comes only after long decades of practice, the man began. He pushed here, then pulled there. Soon enough, shapelessness would become...
Standing against the wall, the two least liked kids in class dreading what came next... and then the team captains began calling out names (or in some cases, simply pointing as many of those chosen were simply not good enough to have actual names). Soon enough, it came down to these final two, of course.. who would be the least liked among them? Gym had long ago gone from an athletic event to a talent competition. The captain stared at one, and then the other.. sizing up their potential to accomplish whatever tasks were required. Then a name was called...