Waving Not Drowning

In a perfect world, there would be no testing. You would just be granted a pass on everything you do, with a high five and a Well Done, buddy! to send you on your way. Carl thinks this is the best solution. It would get him out of studying every afternoon for 4 hours while sweating bullets in a panic desperate to make sense of whatever the crazy hieroglyphics are. Like he's gonna use calculus after high school. Pffft. All he wants to do is swim and homework is seriously infringing on his time in the pool. Coach is riding him to get his head in the game. Doing drills, counting off the multi coloured arms on the time clock at the end of the deck. Red, yellow, blue, green. Go on the 15, go on the 30, rest on the red, go on the blue, what's 15 of the 30 divided by the high root of the base over the square of the slash gobbledy gook. Argh. He's supposed to be getting down to a :26 split on his 50 in the 200 free and he's losing time. Workouts in the gym are flagging and slee...

Harry can feel himself breaking. It's the difference between comfortable and barely getting by. To anyone else it's a nominal amount but to Harry, it's an entire month's living expenses. To watch his security slip through his fingers like grains of salt paralyzes him with despair. He's in stasis. Unable to move forward and unwilling to go back. Going back will kill him. Literally. Six months on parole, 12 months sober. Going back is not an option. Maria would leave for good, taking Troy and Draven with her. The old habits would creep back in and thread their way through him, opening up old veins, worn out pathways, reigniting a long dormant fire that would eat him alive. Immolate him and everything he's fought so hard for. Eight hundred dollars. Gone. For him to make that kind of cash in three days would require an immense amount of backbreaking work or dumb luck. Harry doesn't believe in luck. Or lotteries, or prayer, or affirmations. He believes in getting...

All her heroes were boys. Men. By default, not choice. She grew up watching boys play sports, tried to hone in and keep up with the bullies. Eventually she found her place. She threw a ball better than most of them. Isla was coordinated, creative, and awkwardly tall for her age. By 11 years old she was 5'9" with a size 10 shoe. She hated basketball, though. Volleyball made more sense but her heart lay in baseball. Hardball not softball. At first they refused: no girls allowed. It's too dangerous. You can't get around on the ball fast enough. You're too slow, not strong enough. You're going to get hurt. They would let her practice in pick up games, bury her in right field on a day when the occasional ball might come her way. But when Devin tore his hamstring and they needed her on second, Isla rose to the occasion, beyond even her own expectations. Everything suddenly made sense. Kismet, maybe. Her spatial understanding of where to field, how to work the bag, jo...

Ohhhhh the way you melt in the mouth, the sweet chocolately goodness wrapped up in a soft textured oatmealy crust. Big juicy raisins exploding with sweetness, surrounded by the essence of cinnamon and clove, flakes of lightly toasted coconut, just dense enough to satiate but not so decadent as to push things over the edge, to that place where bliss slides into shame and regret. Still warm, flooding the synapses with feel-good endorphins, creating a moment of climax above and beyond what a cookie should be capable of providing. This is bliss. This is complete ecstasy, wild abandon, the total unleashing of one's true, feral self. Untamed, savage, beastly. Beware the path to carnal abandon, clear the way between Sylvia and her fresh baked, still cooling cookies. Three strides from oven to table is all she needs to capture her prey, the prize she so lovingly created, moulded, caressed, built with her own two hands. And the help of an obscenely expensive high gloss red Kitchen Aid stand...

Freefalling from space, looking at herself from above, completely out of body- staring up at his face, his emotionally detached, shit-eating grinning face. She reaches forward like she's riding an invisible bicycle with her arms and legs, dry drowning in air, willing herself desperately to wake up. Jude gasps and wakes herself up with her sobs. Suddenly she feels how overheated she is, soaking through her tank top, hair damp with sweat. The sound of blood pounding in her ears overrides the white noise of the fan. It's sweltering, the hottest day of May so far, hotter than she can remember. It's been months since she dreamt, at all; now the same dream, three times a night. She prays each time she falls back asleep it will be a different dream or nothing at all but there he is, over and over. He's cruel and unforgiving, angry, malicious. It breaks Jude's heart- she can't communicate; he taunts and laughs, dismissing her as if she never meant a thing. Jude can feel...