I count my blessings as follows:1) I'm alive.2) Beauty is in the world all around me.3) I share my love with everyone and not just a select few.4) I give thanks to whoever made and created us no matter which religion it my be.5) I never stop smiling, laughing and being happy.6) I try and help those who need it the most.7) I try not to hate, injure or kill anything or anyone.8) I share what I have even if I don't have a much.9) I write and share my thoughts so that it may bring comfort to other people.10) I never ask for anything for me from anyone.11) I follow the other 10 blessings.
All is as if the world did cease to exist. The city's monuments go unseen, its past unheard, and its culture slowly fading in the dismal sea.
I start to count. This is the important part. I have to count right. Not too fast, nor too slow. All the way to one hundred. It must be spoken aloud, without interruption. Whispering is acceptable; the count keeps my wolf to the Dark Wood. It keeps me on safety’s slender path.
It’s easy to count other people’s mistakes. Make your own if you can.
I count everything. Even numbers, odd numbers, multiples of 10. I count the ticks of the clock i count the tocks of the clock I count the lines between the lines on a sheet of paper. I count the broken beats of my heart I count my pulse and my blinks and the number of tries it takes to inhale enough oxygen for my lungs. I stay like this I stand like this I count like this until the feeling stops. Until the tears stop spilling, until my fists stop shaking, until my heart stops aching. There are never enough numbers.
The Goth boy stares at me, and I give him a what-are-you-looking-at stare right back. “I’m dead,” he says in a dull monotone. “Pardon me?” Adriana asks, but he keeps staring at me. “You’re dead, too. Look at your veins. They’re blue.” He points at my forearms where dark veins run their lengths. “You’re rotting like me.” I glance to Adriana, hands clasped and praying that she won’t leave me here. Adriana’s stopped crying now and squints at the boy before standing to pull closed the curtain that rings my cot. “Crazy,” she says with an uncertain smile. “You’re not rotting.” . . . ninety-nine, one hundred . “No,” I reply. “But I will if you leave me here.
We, of all the beings that we know of, can think. We can eat, write, build, save. We can predict, estimate, and count. We can preserve food for lifetimes, and in times of crisis, we can find ways to ensure our survival. With each passing generation, our sphere of control of our existence is larger. What if the earth is hit by an asteroid or there is no way to stop global warming? We look to colonize other planets. The fate of our species, in a few years, will not be tied to the fate of the earth. Our home planet must be cared for ... but as we go interplanetary and then interstellar, our control on our lives and the evolution of our species grows. As far as we know, we are the only species that has a say in the development of its future.
Do we not each dream of dreams? Do we not dance on the notes of lostmemories? Then are we not each dreamers of tomorrow and yesterday, since dreamsplay when time is askew? Are we not all adrift in the constant sea of trial and when all is done, do we not all yearn for ships to carry us home?
Call me crazy, but there is something terribly wrong with this city.
There is a stillness between us, a period of restlessness that ties my stomachin a hangman’s noose. It is this same lack in noise that lives, there! in thedarkness of the grave, how it frightens me beyond all things.
I can’t help but ask, “Do you know where you are?”She turns to me with a foreboding glare. “Do you?
Did Bach ever eatpancakes at midnight?
History doesn’t start with a tall buildingand a card with your name written on it, but jokes do. I think someone is takingus for suckers and is playing a mean game.
I steal one glance over my shoulder as soon as we are far from the foreboding luminance of the neon glow, and it is there that my stomach leaps into my throat. Squatting just shy of the light and partially concealed by the shade of an alley is a sinister silhouette beneath a crimson cowl, beaming a demonic smile which spans from cheek to swollen cheek.
She leaves my side and heads deeper intothe apartment singing, “—if the spirit tries to hide, its temple far away… acopper for those they ask, a diamond for those who stay.
I rouse Emily to our guests, as she finishes off our fifteenth snowman by setting the head atop its torso. She stands limp at my direction, pointing out the coming shadows and I cannot help but hear a muffled sigh as she decapitates her latest creation with a single push of her hand.
That’s a stupid name! Whirly-gig is much better, I think. Who in their rightmind would point at this thing and say, ‘I’m going to fly in my Model-A1’.People would much rather say, ‘Get in my whirly-gig’. And that’s what youshould name it.