“I’ll love you forever.”

“Well, I think forever is a bit too long,” she said, peeling a patch of his greenish skin off his shoulder as they talked.

“But I can be with you forever,” he said.

She touched his face and then grimaced when more skin fell away at her touch, he was rotting right before her eyes.

“I don’t think you’re going to be here much longer, babe,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter what I look like, does it?”

“Well, not so much, but you need to be all in one piece.”

“I think I lost a piece.”… Read the rest

We have had enough of these goodbyes.

Remember when they were tearful, but full of love, hugs, kisses, the kind of goodbyes you don’t want to suffer through?

Maybe I liked those better than the quiet quitting of our relationship, the way you just backed out like you didn’t feel like going to the game.

A game is all I’ve ever felt like, a person being played, a pawn in someone else’s life.

She doesn’t fit here, go there.

No, that’s not right, either, move here.

Until I’m knocked off the board, and you’re picking up the pieces and leaving.… Read the rest

You slide the bag across the table, the hooded figure opposite you peers inside. “Where the hell did you find this?!”

“Never mind where I found it, it’s what we’re going to do with it now that we have to figure out.”

“Well, we’ll sell it, of course.”

“Sell the most valuable gemstone known to man? This thing is worth a fortune, and the second it gets into the wrong hands, we have no hope of seeing any profits from this.”

You reach to take back the bag, but the man pulls away.

“It’s mine now. Thanks for finding it.”… Read the rest

I never thought I’d be leaving the garden to go off and hunt for someone in the barren wasteland of the city we’d departed years ago.

They said he was seen heading East, toward the city, and I pictured him picking his way through the rubble of skyscrapers and dodging the sinkholes where bombs had landed in the streets or on top of buildings.

Then I wasn’t picturing it, I was there, stumbling over concrete and avoiding decades old ordinance, crossing no one’s path on the way to find him.

He left me for this nothingness, why should I bother?… Read the rest

They bowed to to the machine, marveling the shine of its black plastic exterior, the long cord that came out of the back.

They were particularly interested in the two metal prongs coming from the end of a cord, they were quite tasty.

Things went in light and soft and came out dark and crisp, and they didn’t even need fire to make it happen.

When the aliens came, our president told them toasters were our general currency, so when they left, we just didn’t have toast for a while.

And everyone bowed to him, for saving us from aliens.… Read the rest