Autumn Lake
by Penny Lane

Comment:
As it floated there, in that time and space unmoving, it lamented its place in life, and pondered the inevitability of death.

It floated along, as if on glass, so slowly that not even the most observant creature of the woods would mark its passing, but as surely as the tide wears down the cliff-side, it moved.

It remembered its time among its brethren, there on the tree of its birth. It remembered the winds and the rains. It remembered the laughter when they all were green. It remembered the joy when they had all began to shift in color and wore their new coats proudly. It remembered the sorrows of watching as one by one his friends and companions all let go of their perch in the cooler days, and drifted off to the ground, towards a fate none knew.

Then his own day had come, and a breeze had caught him, and had taken him far from that place, so he was denied a reunion on the forest floor. Denied and sent to float on this accursed and silent water.

He missed them all so dearly. He wished he had never began as bud, for what was the joy of life if it was ripped so unceremoniously from you? Such were his thoughts as he continued his agonizingly slow journey towards whatever end fate had wrote him.

So it was that his journey came to an end one day, and he bumped against a distant shore, and was suddenly scooped from the water with a cry of joy from a human child. Thus it was that he found himself borne from that place to another, while being gently placed among pages of wax and paper along the way. He found himself suddenly thin, and shapely and feeling vigorous as of old, and when they reached their destination he was incorporated, with others, into a grand montage, and hung high on a wall for all to see.

And so from out of despair came a renewed sense of being, and hope, and joy, and he learned in that time that perhaps not all fates had to end in sorrow.

Wild Maestro!
by Gaia

Comment:
With the final thunderous crescendo, the orchestra's music came to a close, and his opus was done. His masterpiece, his last compositional hurrah.

With that final crash of the cymbals and bong of the drum, the fliers took off behind him in visual harmony, and the crowd went wild, and the earth stood still but for a moment, to celebrate the wonders of his finale.

Then he bowed, to standing ovation and thunderous applause, and he lay down his baton, to be picked up by whatever prodigy would come after he, and he followed the flight of the ones behind him, and was never seen nor heard from again.

Love is a reflection
by greenglobus

Comment:
For years she had dealt with all that he had to give. The abuses, the yelling, the burning, the hitting. For years she had lived under his tyrannic rule. Held under the threats and the insults and the... but she couldn't think of what the worst had been. Not even now. Not even in her time of triumph.

For one day, while he beat her again for a perceived slight against his manhood, she had discovered something. Something that lay dormant deep within here. Something that had suddenly woke.

In her pain and her tears and her tortured embarrassment, frustration, and anger, it had been borne upon her without warning. It had seeped from her very thoughts, and the photograph of him that she had been staring at, on the bedside table, had suddenly melted into a greasy liquid ash before her very eyes. She had blinked in sudden shock and surprise, but then it hit her. She had done that. Her.

It was then that the plan of her revenge and liberation was set in motion, and for the next few weeks she was the perfect wife. She did everything he asked, without fail, without protest. She cooked him his favorite meals. She opened to him in bed in his favorite... but that was not worth thinking about. In the end, she had won him to her side, if briefly, and by some small miracle he had agreed to the walk on the beach that day.

Now, she stood there, a feral grin on her face, and a wild and liberating madness in her eyes, as she watched the glasses that had, until a moment before been set upon his face, slowly sank into the grime on which they lay. Grime that had been, just a moment before, her evil abusive husband. She had finally done it. She was finally free. She was finally rid of him and every horrific thing that he had stood for.

She stood there and watched as his stinking and slime ridden remains soaked into the sand of the beach...

... and she laughed.

Gasoline
by Gunnsi

Comment:
... and it suddenly became clear to the Mayor of that small burg that perhaps it was no longer sufficient to have a Volunteer Bucket Squad.

He sighed. So much for his Morning Donut budget.

Flight without wings
by C-Fox

Comment:
He sat on the branches opposite. For all his life he had been scared. Scared to do anything. He had been the last to learn to climb. The last to leave his mother's side. The last to hunt on his own (something he still had much trouble doing, and usually tricked others into doing it for him).

But now he was trapped. There was fire consuming the forest around him, and his only hope was to leap to the trees on the other side of the river. It was a mighty jump. A heroic leap. Everyone else had tried and made it, but now here he was, in the last tree, with flames threatening all around.

All his life he had been scared, and he was terrified now. They called to him, but he cowered. He couldn't do it. He wouldn't. He would burn here and it would be a fitting end for his fears and cowardice.

Then, crashing down right beside him came a burning log, and it made such a noise, and sheered the branch beside him clean off.

He panicked.


He jumped.

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner…
by Imagineer

Comment:
She collapsed upon the sodden sand, tears streaming from her eyes, sobs breaking from her throat, her body going limp, giving up, and sorrow owned her.

She had left the house, running for her life, for her sanity, and had not given thought to where she was going. She ran blindly, wildly, and had somehow ended up here, on this lonely stretch of sand so far from where she had started.

Her sobs continued, as she hung her head and lamented her life, when suddenly she noticed a movement from the corner of her eye, and quickly looked up, suddenly ashamed to be caught there like this by some stranger, and then gasped.

For there, rising out of the water, came the figure of an elderly man. She blinked tears away and swiped at her eyes, believing herself to be having some kind of hallucination, but no. He remained, and now he was standing on the water, and was walking her way.

She remained there on her knees, and gaped at this insanity. How? How was there an old man coming towards her after... he did not just rise from the water did he!? That was impossible! Yet he had, she knew he had. She didn't know why, but she knew that it hadn't been some hallucination of a crazy crying woman, it was real.

So she kneeled, and watched him come strolling towards her, leaning on some kind of walking stick, and a great big smile plastered on her face, and he came, and as he did it seemed that her cares and her worries and her fears were simply swept away. His smile became infectious, and she returned it in kind. As he reached her, his eyes shining with an unnatural kindness and empathy, he lowered his hand, and cupped her chin and lifted her face so that she looked right into his eyes with her own.

Then, he nodded his head, and blinked, and laughed a small twinkling laugh that seemed to drift away on the breeze and then he was gone. Just like that, without a sound or any measure of his passing he was gone. Yet left behind, a feeling that penetrated her very soul, and left her feeling happier and more joyous and calm than she had ever felt in her life.

And so she stood and walked off into the day, whistling a little tune and basking in the wonder of the miracle on the beach.

Journey to the End
by LaMas

Comment:
Gasps of wonder and astonishment went up from the crowd. Children laughed and pointed. It was why they had come on this trip. Why they had paid so much money. To see the wonder that are the falls, and to spy, perhaps, the joy that is the rainbow. So colorful and bright, and no man could refuse to smile in its presence.

And in the heavens above, the gods looked down, and they frowned.

"Missed again butterfingers!" came the tease, and they all laughed and readied another rainbow beam in the hopes of hitting the boat and destroying all aboard this time.

15/15
by wei1108

Comment:
It was the greatest new sport on the planet, and everyone came to see. For genetic research had led to the creation of a new breed of man. A breed that gave the illusion that they were moving faster than the eye can see, and the world was enraptured by them.

They had created the BlurMan, and sport would never be the same.

nature's jewels
by tate

Comment:
She had worked so hard, and had finally gotten everything arranged just so. It was to be her finest moment. Her grandest accomplishment. She just knew, she had that magic feeling, that everything was going to go her way this year.

For days she had slaved, getting every droplet just right. Just so. For days she had carried each and every drop of water for yards and yards across the open grass, from the puddle down the way, and had placed them ever so carefully, not even nudging her web in the slightest.

Now, it was done, and the Arachnid Days Fair was mere hours away, and nobody had a better display than her! Nobody!

Then, she heard it, and a sick feeling grew in the depths of her stomach, for she knew that sound. A buzzing. Faint at first, but growing louder by the moment. A buzzing, and a whisp of wind announcing its presence. No! Not now! Not...

... before she could react, it slammed into her web. Into her masterpiece. Into all her hard work. It hit that web and the droplets scattered in a rain of liquid and destruction, and she screamed.

It was all in ruins, and as the judge of the web-decorating event passed by, he merely shook his head and wrote one single line on his form, a line that said:

Fly caught in web. Cliche. Uninteresting.

And she sobbed.

Cherished Muse
by wildiris

Comment:
He felt rather strange, and wondered what had happened. The last he remembered, he'd been hiking along the path that he frequented often, just another hike like any other. He remembered turning the corner and... yes. Yes, he remembered, faintly, seeing something there, floating. Some kind of misty, thing. It had been glowing slightly, and he had cocked his head in bewilderment and then...

... and then nothing. He had blanked out. All was darkness after that.

He shuddered, and thought perhaps he must have had some kind of weird fainting spell and a hallucination to go with it. That had to be it. Weird glowing floating things don't just happen. This was reality!

He sat up from where he lay, and rubbed his head, his vision still slightly cloudy, and realized he couldn't really focus properly. As he sat there trying to get his eyes to work properly, he suddenly heard a loud snap from behind him. With a gasp he spun around and his jaw dropped in shock.

There, before him, was a giant mantis. It was almost the same size as he, and the incomprehensibility of such a thing nearly tore his sanity from him. He stood there and gaped, and then, as his eyesight began to recover, he noticed that it was not a giant mantis after all, for everything around him had become immense. The leaves were the size of sofas, the grasses as tall as houses, and the trees, the trees were beyond the scope of his comprehension.

His mind suddenly refused to process what he was seeing, and he was cemented to the spot, sitting there, gaping. Then, the mantis cocked its head, seemed to consider him for a moment, and with a reflex faster than one could measure it snapped at him.

He screamed as it came away with a chunk of arm, and then, with a second lightning jab, the screaming stopped.