Nature's Curls
by tamatama

Comment:
Trevor and Kevin, like most little boys, loved to occupy their time showing off and making each other laugh, and coming up with as many funny stunts as they possibly could.

"Look Kev! Look, I'm a Yo-Yo!" yelled Trevor, giggling madly

"Oh yea? Watch what I can do!" Kevin called back, curling himself up in a coil.

These silly and simple games kept them busy for hours, and their parents sat back and watched them with amusement, wondering just when that kind of fun began to leave a person.

"Now I'm a snake!" yelled Trevor, and the game continued. Did it matter? Childhood would continue for as long as it would, and the longer the better.

On Top of Stone Mountain (Georgia)
by fisheye

Comment:
Humanity was utterly unprepared when it happened. On a misty Monday morning they came. Over hills, through vales, out of forests and tundra and the very seas themselves, they came.

They could not be stopped. Not by conventional weapons nor, we found out, by unconventional. Everything they touched would be changed irrevocably, and they would eventually touch everything.

Out of our deepest nightmares they came, to claim a planet they'd long occupied, but never ruled. A part of us for all of time, yet rarely noticed, and only feared in imagination alone.

Now, imagination became reality, and it was their turn now. The shadows.

They came and they conquered and all of Earth became darkness.

Adam and Eve
by rayg544

Comment:
They didn't remember much. Most of it was a run of confusion, and terror, and noise. He remembered only that he believed it to be the end.

So when his eyes opened slowly, from out of a dream, a dream where he was being violently tossed about by some force he could not see, he found himself gazing into her eyes. She'd been shaking him. Trying desperately to wake him.

He was awake now, and his first thought was how hot he felt. Burning up. A fever? No, not a fever, for now his eyes were looking about, beyond the woman's face, all around him, and he saw flames. Suddenly, he was fully alert and instinct took over. He scrambled to his feet and the woman suddenly burst into tears, with a look of utter relief on her face. She grabbed his arm and pulled him desperately away, towards a door. A door that showed...

Light! There was light there. Shining through the thickening smoke and ash and heat. They stumbled madly for it, and broke through just as a large pillar of steel came crashing down to block that entry for good.

They ran, awkwardly, stumbling, as far from the burning wreckage as they could. Wreckage that belonged to a massive interstellar cruise vessel, now engulfed in flames and destruction. They ran until they felt they were safe and tumbled to the ground, tumbled to the soil of whatever forsaken planet this might be. There they lay, panting, exhausted. There they wrapped each other in an embrace of survival and relief and comfort. There they slept.

He didn't know what woke him. The sounds maybe, unfamiliar, but familiar. Birds, but not like any birds he knew. Wind, rustling leaves and brush, this was familiar, but it was through air that was not like air he knew.

He woke up the woman beside him, and together they stood. Together they looked about at this alien world that was so like, yet unlike, their homeworld. Together they realized that they were the only ones left from the voyage, and that, perhaps, they were alone here. The only two of their kind. Together they realized that they would have to start anew in a new world. A new place. A new Eden.

They were terrified, but they were alive. Together they started on their journey.

Green Eyes
by ryand

Comment:
She rested her head on the back of the swing chair, and gazed into his face as he watched life's busy passing in the cul-de-sac. The little qwirk of a smile as the neighbor kids chased each other from yard to yard. The contemplative look that passed his eyes as Mr. Wilson brought his lawn-mower out of the garage, perhaps he was reminded that his own yard needed mowing? The subtle roll of his eyes as Old Mrs. Catchall came out on her step to get her paper in that flimsy see-through nightgown of hers, always good for a morning chuckle.

Most of all she studied his quiet contentment as watched the world go by on this lovely day. They were still so young, married only a few months prior, and she was still so full of love and awe for him. Still so happy to just watch him watch the world.

He looked over and saw her gaze, and smiled deeply, the light glinting his eyes. "Love you babe." Almost a whisper, as he leaned in and grazed her forehead in a soft kiss. Then, hefting his coffee mug, he stood and stretched. Then he took her hand and helped her out of the swing-chair, and they began another day at the beginning of a new life together.

Reindeer Portrait
by zymara

Comment:
Always jealous of Rudolph, Craig the White Furred Reindeer never got to lead Santa's Sleigh, instead put to work entertaining disrespectful little snotty nosed children at Santa's Magical Petting Zoo.

At least he wasn't as unfortunate as Michael the 20 Point Buck that ended up above Jack Frost's fireplace.

Day after halloween
by whiterook

Comment:
It was a cataclysmic event like no other. Humanity had always had a fascination with the end of times. The end of days. Events that would destroy us all. We read them in books. Packed theaters to watch them on screen. Invented our own such tales in a guilty sort of pleasure.

When it actually happened, however, I don't believe anybody saw it happening in this way. The day that the searing light encompassed the world, and when it finally passed, humanity was over, transformed into lifeless pumpkin people. Stuck forever where they had last stood, doing whatever they were last doing.

Perhaps it was a fate we deserved.

Autumn Colors
by sfmorris

Comment:
He watched as the others trotted off on their grand adventure, eyes threatening to tear, a quiver in his bottom lip. It wasn't fair. Why was life never fair?

For weeks they'd planned it. A week long ride through the canyon, to the vast open lands on the other side. Space to run and play and laugh and dance, and all the wonders that the Canyon held on the way there, and back.

Now, they were off, and they'd have such stories to tell when they returned, but he, oh no, he had to stay right here. All because of one damnable gopher hole. Now he was going to miss the grandest adventu...

He choked off a sob. It just wasn't fair.

Speak No Evil
by Jaker

Comment:
Darcie walked along the shore, whistling to herself, feeling the light breeze on her face and whispering through her hair. She loved to take walks on days like this, with the sand tickling her toes and the sounds of the sea like music to her ears.

She grinned as she saw a little plover tucking his head beneath his wing closer to the water. Even the birds were relaxing on this d...

*pop*.

She stopped dead, her sudden cease of movement kicking up a small dusting of sand. There was no way that she saw what she thought she just saw. No way. She rubbed her eyes hard and then looked again, but no, now there were two plovers where before there had been only one. But how? It didn't fly in, she'd have seen that. How did it just suddenly...

*pop*.

A little sound escaped her throat just then, a thin keening, like a kettle about to boil. In front of her eyes, a third bird winked into existence, and when it did, it made a little popping noise, not unlike a child learning to pop his cheek. Now, Darcie began to worry. She began to back away from the birds. This sort of thing did not happen. She was going insane. Too much sea air. Perhaps she'd fallen and bumped her he...

*pop* *pop* *pop* *pop* *pop**pop*pop*poppoppopopopopopopopopop*

They exploded out of nowhere, hundreds and hundreds of them winking into existence, appearing everywhere, all around her, endlessly. Darcie's last nerve snapped and she dropped to the ground on her knees, head in hands, her screams drowned out by the popping noise. Then, with a sound like a shotgun in a concrete bunker, the birds took off in unison, and scattered throughout the sky.

But Darcie did not see or hear this last departure. The unreality of it all had unraveled her mind. She remained there, on her knees, unmoving, sightless, deaf, empty.

Dali
by nixter

Comment:
The old man chuckled as he continued on his way. They'd cleaned off his work a hundred times, yet never once did they suspect him. No, never him, the crazy old cowboy that took out the trash.

He chuckled again, and decided that next week he'd give her a Van Dyke.

Baby Love
by peter

Comment:
It really was a cool trick, but when she decided to show everyone during lamaze class, she quickly realized that she might have been better off warning everyone first.

After the panic subsided and several of the women (and their husbands) had been revived from dead faints, she apologized to them all. I just didn't occur to her that forming an x-ray into her stomach with her hands might frighten everyone so.