unstableground

The one thing Timothy had always been was a skeptic. From birth he refused the trappings of an average upbringing, scoffed at his toys, refused regular food, and abhorred the Sippy Cup. His mother assured him that blocks were safe, that strained peas were good for him, that it was actually better to get more of that horrible pasty green substance into his mouth than any other part. What limited imagination his parents had. Timothy was an artist, from the earliest of ages. His desire to make strained peas into abstract expression was only the tip of the iceberg. The walls were his favorite canvas. He scribbled shapes and constructs that would

Some might say the tale before you can't be trusted. They may protest, call into question, examine and disprove. They may quote statistics, facts, figures, use video "evidence" and play back recordings on stereographic tape. They may have witnesses. They may all be right. But that doesn't mean I'm wrong.... for this is the tale as I remember it, as my eyes saw and my mind perceived. They say that the story is lost in translation, that the more people that tell it the less truth it has. In this way, this story should be the full truth. But it isn't. My eyes saw, my mind perceived, but my mind is not one. It is two. Close as I can remember, th

“I appear to be falling upwards at an alarming rate” cried the first one. “No, I am ascending, not descending. It’s impossible to fall upward” claimed the second. “Who is in charge here anyway?” questioned the first. “I am.” stated the second. “I don’t think that’s true.” remarked the first. Pontificating, the second exclaims, “perhaps we’re both right.” “Or both wrong.” “We’ll never know.” “Isn’t that answer enough?” “Alright, so what is the question?” “Hard to say at this point, keeps changing.

The leprechaun stared at him with it’s dead eyes, a four-colour lie in buckled shoes and a clover-leaf hat. It promised sugary utopia with every spoonful, but only delivered empty calories. Reginald stood in aisle three, the end of the rainbow. The leprechaun is a liar, he knows it, he can tell by the company it keeps. Surrounded by hyperactive rabbits and purposeless vampires, steroid-freak tigers and diminutive sea captains, his choices narrow to one. This one turns the milk brown. He wonders if the rabbits are related. He realizes how silly this thought is. This is the highlight of his day, and he knows it. Pushing the cart forward

I can hear a swell of chanting, somewhere in the distance. As the world shakes and rumbles, I can only imagine the size of the crowd that awaits me. I'm in a metal box, propelled along a poorly maintained cobblestone road by nearly indestructible wheels, man-sized in diameter. I'd assume they need to be this big to effectively traverse terrain as rough as this. I'm unable to see, but can tell that I'm not alone. How many are with me? Ten? Twenty? Is this the only vehicle? Just how much of my spotlight am I going to have to share? I grew up always wanting fame, to stand out from the crowd. Ironic to have gained fame as part of a crowd. The c

I can feel it bearing down on me, breathing down my neck. It’s cold tonight, but something else floats in the air, a mere inch outside the grasp of my perception. So close, it only needs to reach out, and it will have me. It’ll pull me into the shadows of the night, cover my mouth to mute my screams, and tear me apart. Years have been spent trying to outrun it, but in the end it always catches me. It always knows. I zig, it zags, and we meet in the middle. It’s inevitable, it can not be prevented. They all think I’m crazy, but I fear my own shadow. I was 13 when I first noticed. Something just wasn’t right. The way

Life is what you make of it. I truly believed that once, and in a lot of ways, I still cling to the hope that the things our parents told many of us were true. That we are special, that our potential is only limited by our imagination. That we mean something. That we count. Problem is, the moment you are staring at your stack of final notice bills, training yourself to hang up on any caller that doesn’t respond in the first five seconds, and clinging on to a memory that now seems fleeting…. you start to lose sight of your dreams. You are limited by your location, your family, your looks, your drive and your own worst enemy –

They followed behind one another, a long line of increasing fun and increasing despair. Animated for a time, if only in the mind. They walk on legs of pure delusion, a procession of false hope and blinding euphoria. They are your friend for a time, your crutch when nothing else is around, your last resort and greatest desire. Thin and fat, round and straight, all colours of the rainbow. "You want me, I won't bite" They cry in unison. Their voices all vary. You choose the one with the sweetest timber, the most comforting tone. You make it your own. You comfort it, you make it a part of you. These happy-go-lucky travelers, these friends whe

After much internal debate, here Emily stood. In front of her lay a unfathomably large square building of steel and glass. Sunlight gleamed from the identically framed sheets of tinted glass, the immense rectangular box becoming a gaudy four-sided mirror. Hate to be the demolition crew to bring this building down, she thought to herself, how many years of bad luck would you get for destroying this? Inside this enormous box lived a world of identical offices, on identical floors, filled with identical washrooms and identical toilets. In this world the only walls are on the inside, the outer walls nothing but windows. At some point in history