She gazed wistfully/longingly/unnervingly into his stormy/flinty eyes.
His jaw/buttocks/abdomen clenched with familiar irritation/ennui/passion. Her breath/voice/gum caught in her throat as she whispered/cursed/panted his name.
He must have/know/forget her! “I love/want/recognize you.” He muttered, his voice thick with emotion/phlegm/disgust.
“Please be gentle/quick/serious!” She breathed, nibbling at her lip/nails/sandwich. He could hold himself back no more, primal
urges stirring in his heart/soul/trousers. He clutched at her feminine form optimistically/manfully/wildly. She fell/surrendered/laughed into his strong embrace…

“Do you believe in goats?” Elsie asked her mother.
“Big Bessie says goats are made up. They ARE real, aren’t they, mummy?”
Buttercup smiled at her daughter, still young enough to wonder at such fairytales.
“Well, dear, they say the goat-folk live in meadows but, unlike mortal cattle, they needn’t stay; they can climb fences.” “But Bessie says climbing is pretend!” protested the little one. “Maybe, but that doesn’t stop the goat-folk! At twilight you can even hear them laughing as they clamber over the gate.”
Snowy gazed at the high fence. She wished she could climb like the goat-folk..

He wished they didn’t think he was sweet, hated the way they crooned as he tottered around the room: this vacuous cooing was not the approbation he craved. He grew older, cultivated a swagger and a smirk.
He went from angelic to mischievous to loutish to supercilious before realizing that he could be nice without eliciting these patronizing clucks.
Time passed. Hair thinned, bones shrank, his swagger stalled like a wreck of a Rolls Royce
Now they cluck, sigh, croon and coo as he totters about, unsteady and toothless and bald.
He doesn’t fight it today, though: he works it.

I’ve been at Sheffield Documentary a Festival this week and it’s been lovely (and very hard to write during.)
This is not intended as a slight to all the wonderful doc makers I’ve met, but my sleep deprived brain is in a dark side sort of mood.

He decided to tell a story about me, so he followed me everywhere. I’d wake to the wheeze of his zoom, every solitary moment caught by a camera crew. I slept under surveillance
He said knew who I was, knew my story, wanted to share it. I don’t know my story. I never knew I had one. But he filmed and filmed, until he had enough of my rough fleece to dye and spin and weave into a golden fabric.

I’m told my story makes them laugh and cry. I hear it made him millions.

It was never my story anyway.

Their eyes met across a crowded room. The slippery, gelatinous marbles rolled between shoes, under chairs, to collide damply next to the hostess’ buffet table.
The attraction was immediate: their pupils dilated, their optic nerves flailed, seeking brains to rave to about this crystalline sclera, the vivid ultramarine of that iris.

Alas, the message could not be conveyed. The erstwhile owners of these star-crossed lovers screamed and stumbled, the party atmosphere evaporated as the mismatched fugitives hid behind the hem of the tablecloth.
There, they gazed longingly into each other’s pupils until an enterprising bichon frise snapped them both up.

Once there was a dragon, vast and gold and scaly on the mountain. We would sometimes see it flap lugubriously over our village, or hear the leathery whisper of wings above us at night.

In spring, we would see the flashes of flame that signified draconian courtship.

This was strange, as there was only one dragon. No females had ever been seen, and no young. Perhaps he liked to dream.

Once there was a dragon, old and lost and lonely on the mountain. We haven’t seen flames this spring, or heard leathery wingbeats.
Perhaps the age of dragons is past.

She took stock in the mirror, trying to see herself through the eyes of those who mocked her. She was too pale, for a start. You could almost call her silver. Her hair made her stand out from the herd as well. No wonder they snorted behind her back! Instead of the sleek black or warm auburn manes and tails of her peers, hers fell in otherworldly violet ringlets.
She dreamed of treatments – dye, make-up, anything to fit in.
There was no point though: not with that freakish, twisted horn growing from her forehead.
She sighed; she’d always be ugly.

None of us can remember exactly how it was. Some of us can recall worrying about paying bills, getting enough to eat, finding shelter. We cannot remember what that fear felt like, but we do not believe it was pleasant. Today, those who do not work hard lose their jobs, of course. They may then become poor, unable to buy food or heat their home, which will eventually be taken from them to house a useful citizen. Sooner or later they die. But there are workers assigned to clear away the dead every morning. Everything is so much better now.

We found that we hated the poor. It wasn’t sudden, exactly, it was more that it had crept up on us. And suddenly we knew it like we knew our own names. It didn’t matter why they were poor, only that they were. The circumstances did not make them any more human to us.
Work was the meaning of life and those who wouldn’t or couldn’t work were meaningless. Those who worked for less pay than us were worthless.
It wasn’t that we were angry with the poor. Nobody had felt anything like anger for years. We hated them dispassionately.

At first, things seemed to get better. Crime dropped to an all time low. Wars petered out altogether. There were some concerning reports about unknown gases showing upon pollution reports but somehow, nobody could bring themselves to mind. We felt placid, comfortable. Happy to work and glad to rest , but not all that interested in playing. Work was important. We couldn’t shake the urgency about work, although it had all but vanished otherwise, and sleep was all we wanted at the end of the shift. Work and sleep, no emotion but a docile placidity. Hadn’t it always been like this?