The Vacationers

"He's looking in the wrong end."

"He takes after his father," she replied. Louder: "Will, be careful with that, honey."

They rested on the church steps overlooking the piazza; their son was three long, purposeful strides away. "He's fine."

"It's an eight-hundred-dollar camera. Plus the lens—"

"I can take it from him if you want."

"No, just… I dunno, keep an eye on him."

"I was already doing that, babe."

The camera was eventually set carefully down and forgotten as the child took to running full-tilt at groups of pigeons. "Where to next?"

"Home?" She rested her head on his shoulder.

"The hotel already? It's only—"

"Home home."

He glanced at the list in his hand; it was a column of mostly crossed-off landmarks. "It is all starting to blend together," he allowed. "Should we tell him to stop chasing the pigeons?"

"It's not like he's going to catch one."

Zombie Drabble #432 "Afloat"

Get to the boat, you said.

Get to the boat and everything will be fine, we'll be well-supplied to wait it out offshore: there's a de-salinator and fishing rods for when the canned food and bottled water runs out; there's a flare gun and a marine radio; there's the non-stop entertainment of zombies wading out thigh-deep against the tide and getting first confused and then knocked over. We thought: you're right, that's a good plan, that's a better plan than hiding in basements and getting surrounded and possibly eaten.

That was a hundred days ago. A hundred long, sea-sick days.

Dick And Liz

We were on-again, off-again, always closing or opening, always on the verge of war or entente. Our friends, during periods of calm, said it meant we were really in love because it was proof of strong feeling. I think we hoped that was true; I think we took all those pictures of all those happy moments to convince ourselves of it, to bias our memories away from the always-incipient sturm und drang.

I think I may have been addicted to you, to your smell and to the curve of your body and to your worldly laugh. I drank you like whiskey and when you were gone I suffered in a cold sweat until I broke down and sought you out like an alcoholic desperate for an all-night liquor store.

But you, you weren't addicted to me: you were addicted to the adrenaline, to the heart-pounding thrill of it, of us. I was a theme-park roller-coaster to you. You rode me until you were tired and hot and wanted to rest on a bench in the shade; later, you'd jump up and declare that you were ready to go again, and there was never a line, not once, not for you.