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Archive for July, 2007
(7 votes, average: 3.71 out of 5)
Loading …My father always used to say that early morning was the best part of the day. I doubt that he would have thought so if he’d had the kind of night I just did. I’m grateful for the quiet, mind you, I just think that twelve hours from now I’ll probably be feeling a lot better than I am right now. At least, I hope so. I’m not sure the same can be said for everyone at that party last night. It’s hard to believe that this serene patio was the scene of such chaos not very many hours ago.
I supposed it is the revenge of the wallflower to be the least hung over the morning after a party like that. It was a wedding, of course – the invasion of the stylish WASP twenty-somethings from Long Island. It was Jay Gatsby’s mosh pit. My not-too-subtle detective work unveiled that the bride is an architect, the groom an investment banker.
(8 votes, average: 3.38 out of 5) Loading …Maj. Ripley stared out her window down into the courtyard below. The renovations to the old hotel were almost complete, and the pavilion had been restored to a reasonable approximation of its former glory, just in time for the Presidential visit. She couldn’t help but remember how it had been before. In the evening, the pool reflected the hundreds of twinkling light that were strung in the trees. A small combo played under the tent as she and her fellow War College graduates had celebrated their graduation from a three-month intensive training program. Their new assignments had been posted, and everyone would be shipping out, but this was their last night to celebrate together. Dan drank too much, of course, and at some point Curtis ended up in the pool. Sharon yelled at them all for breaking regulation, and they all ignored her, as usual. Five years? So much had happened since then, yet she remembered that party like it was yesterday.
The door opened, and her orderly entered with a pot of steaming coffee and a stack of memos. Placing both on the desk, he saluted sharply
(7 votes, average: 3.43 out of 5) Loading …The sun rose slowly, bringing life to the area around the pool. It was still black and white - the colors hadn’t yet emerged. The pool stood empty, it was too cold. This was South America in the winter time. No one swam down here. If he was at home, in Michigan or Indiana, places he grew up, he’d be in the pool right now. He stepped back from the hotel window, finished getting dressed, and then went downstairs to look for some breakfast.
He was visiting Argentina, part of the unwritten job requirements. He hadn’t been there before, and didn’t relish the thought of visiting a place where he didn’t even know the language. Over the last few days, he learned enough Spanish to feed himself. For breakfast, huevos. And yerba mate, the special tea that they drank down here, passed from friend to friend in a shared gourd.
(8 votes, average: 3.25 out of 5) Loading …Cassandra often wondered about this pool. How it came to be. Why it came to be. Who actually built it. It often has played a significant roll in many areas of her life. Cassandra remembers gazing down on the pool from the balcony above, marveling at how the straight lines of the pool blend into the diamond shaped concrete that surrounds it. Closest to her is the jacuzzi. It’s half-moon shape with half-moon stairs on the straight side. Many a night she sat gazing upon the moon and the stars wondering what her life would come to be when she grew up.
Cassandra glanced at the three small gazebos to the left of the pool. There were no wall separating the small square roofs, but the two or three chairs inside gave a sense if intimacy and privacy. One could always pull closed the side curtains if you wished a modicum of privacy.
Around the pool on the concrete deck were placed twenty or thirty lounge chairs all with their own cocktail table. Rest assured no one ever went thirsty at this poolside. The bar flowed with alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks alike. During the summer months it wasn’t a surprise to see several young children stretched out on the lounges basking in the sun and sipping a cola or iced tea.
(5 votes, average: 3.8 out of 5) Loading …I know how to scare the crap out of people. Sometimes it’s my job. But I never should have practiced on that toddler.
If I hadn’t, I would have been halfway to the airport by then, I wouldn’t have been stuck in that second rate hotel trying to teach young Jeremy how to correctly pick a lock. Not that he seemed to be extremely interested- being a cleaner, as the Russians call it, or a torpedo, as I’ve known my Argentinian compatriots to prefer, or a specialist in extrajudicial execution as my business cards say just didn’t seem to appeal to him as much as certain other topics.
“You gotta be kiddin’ me!” he spat around a wad of gum, spittle flecking the back of my neck. I was concentrating on working the jimmy through the cylinder, counting tumblers as they rose, and thus could only grunt in what I hoped was a non-conversation extending way.
(8 votes, average: 3.63 out of 5) Loading …Marco stared at the spinning roulette wheel then shifted focus to his four, five hundred dollar chips that were stacked neatly on double-zero. Marco came to Las Vegas with the unorthodox objective of losing all of his money. Now he was down to the final two grand. Hitting double zero wouldn’t only allow him to leave with twice what he brought to the table, but it would, quite literally, save his life.
Forty-six hours earlier, Marco walked into the casino with a suitcase filled with $30,000, his entire life savings, and hit the roulette table with the stoic confidence of an established high roller. In the end, precisely as planned, he left the table with two thousand dollars in his pocket. Nearly two solid days of gambling left him emaciated. He denied the casino doctor’s plea for him to spend the night under observation at the local hospital. Instead, aided by a stocky man in a plaid green sport coat and reeking of cheap cologne, he made his way to his room. Once inside, he followed his plan to the letter. He filled a glass with water and placed it on the nightstand, washed his face and hands, brushed his teeth, set the air conditioner to maximum, and then created a cocoon using the pillows and blankets from both beds. There, swathed in slippery nylon, Marco sank into the deepest of sleeps.
(8 votes, average: 4 out of 5) Loading …I am going to miss being rich, even though I’ve ‘had money’ for all of two days. Still, it was a weekend to remember, that is if the dead remember. I’m not really sure on that point. A lot of people are, and a lot of people fake that they are, but deep down, who really knows?
With my charge card I ordered the most succulent and expensive meals. I lost what would have typically been three years pay on just one roll of the dice. I got so much pleasure watching other people’s eyes grow large, their mouths fall open at my lack of reaction to the loss. It was totally worth it. I had the best nighttime company too. Yeah, hookers. Best I could do on short notice. Even the expensive ones make me wear a rubber. I have near unlimited money, and yet I’m not totally free. I was never free, but that’s what got me here in the first place.
You see, a month ago I was just like every other rat in the race, trying to squeak by from week to week on meager pay working a dull swing shift. Making furniture had lost it’s appeal about two weeks into my old job, and yet I kept at it for the next two decades. I, like everyone really, was waiting to die, just hoping for a spurt of fun here or there. I just didn’t realize my number would come up so quickly.
(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5) Loading …Felix smiled as he turned down the heat on his meat-strips. He loved the heat of this area, not that many people considered Russia as warm. Still with his past, all that time spent in Iceland, this day didn’t even demand a jacket of him. He pulled his sleeves up, as he was having so much fun. This was the best part of this day, cooking the small strips. It certainly beat the four o’clock wake up call, and fighting the crowd once the market opened. But it was worth it to get these beauties. The scent alone pulled people close, and he spoke with them in perfect Russian.
“I’d like to try what you’ve got.” A blonde woman was now standing right next to set-up. She was beautiful, but all women looked like goddesses to a man who’d spent years in the cold with only dogs. She wore no perfume, and Felix noticed, imagining a creature of such beauty should smell as good as she looked.
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