There are only three ways to make this work. The first is to let me take care of everything. The second is for you to take care of everything. The third is to split everything 50 / 50. I think the last option is the most preferable, but I'm certain it'll also mean the end of our marriage.

1. 1. A long black shadow slid across the pavement near their feet and the five Venusians, very much startled, looked overhead. They were barely in time to see the huge gray form of the carnivore before it vanished behind a sign atop a nearby building which bore the mystifying information "Pepsi-Cola."

---

1. 1. It was a concerning development that he couldn't get out of his mind. He'd had many friends throughout his early years and had fond memories of playing with them, but he couldn't understand how it had all stopped. There was some point as he grew up that he played with each of his friends for the very last time, and he had no idea that it would be the last.

---

1. 1. Green vines attached to the trunk of the tree had wound themselves toward the top of the canopy. Ants used the vine as their private highway, avoiding all the creases and crags of the bark, to freely move at top speed from top to bottom or bottom to top depending on their current chore. At least this was the way it was supposed to be. Something had damaged the vine overnight halfway up the tree leaving a gap in the once pristine ant highway.

---

1. 1. The trees, therefore, must be such old and primitive techniques that they thought nothing of them, deeming them so inconsequential that even savages like us would know of them and not be suspicious. At that, they probably didn't have too much time after they detected us orbiting and intending to land. And if that were true, there could be only one place where their civilization was hidden.

---

1. 1. Many people say that life isn't like a bed of roses. I beg to differ. I think that life is quite like a bed of roses. Just like life, a bed of roses looks pretty on the outside, but when you're in it, you find that it is nothing but thorns and pain. I myself have been pricked quite badly.

---

1. 1. The cab arrived late. The inside was in as bad of shape as the outside which was concerning, and it didn't appear that it had been cleaned in months. The green tree air-freshener hanging from the rearview mirror was either exhausted of its scent or not strong enough to overcome the other odors emitting from the cab. The correct decision, in this case, was to get the hell out of it and to call another cab, but she was late and didn't have a choice.

---

1. 1. She wanted rainbow hair. That's what she told the hairdresser. It should be deep rainbow colors, too. She wasn't interested in pastel rainbow hair. She wanted it deep and vibrant so there was no doubt that she had done this on purpose.

---

1. 1. It was just a burger. Why couldn't she understand that? She knew he'd completely changed his life around her eating habits, so why couldn't she give him a break this one time? She wasn't even supposed to have found out. Yes, he had promised her and yes, he had broken that promise, but still in his mind, all it had been was just a burger.

---

1. 1. There once lived an old man and an old woman who were peasants and had to work hard to earn their daily bread. The old man used to go to fix fences and do other odd jobs for the farmers around, and while he was gone the old woman, his wife, did the work of the house and worked in their own little plot of land.

---

1. 1. Pink ponies and purple giraffes roamed the field. Cotton candy grew from the ground as a chocolate river meandered off to the side. What looked like stones in the pasture were actually rock candy. Everything in her dream seemed to be perfect except for the fact that she had no mouth.

---

1. 1. Then came the night of the first falling star. It was seen early in the morning, rushing over Winchester eastward, a line of flame high in the atmosphere. Hundreds must have seen it and taken it for an ordinary falling star. It seemed that it fell to earth about one hundred miles east of him.

---

1. 1. She looked at her little girl who was about to become a teen. She tried to think back to when the girl had been younger but failed to pinpoint the exact moment when she had become a little too big to pick up and carry. It hit her all at once. She was no longer a little girl and she stood there speechless with fear, sadness, and pride all running through her at the same time.

---

1. 1. Debbie put her hand into the hole, sliding her hand down as far as her arm could reach. She wiggled her fingers hoping to touch something, but all she felt was air. She shifted the weight of her body to try and reach an inch or two more down the hole. Her fingers still touched nothing but air.

---

1. 1. I inadvertently went to See's Candy last week (I was in the mall looking for phone repair), and as it turns out, See's Candy now charges a dollar -- a full dollar -- for even the simplest of their wee confection offerings. I bought two chocolate lollipops and two chocolate-caramel-almond things. The total cost was four-something. I mean, the candies were tasty and all, but let's be real: A Snickers bar is fifty cents. After this dollar-per-candy revelation, I may not find myself wandering dreamily back into a See's Candy any time soon.

---

1. 1. This is important to remember. Love isn't like pie. You don't need to divide it among all your friends and loved ones. No matter how much love you give, you can always give more. It doesn't run out, so don't try to hold back giving it as if it may one day run out. Give it freely and as much as you want.

---

1. 1. Indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness, filled her whole being with a vague anguish. It was like a shadow, like a mist passing across her soul's summer day. It was strange and unfamiliar; it was a mood. She did not sit there inwardly upbraiding her husband, lamenting at Fate, which had directed her footsteps to the path which they had taken. She was just having a good cry all to herself. The mosquitoes made merry over her, biting her firm, round arms and nipping at her bare insteps.

---

1. 1. It seemed like it should have been so simple. There was nothing inherently difficult with getting the project done. It was simple and straightforward enough that even a child should have been able to complete it on time, but that wasn't the case. The deadline had arrived and the project remained unfinished.

---

1. 1. You know that tingly feeling you get on the back of your neck sometimes? I just got that feeling when talking with her. You know I don't believe in sixth senses, but there is something not right with her. I don't know how I know, but I just do.

---

1. 1. She considered the birds to be her friends. She'd put out food for them each morning and then she'd watch as they came to the feeders to gorge themselves for the day. She wondered what they would do if something ever happened to her. Would they miss the meals she provided if she failed to put out the food one morning?

---

1. 1. He heard the crack echo in the late afternoon about a mile away. His heart started racing and he bolted into a full sprint. "It wasn't a gunshot, it wasn't a gunshot," he repeated under his breathlessness as he continued to sprint.

---

1. 1. He looked at the sand. Picking up a handful, he wondered how many grains were in his hand. Hundreds of thousands? "Not enough," the said under his breath. I need more.

---

1. 1. Since they are still preserved in the rocks for us to see, they must have been formed quite recently, that is, geologically speaking. What can explain these striations and their common orientation? Did you ever hear about the Great Ice Age or the Pleistocene Epoch? Less than one million years ago, in fact, some 12,000 years ago, an ice sheet many thousands of feet thick rode over Burke Mountain in a southeastward direction. The many boulders frozen to the underside of the ice sheet tended to scratch the rocks over which they rode. The scratches or striations seen in the park rocks were caused by these attached boulders. The ice sheet also plucked and rounded Burke Mountain into the shape it possesses today.

---

1. 1. It was difficult to explain to them how the diagnosis of certain death had actually given him life. While everyone around him was in tears and upset, he actually felt more at ease. The doctor said it would be less than a year. That gave him a year to live, something he'd failed to do with his daily drudgery of a routine that had passed as life until then.

---

1. 1. It was a rat's nest. Not a literal one, but that is what her hair seemed to resemble every morning when she got up. It was going to take at least an hour to get it under control and she was sick and tired of it. She peered into the mirror and wondered if it was worth it. It wasn't. She opened the drawer and picked up the hair clippers.

---

1. 1. It wasn't quite yet time to panic. There was still time to salvage the situation. At least that is what she was telling himself. The reality was that it was time to panic and there wasn't time to salvage the situation, but he continued to delude himself into believing there was.

---

1. 1. Colors bounced around in her head. They mixed and threaded themselves together. Even colors that had no business being together. They were all one, yet distinctly separate at the same time. How was she going to explain this to the others?

---

1. 1. I guess we could discuss the implications of the phrase "meant to be." That is if we wanted to drown ourselves in a sea of backwardly referential semantics and other mumbo-jumbo. Maybe such a discussion would result in the determination that "meant to be" is exactly as meaningless a phrase as it seems to be, and that none of us is actually meant to be doing anything at all. But that's my existential underpants underpinnings showing. It's the way the cookie crumbles. And now I want a cookie.

---

1. 1. Was it enough? That was the question he kept asking himself. Was being satisfied enough? He looked around him at everyone yearning to just be satisfied in their daily life and he had reached that goal. He knew that he was satisfied and he also knew it wasn't going to be enough.

---

1. 1. The box sat on the desk next to the computer. It had arrived earlier in the day and business had interrupted her opening it earlier. She didn't who had sent it and briefly wondered who it might have been. As she began to unwrap it, she had no idea that opening it would completely change her life.

---

1. 1. The computer wouldn't start. She banged on the side and tried again. Nothing. She lifted it up and dropped it to the table. Still nothing. She banged her closed fist against the top. It was at this moment she saw the irony of trying to fix the machine with violence.

---

1. 1. There was little doubt that the bridge was unsafe. All one had to do was look at it to know that with certainty. Yet Bob didn't see another option. He may have been able to work one out if he had a bit of time to think things through, but time was something he didn't have. A choice needed to be made, and it needed to be made quickly.

---

1. 1. She had been told time and time again that the most important steps were the first and the last. It was something that she carried within her in everything she did, but then he showed up and disrupted everything. He told her that she had it wrong. The first step wasn't the most important. The last step wasn't the most important. It was the next step that was the most important.

---

1. 1. He had done everything right. There had been no mistakes throughout the entire process. It had been perfection and he knew it without a doubt, but the results still stared back at him with the fact that he had lost.

---

1. 1. It was easy to spot her. All you needed to do was look at her socks. They were never a matching pair. One would be green while the other would be blue. One would reach her knee while the other barely touched her ankle. Every other part of her was perfect, but never the socks. They were her micro act of rebellion.

---

1. 1. What was beyond the bend in the stream was unknown. Both were curious, but only one was brave enough to want to explore. That was the problem. There was always one that let fear rule her life.

---

1. 1. Do you really listen when you are talking with someone? I have a friend who listens in an unforgiving way. She actually takes every word you say as being something important and when you have a friend that listens like that, words take on a whole new meaning.

---

1. 1. I'm going to hire professional help tomorrow. I can't handle this anymore. She fell over the coffee table and now there is blood in her catheter. This is much more than I ever signed up to do.

---

1. 1. He had three simple rules by which he lived. The first was to never eat blue food. There was nothing in nature that was edible that was blue. People often asked about blueberries, but everyone knows those are actually purple. He understood it was one of the stranger rules to live by, but it had served him well thus far in the 50+ years of his life.

---

1. 1. It was going to rain. The weather forecast didn't say that, but the steel plate in his hip did. He had learned over the years to trust his hip over the weatherman. It was going to rain, so he better get outside and prepare.

---

1. 1. There are only three ways to make this work. The first is to let me take care of everything. The second is for you to take care of everything. The third is to split everything 50 / 50. I think the last option is the most preferable, but I'm certain it'll also mean the end of our marriage.

---

1. 1. He walked down the steps from the train station in a bit of a hurry knowing the secrets in the briefcase must be secured as quickly as possible. Bounding down the steps, he heard something behind him and quickly turned in a panic. There was nobody there but a pair of old worn-out shoes were placed neatly on the steps he had just come down. Had he past them without seeing them? It didn't seem possible. He was about to turn and be on his way when a deep chill filled his body.

---

1. 1. There was no time. He ran out of the door without half the stuff he needed for work, but it didn't matter. He was late and if he didn't make this meeting on time, someone's life may be in danger.

---

1. 1. The red ball sat proudly at the top of the toybox. It had been the last to be played with and anticipated it would be the next as well. The other toys grumbled beneath. At one time each had held the spot of the red ball, but over time they had sunk deeper and deeper into the toy box.

---

1. 1. The headphones were on. They had been utilized on purpose. She could hear her mom yelling in the background, but couldn't make out exactly what the yelling was about. That was exactly why she had put them on. She knew her mom would enter her room at any minute, and she could pretend that she hadn't heard any of the previous yelling.

---

1. 1. "Begin today!" That's all the note said. There was no indication from where it came or who may have written it. Had it been meant for someone else? Meghan looked around the room, but nobody made eye contact back. For a brief moment, she thought it might be a message for her to follow her dreams, but ultimately decided it was easier to ignore it as she crumpled it up and threw it away.

---

1. 1. She tried to explain that love wasn't like pie. There wasn't a set number of slices to be given out. There wasn't less to be given to one person if you wanted to give more to another. That after a set amount was given out it would all disappear. She tried to explain this, but it fell on deaf ears.

---

1. 1. It was that terrifying feeling you have as you tightly hold the covers over you with the knowledge that there is something hiding under your bed. You want to look, but you don't at the same time. You're frozen with fear and unable to act. That's where she found herself and she didn't know what to do next

---

1. 1. It was their first date and she had been looking forward to it the entire week. She had her eyes on him for months, and it had taken a convoluted scheme with several friends to make it happen, but he'd finally taken the hint and asked her out. After all the time and effort she'd invested into it, she never thought that it would be anything but wonderful. It goes without saying that things didn't work out quite as she expected.

---

1. 1. She wondered if the note had reached him. She scolded herself for not handing it to him in person. She trusted her friend, but so much could happen. She waited impatiently for word.

---

1. "It was so great to hear from you today and it was such weird timing," he said. "This is going to sound funny and a little strange, but you were in a dream I had just a couple of days ago. I'd love to get together and tell you about it if you're up for a cup of coffee," he continued, laying the trap he'd been planning for years
2. 
   the
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