Anthropology-of-Self

     On the good days, they would pass her like she wasn't even there. She was still an outcast, but she was happier not having the kind of attention they liked to give her.      When they decided to take notice of her, it was never good. With the accuracy of a hive mind, they carried out their torment with uncanny precision. A jock would knock her books to the floor, drama students would kick her books and papers down the hall, and the preps made sure to step on her hands as she scrambled to pick everything up and get to class. Even the science nerds blocked the door so she couldn't get to class on time.      She took it all without sayin...

The young huntress dodged through trees and groves, rushing towards her target with sheer grace. Her handcrafted ironbound bow bounced haphazardly against her back as she jumped along rock formations following the path of a traveling stream. Her small leather top that covered little more than her breasts and small, fur-lined skirt that fell along her thighs could barely shield her from the rushing wind. Her long thin face and slanted brown eyes were momentarily uncovered as her scraggly shoulder-length white hair flew recklessly behind her. Her small, three-point antlers protruded from the sides of her head, identifying her as a Fauna. Her...

'What are we doing after lunch?' asked Amy.'We have to go shopping,' said Mummy, 'and I have to go to the bank, and I might pop to the chemist's for -''Do I have to go?''Yes, darling, there's no one to look after you.  Oh Amy, don't look like that.  It won't take long.'  That was a lie.  'Then afterwards we're going to Aunt Fuzzy's for tea.''Oh no!' said Amy.'Oh Amy, really!  What's wrong with Aunt Fuzzy?''You always talk about boring things, and she gives me funny flavours of Ribena.''She's got very old eyes, darling,' said Mummy.  'She finds it very difficult to read anything these days.''Can't she look at the picture?''She doesn't think...

  "...crawled up the spout again."   "Dad?" spoke a boy, neatly tucked into his bed.   "Yeah, Toby?"   "Why did the spider keep trying to reach the top?"   The father proclaimed, "Well, why do heroes in stories do anything? To save the princess of course."   "There was a princess!?"   "Well of course there was a princess. Can't have a good story without a princess," he said with a wink and a grin. "Everyone knows that but that's the looooooong version and you," he said placing a finger on Toby's chest, "are a little boy in dire need of sleep."   "But I'm not even tired and I wanna hear about the princess!" he pleaded ever so sweetly.   "...

Once upon a time, in a small farm in Iowa, a litter of piglets was born. One of the pigs was named Henry.Henry was the runt of the litter and very small. But for such a small piglet, he was rather observant.See, every child knows that a pig has a curly tail. But, that's how it is today. When Henry was born, pigs had straight tails.Now, most pigs and piglets don't bother with their tails. They pay no attention to them.But Henry was different. Henry didn't like his straight tail, nor the tails of his brothers and sisters. Especially when it came to breakfast. Their tails would whack him in the face while he tried to eat.It was very disgruntl...

I. Four Years Old If Sammy had to have put a timeline on it, then he would have said that it had started when he was four. Of course, that was impossible, because Time didn't exist anymore. They said so. But that was long ago. Long before They took over, long before They erased Time; before They erased Age. At any rate, it had to have started when he was four. Sure, he had known her for longer than that – they were on the same boat, after all! – but nothing had happened. At least, not until... the Invasion. Yes, it had been Sammy's idea to hide in the Library. Not that he had known that it was the right thing to do, of course. It just seem...

Thoja was born on a mild day in mid-April.  It was raining as Jesselm and her brothers walked down the winding dirt road to their neighbors farm, almost running in their eagerness to see the new puppies.  They had each been told weeks ago that they could pick out a puppy of their own once Lolly had her litter.By the time they got to the barn, the rain had slacked to a gentle sprinkle.  Jesselm could still hear it on the roof, in the rare moments of silence between the chattering of her brothers.  Jesselm herself was quiet, standing shyly behind the others as they crowded close to the bitch, who looked at them and wagged her tail suspicious...

Chapter 1 – Granny The smell always hit me when I first walked into the lobby.  It was made up of wee, cabbages and Parma violets, all mixed with that peculiar sweet old-lady smell people seem to get given when they retire from work along with the carriage clock and the department-store vouchers.  It grew stronger as I went up in the lift and down the corridor to flat 327.  After that, I stopped noticing the smells except those ones unique to my granny's flat itself: Murray Mints, pine-scented furniture polish and pot pourri.There was a little brass door-knocker in the shape of a squirrel; the tail was the bit you knocked.  My granny would...

The sun must've really hated the state of Florida that day, because by 9am it was well over 90 degrees. Luckily, we humans have this wonderful way of changing our surroundings instead of adapting like the rest of the animal kingdom, so my mom and I were fighting in a nice, air-conditioned house instead of outside in the overwhelming heat.What we were fighting about, I wasn't sure. All I know was that mom was mad and when mom was mad things tended to get loud. So, as she was ranting about how I never helped around the house (which, unfortunately, I couldn't deny), I was leashing up my dog. She didn't notice what I was doing until it was too...